The Crowd, However,
Leaves The Mosque About Nine O'clock, When It Again Becomes The Place Of
Silent Meditation And Prayer, To The Few Visitors Who Are Led To The
Spot By Sincere Piety, And Not Worldly Motives Or Fashion.
There is an opinion prevalent at Mekka, founded on holy tradition, that
the mosque will contain any number of the faithful; and that if even the
whole Mohammedan community were to enter at once, they would all find
room in it to pray.
The guardian angels, it is said, would invisibly
extend the dimensions of the building, and diminish the size of each
individual. The fact is, that during the most numerous pilgrimages, the
mosque, which can contain, I believe, about thirty-five thousand persons
in the act of prayer, is never half filled. Even on Fridays, the greater
part of the Mekkawys, contrary to the injunctions of the law, pray at
home, if at all, and many hadjys follow their example. I could never
count more than ten thousand individuals in the mosque at one time, even
after the return from Arafat, when the whole body of hadjys were
collected, for a few days, in and about the city.
At every hour of the day persons may be seen under the colonnade,
[p.150] occupied in reading the Koran and other religious books; and
here many poor Indians, or negroes, spread their mats, and pass the
whole period of their residence at Mekka. Here they both eat and sleep;
but cooking is not allowed.
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