It Consists Of A Catafalque Forming A Cube, Covered With A Rich Embroidered Black Brocade, And Without Any Other Ornament.

But some difference of opinion exists, whether her remains actually rest here or in the burial-ground called Bakya, beyond the town.

Till this dispute, however, be settled, the pilgrims are conducted to both places, and made to pay double fees. On the E. wall of the mosque, nearly opposite to this tomb, a small window is shown, at the place where the archangel Gabriel is said to have repeatedly descended from heaven, with messages to Mohammed. It is called Mahbat Djybrail.

Mohammedan tradition says, that when the last trumpet shall sound, Aysa (Jesus Christ) is to descend from heaven to earth, and to announce to its inhabitants the great day of judgment: after which he is to die, and will be buried in this Hedjra, by the side of Mohammed: that, when the dead shall rise from their graves, they will both rise together, ascend to heaven, and Aysa, on that day, will be ordered by the Almighty to separate the faithful from the infidels. In conformity with this tradition, the spot is pointed at through the curtain of the Hedjra, where the tomb of Aysa will be placed.

Outside the railing on the north, close by the tomb of Fatme, is a square bench in the mosque, elevated above the ground about four feet, and fifteen paces square, called El Meyda, or the table. Here the eunuch guardians of the mosque sit; and the councils of the primates of the town, or their principal assemblies, are often held here.

A wooden partition about eight feet high, and richly painted with arabesques, runs from the western side of the railing across the mosque, parallel with the south wall, and about twenty-five feet distant from it, and terminating near the gate called Bab-es-Salam, thus extending from the Hedjra nearly across the whole breadth of the mosque. It

[p.337] has several small doors, and is made to separate the holy place called El Rodha from the common passage of the visiters, who, on entering through Bab-es'-Salam, pass forward towards the Hedjra, along the columns standing between this partition and the south wall. Next to the Hedjra, that part of the southern colonnade north of the partition is considered the most holy place in the mosque, and called Rodha, i. e. a garden, or the Garden of the Faithful; a name bestowed upon it by Mohammed, who said: "Between my tomb and my pulpit is a garden of the gardens of Paradise." The pulpit of the mosque stands close to this partition, about midway between the Hedjra and the west wall of the mosque, and the name Rodha strictly belongs to that space only which is between the pulpit and the Hedjra, though the whole southern colonnade of the temple to the north of the partition is often comprised under that appellation. It is on account of this name of Rodha, or garden, that the columns within its limits are painted to the height of five or six feet with flowers and arabesques, to assist the imagination, which otherwise might not readily discover any resemblance between this place and the Garden of Eden.

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