Here A Sermon Is Preached On Fridays, And On Certain Festivals;
These, Like The Friday Sermons Of All Mosques In The Mohammedan
Countries, Are Usually Of The Same Tenor, With Some Slight Alterations
Upon Extraordinary Occasions.
Before the Wahabys invaded Mekka, prayers
were added for the Sultan and the Sherif; but these were forbidden by
Saoud.
Since the Turkish conquest, however, the ancient custom has been
restored; and on Fridays, as well as at the end of the first daily
evening prayers, the Sultan, Mohammed Aly Pasha, and Sherif Yahya are
included in the formula. The right of preaching in the Mambar is vested
in several of the first olemas in Mekka; they are always elderly
persons, and officiate in rotation. In ancient times, Mohammed himself,
his successors, and the Khalifes, whenever they came to Mekka, mounted
the pulpit, and preached to the people.
The Khatyb, or preacher, appears in the Mambar wrapped in a white cloak,
which covers his head and body, and with a stick in his
[p.148] hand; a practice observed also in Egypt and Syria, in memory of
the first age of Islam, when the preachers found it necessary to be
armed, from fear of being surprised. As in other mosques, two green
flags are placed on each side of him.
About the Mambar, the visitors of the Kaaba deposit their shoes; as it
is neither permitted to walk round the Kaaba with covered feet, nor
thought decent to carry the shoes in the hand, as is done in other
mosques. Several persons keep watch over the shoes, for which they
expect a small present; but the vicinity of the holy temple does not
intimidate the dishonest, for I lost successively from this spot three
new pairs of shoes; and the same thing happens to many hadjys.
I have now described all the buildings within the enclosure of the
Temple. [The ground-plan of the Temple given by Aly Bey el Abbassi is
perfectly correct. This cannot be said of his plan of Mekka, nor of his
different views in the Hedjaz: a comparison of my description with his
work will show in what points I differ from him, as well in regard to
the temple, as to the town and its inhabitants. His travels came to my
hands after I had returned from Arabia. The view of the mosque given by
d'Ohsson, in his valuable work, is tolerably correct, except that the
Kaaba is too large in proportion to the rest of the building. The view
of the town of Mekka, on the contrary, is very unfaithful. That in
Niebuhr, which was copied from an ancient Arabic drawing, is less
accurate than d'Ohsson's. The original seems to have been taken before
the last alterations made in the buildings of the Temple.]
The gravel-ground, and part of the adjoining outer pavement of the
Kaaba, is covered, at the time of evening prayers, with carpets of from
sixty to eighty feet in length, and four feet in breadth, of Egyptian
manufacture, which are rolled up after prayers. The greater part of the
hadjys bring their own carpets with them. The more distant parts of the
area, and the floor under the colonnade, are spread with mats, brought
from Souakin; the latter situation being the usual place for the
performance of the mid-day and afternoon prayers. Many of these mats are
presented to the mosque by the hadjys, for which they have in return the
satisfaction of seeing their names inscribed on them in large
characters.
At sun-set, great numbers assemble for the first evening prayer: they
form themselves into several wide circles, sometimes as many as
[p.149] twenty, around the Kaaba as a common centre before which every
person makes his prostration; and thus, as the Mohammedan doctors
observe, Mekka is the only spot throughout the world in which the true
believer can, with propriety, turn during his prayers towards any point
of the compass. The Imam takes his post near the gate of the Kaaba, and
his genuflexions are imitated by the whole assembled multitude. The
effect of the joint prostrations of six or eight thousand persons, added
to the recollection of the distance and various quarters from whence
they come, and for what purpose, cannot fail to impress the most cool-
minded spectator with some degree of awe. At night, when the lamps are
lighted, and numbers of devotees are performing the Towaf round the
Kaaba, the sight of the busy crowds - the voices of the Metowefs, intent
upon making themselves heard by those to whom they recite their prayers -
the loud conversation of many idle persons - the running, playing, and
laughing of boys, give to the whole a very different appearance, and one
more resembling that of a place of public amusement. 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.
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