Beside Them Is A Small Portico, Which Serves As A Mosque:
A short
prayer is said here, and the pilgrims then advance to the tombs, where
they recite the chapter
Of Yasein (from the Koran), or the short chapter
of El Khalas forty times; after which Hamze and his friends are invoked
to intercede with the Almighty, and obtain for the pilgrim and all his
family, faith, health, wealth, and the utter destruction of all their
enemies. Money is given, as usual, at every corner, to the guardians of
the mosque, of the tombs, to the Mueddin, Imam, &c. &c.
A little further on, towards the mountain, which is only at a gun-shot
distance, a small cupola marks the place where Mohammed was
[p.366] struck in battle by a stone, which knocked out four of his front
teeth, and felled him to the ground. [This story is related here,
though the historians of the Prophet do not agree on the subject.] His
party thought he was killed; but the angel Gabriel immediately appeared,
and exclaimed that he was still alive. At a short distance from this
cupola, which like all the rest has been demolished, are the tombs of
twelve other partisans of the Prophet, who were killed in the battle.
They form together several mounds of rubbish and stones, in which their
respective tombs can no longer be distinguished. Prayers are again
recited, with that passage of the Koran which says, in speaking of the
slain: "Do not think that those who were killed in war with the infidels
are dead; no, they are living, and their reward is with their Lord:" a
sentence still used to encourage, even in our days, the Turkish soldiers
in their battles with Europeans.
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