In A.H. 557, In The Time Of El Melek El Adel
Noureddyn, King Of Egypt, Two Christians In Disguise Were Discovered At
Medina, Who Had Made A Subterraneous Passage From A Neighbouring House
Into The Hedjra, And Stolen From Thence Articles Of Great Value.
Being
put to the torture, they confessed having been sent by the King of Spain
for that purpose; and they paid for their temerity with their lives.
Sultan Noureddyn, after this, carried a trench round the Hedjra, and
filled it with lead, to prevent similar attempts.
"In A.H. 654, a few months after the eruption of a volcano near the
[p.352] town, the mosque caught fire, and was burnt to the ground; but
the Korans deposited in the Hedjra were saved. This accident was
ascribed to the Persian sectaries of Beni Hosseyn, who were then the
guardians of the tomb. In the following year its restoration was
undertaken at the expense of the Khalife Mostasem Billah, Ibn el
Montaser Billah, and the lord of Yemen, El Mothaffer Shams eddyn Yousef,
and completed by El Dhaher Bybars, Sultan of Egypt, in A.H. 657. The
dome over the tomb was erected in 678. Several kings of Egypt
successively improved and enlarged the building, till A.H. 886, when it
was again destroyed by fire occasioned by lightning. The destruction was
complete; all the walls of the mosque, and part of those of the Hedjra,
the roof, and one hundred and twenty columns fell: all the books in the
mosque were destroyed; but the fire appears to have spared the interior
of the tomb in the Hedjra. Kayd Beg, then king of Egypt, to whom that
country and the Hedjaz owe a number of public works, completely rebuilt
the mosque, as it now stands, in A.H. 892. He sent three hundred workmen
from Cairo for that purpose. The interior of the Hedjra was cleared, and
three deep graves were found in the inside, full of rubbish; but the
author of this history, who himself entered it, saw no traces of tombs.
The original place of Mohammed's tomb was ascertained with great
difficulty. The walls of the Hedjra were then rebuilt, and the iron
railing placed round it which is now there. The dome was again raised
over it; the gates were distributed as they now are; a new mambar, or
pulpit, was sent as a present from Cairo, and the whole mosque assumed
its present form. Since the above period, a few immaterial improvements
have been made by the Othman Emperors of Constantinople."
[p.353]GARDENS and plantations, as I have already said, surround the
town of Medina, with its suburbs, on three sides, and to the eastward
and southward extend to the distance of six or eight miles. They consist
principally of date-groves and wheat and barley fields; the latter
usually enclosed with mud walls, and containing small habitations for
the cultivators. Their houses in the immediate neighbourhood of the town
are well built, often with a vestibule supported by columns, and a
vaulted sitting-room adjoining, and a tank cased with stone in front of
them.
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