Some time afterwards one Harisat bin al-Nu'uman presented
to the Prophet all his houses in the vicinity of the temple. In those
days the habitations of the Arabs were made of a framework of Jarid or
palm sticks, covered over with a cloth of camel's hair, a curtain of
similar stuff forming the door. The more splendid had walls of unbaked
brick, and roofs of palm fronds plastered
[p.358]over with mud or clay. Of this description were the abodes of
Mohammed's family. Most of them were built on the North and East of the
Mosque, which had open ground on the Western side; and the doors looked
towards the place of prayer. In course of time, all, except Abu
Bakr[FN#30] and Ali, were ordered to close their doors, and even Omar
was refused the favour of having a window opening into the temple.
Presently the Jews of Al-Madinah, offended by the conduct of Abdullah
bin Salam, their most learned priest and a descendant from the
Patriarch Joseph, who had become a convert to the Moslem dispensation,
began to plot against Mohammed.[FN#31] They were headed by Hajj bin
Akhtah, and his brother Yasir bin Akhtah, and were joined by many of
the Aus and the Khazraj. The events that followed this combination of
the Munafikun, or Hypocrites, under their chief, Abdullah, belong to
the domain of Arabian history.[FN#32]
Mohammed spent the last ten years of his life at Al-Madinah. He died on
Monday, some say at nine A.M., others at noon, others a little after,
on the twelfth of Rabia al-Awwal in the eleventh year of the Hijrah.
When his family and companions debated where he should be buried, Ali
advised Al-Madinah, and Abu Bakr, Ayishah's chamber,
[p.359]quoting a saying of the deceased that prophets and martyrs are
always interred where they happen to die. The Apostle was placed, it is
said, under the bed where he had given up the ghost, by Ali and the two
sons of Abbas, who dug the grave. With the life of Mohammed the
interest of Al-Madinah ceases, or rather is concentrated in the history
of its temple. Since then the city has passed through the hands of the
Caliphs, the Sharifs of Meccah, the Sultans of Constantinople, the
Wahhabis, and the Egyptians. It has now reverted to the Sultan, whose
government is beginning to believe that, in these days when religious
prestige is of little value, the great Khan's title, "Servant of the
Holy Shrines," is purchased at too high a price. As has before been
observed, the Turks now struggle for existence in Al-Hijaz with a
soldier ever in arrears, and officers unequal to the task of managing
an unruly people. The pensions are but partly paid,[FN#33] and they are
not likely to increase with years. It is probably a mere consideration
of interest that prevents the people rising en masse,
[p.360]and re-asserting the liberties of their country. And I have
heard from authentic sources that the Wahhabis look forward to the day
when a fresh crusade will enable them to purge the land of its
abominations in the shape of silver and gold.
The Masjid al-Nabi, or Prophet's Mosque, is the second in Al-Islam in
point of seniority, and the second, or, according to others, the first
in dignity, ranking with the Ka'abah itself. It is erected around the
spot where the she-camel, Al-Kaswa, knelt down by the order of Heaven.
At that time the land was a palm grove and a Mirbad, or place where
dates are dried. Mohammed, ordered to erect a place of worship there,
sent for the youths to whom it belonged, and certain Ansar, or
Auxiliaries, their guardians; the ground was offered to him in free
gift, but he insisted upon purchasing it, paying more than its value.
Having caused the soil to be levelled and the trees to be felled, he
laid the foundation of the first Mosque.
In those times of primitive simplicity its walls were made of rough
stone and unbaked bricks: trunks of date-trees supported a palm-stick
roof, concerning which the Archangel Gabriel delivered an order that it
should not be higher than seven cubits, the elevation of Moses's
temple. All ornament was strictly forbidden. The Ansar, or men of
Al-Madinah, and the Muhajirin, or Fugitives from Meccah, carried the
building materials in their arms from the cemetery Al-Bakia, near the
well of Ayyub, north of the spot where Ibrahim's Mosque now stands, and
the Apostle was to be seen aiding them in their labours, and reciting
for their encouragement,
"O Allah! there is no good but the good of futurity,
Then have mercy upon my Ansar and Muhajirin!"
The length of this Mosque was fifty-four cubits from North to South,
and sixty-three in breadth, and it was hemmed in by houses on all sides
save the Western. Till the seventeenth
[p.361]month of the new aera the congregation faced towards the
Northern wall. After that time a fresh revelation turned them in the
direction of Meccah, Southwards: on which occasion the Archangel
Gabriel descended and miraculously opened through the hills and wilds a
view of the Ka'abah, that there might be no difficulty in ascertaining
its true position.
After the capture of Khaybar in A.H. 7, the Prophet and his first three
successors restored the Mosque, but Moslem historians do not consider
this a second foundation. Mohammed laid the first brick, and Abu
Hurayrah declares that he saw him carry heaps of building materials
piled up to his breast.
