[The
First Mambar Was Sent From Cairo In A.H. 818, Together With The Steps
Above Mentioned, By Moay-Ed, King Of Egypt.
See Asamy.] a straight
narrow staircase leads up to the post of the Khatyb, or preacher, which
is surmounted by a gilt polygonal pointed steeple, resembling an
obelisk.
Here a sermon is preached on Fridays, and on certain festivals;
these, like the Friday sermons of all mosques in the Mohammedan
countries, are usually of the same tenor, with some slight alterations
upon extraordinary occasions. Before the Wahabys invaded Mekka, prayers
were added for the Sultan and the Sherif; but these were forbidden by
Saoud. Since the Turkish conquest, however, the ancient custom has been
restored; and on Fridays, as well as at the end of the first daily
evening prayers, the Sultan, Mohammed Aly Pasha, and Sherif Yahya are
included in the formula. The right of preaching in the Mambar is vested
in several of the first olemas in Mekka; they are always elderly
persons, and officiate in rotation. In ancient times, Mohammed himself,
his successors, and the Khalifes, whenever they came to Mekka, mounted
the pulpit, and preached to the people.
The Khatyb, or preacher, appears in the Mambar wrapped in a white cloak,
which covers his head and body, and with a stick in his
[p.148] hand; a practice observed also in Egypt and Syria, in memory of
the first age of Islam, when the preachers found it necessary to be
armed, from fear of being surprised. As in other mosques, two green
flags are placed on each side of him.
About the Mambar, the visitors of the Kaaba deposit their shoes; as it
is neither permitted to walk round the Kaaba with covered feet, nor
thought decent to carry the shoes in the hand, as is done in other
mosques. Several persons keep watch over the shoes, for which they
expect a small present; but the vicinity of the holy temple does not
intimidate the dishonest, for I lost successively from this spot three
new pairs of shoes; and the same thing happens to many hadjys.
I have now described all the buildings within the enclosure of the
Temple. [The ground-plan of the Temple given by Aly Bey el Abbassi is
perfectly correct. This cannot be said of his plan of Mekka, nor of his
different views in the Hedjaz: a comparison of my description with his
work will show in what points I differ from him, as well in regard to
the temple, as to the town and its inhabitants. His travels came to my
hands after I had returned from Arabia. The view of the mosque given by
d'Ohsson, in his valuable work, is tolerably correct, except that the
Kaaba is too large in proportion to the rest of the building. The view
of the town of Mekka, on the contrary, is very unfaithful. That in
Niebuhr, which was copied from an ancient Arabic drawing, is less
accurate than d'Ohsson's. The original seems to have been taken before
the last alterations made in the buildings of the Temple.]
The gravel-ground, and part of the adjoining outer pavement of the
Kaaba, is covered, at the time of evening prayers, with carpets of from
sixty to eighty feet in length, and four feet in breadth, of Egyptian
manufacture, which are rolled up after prayers.
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