The Sum, However, Obtained From Them, Proved Very Inadequate: All That Could Be Done, Therefore, Was To Raise A Wall, Which Marked The Space Formerly Occupied By The Kaaba.

This tradition, although current among the Metowefs, is at variance with history, which declares that the Hedjer was built by the Beni Koreysh, who contracted the dimensions of the Kaaba; that it was united to the building by Hadjadj, and again separated from it by Ibn Zebeyr.

It is asserted by Fasy, that a part of the Hedjer, as it now stands, was never comprehended within the Kaaba. The law regards it as a portion of the Kaaba, inasmuch as it is esteemed equally meritorious to pray in the Hadjer as in the Kaaba itself; and the pilgrims who have not an opportunity of entering the latter, are permitted to affirm upon oath that they have prayed in the Kaaba, although they may have only prostrated themselves within the enclosure of the Hatym.

[p.140] The wall is built of solid stone, about five feet in height, and four in thickness, cased all over with white marble, and inscribed with prayers and invocations, neatly sculptured upon the stone in modern characters. These and the casing are the work of El Ghoury, the Egyptian Sultan, in A.H. 917, as we learn from Kotobeddyn. The walk round the Kaaba is performed on the outside of the wall - the nearer to it the better.

The four sides of the Kaaba are covered with a black silk stuff, hanging down, and leaving the roof bare. [The Wahabys, during the first year of their residence at Mekka, covered the Kaaba with a red kesoua, worked at El Hassa, of the same stuff as the fine Arabian Abbas.] This curtain, or veil, is called kesoua, and renewed annually at the time of the Hadj, being brought from Cairo, where it is manufactured at the Grand Seignior's expense. [During the first century of Islam, the kesoua was never taken away, the new one being annually put over the old. But the Mekkawys at length began to fear that the Kaaba might yield under such an accumulation, and the Khalif El Mohdy Abou Abdallah removed the coverings in A.H. 160. (See Makrizy.)] On it are various prayers interwoven in the same colour as the stuff, and it is, therefore, extremely difficult to read them. A little above the middle, and running round the whole building, is a line of similar inscriptions, worked in gold thread. That part of the kesoua which covers the door is richly embroidered with silver. Openings are left for the Black Stone, and the other in the south-east corner, which thus remain uncovered. The kesoua is always of the same form and pattern; that which I saw on my first visit to the mosque, was in a decayed state, and full of holes. On the 25th of the month Zul' Kade the old one is taken away, and the Kaaba continues without a cover for fifteen days.

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