He also placed the fine pavement, which is now round
the Kaaba, and a new pavement all around the colonnades.
In A.H. 984, his son Murad repaired and partly rebuilt the three other
sides, that had not been touched by him.
In the year 1039, (or 1626 of our era,) a torrent from Djebel Nour
rushed into the town, and filled the mosque so rapidly, that all the
persons then within it were drowned; whatever books, fine copies of the
Koran, &c. &c. were left in the apartments round the walls of the
building, were destroyed; and a part of the wall before the Kaaba,
called Hedjer, and three sides of the Kaaba itself, were carried away.
Five hundred souls perished in the town. In the following year the
damage was repaired, and the Kaaba rebuilt, after the side which had
escaped the fury of the torrent had been pulled down.
In 1072, the building over the well Zemzem was erected, as it now
stands; and in 1079, the four Makams were built anew.
After this time, the historians mention no other material repairs or
changes in the mosque; and I believe none took place in the eighteenth
century. We may, therefore, ascribe the building, as it now appears,
almost wholly to the munificence of the last Sultans of Egypt, and
[p.170] their successors, the Osmanly Sultans of Constantinople, since
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
In the autumn of 1816, several artists and workmen, sent from
Constantinople, were employed in the Hedjaz to repair all the damage
caused by the Wahabys in the chapels of the saints of that country, as
well as to make all the repairs necessary in the mosques at Mekka and
Medina.
[p.171] DESCRIPTION OF SEVERAL OTHER HOLY PLACES,
VISITED BY PILGRIMS AT MEKKA, AND IN ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD.
DURING the time of the Wahabys, no person dared to visit these places
without exposing himself to their hostility; and all the buildings which
had been erected on these spots were ruined by them, or their domes
were, at least, destroyed.
In the town are shown: -
Mouled el Neby, the birth-place of Mohammed, in the quarter named from
it. In the time of Fasy a mosque stood near it, called Mesdjed el
Mokhtaba. During my stay, workmen were busily employed in re-
constructing the building over the Mouled upon its former plan. It
consists of a rotunda, the floor of which is about twenty-five feet
below the level of the street, with a staircase leading down to it. A
small hole is shown in the floor, in which Mohammed's mother sat when
she was delivered of him. This is said to have been the house of
Abdillah, Mohammed's father.
