106.) In Which It Is Said, "Let Them Adore The God Of
The House (The Kaaba), Who Feeds Them In
Hunger, and secures them from
all fear." But they forget to look back to their own history, which
mentions many
Terrible famines and sanguinary battles, that have
happened in this sacred asylum. Indeed, the Hedjaz has suffered more
from famine than, perhaps, any other Eastern country. The historians
abound with descriptions of such lamentable events: I shall only mention
one that happened in 1664, when, as Asamy relates, many people sold
their own children at Mekka for a single measure of corn; and when, at
Djidda, the populace fed publicly on human flesh.
A Mekkawy related to me, that having once resolved to abandon the city,
in consequence of the non-arrival of Turkish hadjys, who supplied
[p.204] his means of subsistence, an angel appeared to him in his sleep
on the night previous to his intended departure. The angel had a flaming
sword in his hand, and stood upon the gate of Mekka, through which the
dreamer was about to leave the town, and exclaimed, "Unbeliever, remain!
the Mekkawys shall eat honey, while all the other people of the earth
shall be content with barley bread!" In consequence of this vision he
abandoned his project, and continued to live in the town.
The exterior politeness of the people of Mekka is in the same proportion
to their sincerity, as are their professions of zealous faith and
adherence to their religion, with the observance of its precepts. Many
of them, especially those who have no particular interest in imposing
upon the hadjys by an appearance of extreme strictness, are very relaxed
in observing the forms of their religion, thinking it quite sufficient
to be Mekkawys and to utter pious ejaculations in public, or supposing
that the rigid practice of its precepts is more particularly incumbent
upon foreign visitors, who see Mekka only once in their life. Like the
Bedouins, many of them are either very irregular in their prayers, or do
not pray at all. During the Friday's prayers, which every Moslim
resident in a town is bound to attend, the mosque is filled chiefly with
strangers, while many of the people of Mekka are seen smoking in their
shops. After the pilgrims have left the town, the service in the mosque
is very thinly attended. They never distribute alms, excusing themselves
by saying that they were placed by Providence in this town to receive
charity, and not to bestow it. They ape the manners recorded of
Mohammed, but in his most trifling habits only: their mustachios are cut
short, and their beard kept regularly under the scissors, because it was
the prophet's custom to do so. In like manner they allow the end of the
turban to fall loosely over the cap; every other day they put kohhel or
antimony on their eye-lids, and have always in their hands a messouak or
tooth-brush made of a thin branch of the shrub Arak, or one imported by
the Persian hadjys.
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