Here, If We May Believe Mohammedan Tradition, Hadjer, The
Mother Of Ismayl, Wandered About In The Desert, After She Had
Been
driven from Abraham's house, that she might not witness the death of her
infant son, whom she had laid
Down almost expiring from thirst; when the
angel Gabriel appearing, struck the ground with his foot, which caused
the well of Zemzem immediately to spring forth. In commemoration of the
wanderings of Hadjer, who in her affliction had gone seven times between
Szafa and Meroua, the walk from one place to the other is said to have
been instituted.
El Azraky relates that, when the idolatrous Arabs had concluded the
ceremonies of the Hadj at Arafat, all the different tribes that had been
present, assembled, on their return to Mekka, at the holy place called
Szafa, there to extol, in loud and impassioned strains, the glory of
their ancestors, their battles, and the fame of their
[p.99] nation. From each tribe, in its turn, arose a poet who addressed
the multitude. "To our tribe," exclaimed he, "belonged such and such
eminent warriors and generous Arabs; and now," he added, "we boast of
others." He then recited their names, and sang their praises; concluding
with a strain of heroic poetry, and an appeal to the other tribes, in
words like the following: - "Let him who denies the truth of what I have
said, or who lays claim to as much glory, honour, and virtue as we do,
prove it here!" Some rival poet then arose, and celebrated in similar
language the equal or superior glory attached to his own tribe,
endeavouring, at the same time, to under-value or ridicule his rival's
pretensions.
To allay the animosity and jealousies produced by this custom; or,
perhaps, to break the independent spirit of his fierce Bedouins,
Mohammed abolished it by a passage in the Koran, which says: - "When you
have completed the rites of the pilgrimage, remember God, as you
formerly were wont to commemorate your forefathers, and with still
greater fervency." Thus, probably, was removed the cause of many
quarrels; but, at the same time, this stern lawgiver destroyed the
influence which the songs of those rival national bards exercised over
the martial virtues and literary genius of their countrymen.
The visit of the Omra was likewise an ancient custom. Mohammed retained
the practice; and it is said that he frequently recited his evening
prayers on that spot.
Having completed the fatiguing ceremonies of the Towaf and Say, I had a
part of my head shaved, and remained sitting in the barber's shop, not
knowing any other place of repose. I inquired after lodgings, but
learned that the town was already full of pil-grims, and that many
others, who were expected, had engaged apartments. After some time,
however, I found a man who offered me a ready-furnished room: of this I
took possession, and having no servant, boarded with the owner. He and
his family, consisting of a wife and two children, retired into a small,
open court-yard, on the side of my room. The landlord was a poor man
from Medina,
MEKKA
[p.100] and by profession a Metowaf, or cicerone. Although his mode of
living was much below that of even the second class of Mekkawys, yet it
cost me fifteen piastres a day; and I found, after we parted, that
several articles of dress had been pilfered from my travelling sack; but
this was not all: on the feast-day he invited me to a splendid supper,
in company with half a dozen of his friends, in my room, and on the
following morning he presented me with a bill for the whole expense of
this entertainment.
The thousands of lamps lighted during Ramadhan in the great mosque,
rendered it the nightly resort of all foreigners at Mekka; here they
took their walk, or sat conversing till after midnight. The scene
presented altogether a spectacle which (excepting the absence of women)
resembled rather an European midnight assemblage, than what I should
have expected in the sanctuary of the Mohammedan religion. The night
which closes Ramadhan, did not present those brilliant displays of
rejoicing that are seen in other parts of the East; and the three
subsequent days of the festival are equally devoid of public amusements.
A few swinging machines were placed in the streets to amuse children,
and some Egyptian jugglers exhibited their feats to multitudes assembled
in the streets; but little else occurred to mark the feast, except a
display of gaudy dresses, in which the Arabians surpass both Syrians and
Egyptians.
I paid the visit, customary on occasion of this feast, to the Kadhy, and
at the expiration of the third day, (on the 15th of September,) set out
for Djidda, to complete my travelling equipments, which are more easily
procured there than at Mekka. On my way to the coast, I was nearly made
prisoner at Bahra by a flying corps of Wahabys. My stay at Djidda was
prolonged to three weeks, chiefly in consequence of sore legs; a disease
very prevalent on this unhealthy coast, where every bite of a gnat, if
neglected, becomes a serious wound.
About the middle of October I returned to Mekka, accompanied by a slave
whom I had purchased. This boy had been in the caravan with which I went
from the Black Country to Sowakin, and was
[p.101] quite astonished at seeing me in a condition so superior to that
in which he had before known me. I took with me a camel-load of
provisions, mostly flour, biscuit, and butter, procured in Djidda at one
third of the price demanded at Mekka, where, immediately on my arrival,
I hired decent apartments in a quarter of the town not much frequented,
called Haret el Mesfale. I had here the advantage of several large trees
growing before my windows, the verdure of which, among the barren and
sun-burnt rocks of Mekka, was to me more exhilarating than the finest
landscape could have been under different circumstances.
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