The Raw-Brick Enceinte[FN#46] Which Surrounded The Three Graves Was Exchanged For One Of Carved Stone, Enclosed By

An outer precinct with a narrow passage between.[FN#47] These double walls were either without a door, or had

Only a small blocked-up wicket on the Northern side, and from that day (A.H. 90), no one, says Al-Samanhudi, has been able to approach the sepulchre.[FN#48] A minaret was erected at each corner of the Mosque.[FN#49] The building was enlarged to 200 cubits by 167, and was finished in A.H. 91. When Al-Walid, the Caliph, visited it in state, he inquired of his lieutenant why greater magnificence had not been displayed in the erection; upon which Omar, the governor, informed him,

[p.367]to his astonishment, that the walls alone had cost forty-five thousand ducats.[FN#50]

The fourth Mosque was erected in A.H. 191, by Al-Mahdi, third prince of the Benu Abbas or Baghdad Caliphs-celebrated in history only for spending enormous sums upon a pilgrimage. He enlarged the building by adding ten handsome pillars of carved marble, with gilt capitals, on the Northern side. In A.H. 202, Al-Ma'amun made further additions to this Mosque. It was from Al-Mahdi's Masjid that Al-Hakim bi'Amri 'llah, the third Fatimite Caliph of Egypt, and the deity of the Druze sect, determined to steal the bodies of the Prophet and his two companions. About A.H. 412, he sent emissaries to Al-Madinah: the attempt, however, failed, and the would-be violators of the tomb lost their lives. It is generally supposed that Al-Hakim's object was to transfer the Visitation to his own capital; but in one so manifestly insane it is difficult to discover the spring of action. Two Christians, habited like Maghrabi pilgrims, in A.H. 550, dug a mine from a neighbouring house into the temple. They were discovered, beheaded, and burned to ashes. In relating these events the Moslem historians mix up many foolish preternaturalisms with credible matter. At last, to prevent a recurrence of such sacrilegious attempts, Al-Malik al-Adil Nur al-Din of the Baharite Mamluk Sultans, or, according to others, Sultan Nur al-Din Shahid Mahmud bin Zangi, who, warned by a vision of the Apostle, had started for Al-Madinah only in time to discover the two Christians, surrounded the holy place with a deep trench filled with molten lead. By this means Abu Bakr and Omar, who had run considerable risks of their own, have ever since been enabled to occupy their last homes undisturbed.

In A.H. 654, the fifth Mosque was erected in consequence of a fire, which some authors attribute to a

[p.368]volcano that broke out close to the town in terrible eruption[FN#51]; others, with more fanaticism and less probability, to the schismatic Benu Husayn, then the guardians of the tomb. On this occasion the Hujrah was saved, together with the old and venerable copies of the Koran there deposited, especially the Cufic MSS., written by Osman, the third Caliph. The piety of three sovereigns, Al-Mustasim (last Caliph of Baghdad), Al-Muzaffar Shems al-Din Yusuf, chief of Al-Yaman, and Al-Zahir Beybars, Baharite Sultan of Egypt, completed the work in A.H. 688. This building was enlarged and beautified by the princes of Egypt, and lasted upwards of two hundred years.

The sixth Mosque was built, almost as it now stands, by Kaid-Bey, nineteenth Sultan of the Circassian Mamluk kings of Egypt, in A.H. 888: it is now therefore more than four centuries old. Al-Mustasim's Mosque had been struck by lightning during a storm; thirteen men were killed at prayers, and the destroying element spared nothing but the interior of the Hujrah.[FN#52] The railing and dome were restored; niches and a pulpit were sent from Cairo, and the gates and minarets were distributed as they are now. Not content with this, Kaid-Bey established "Wakf" (bequests) and pensions, and introduced order among the attendants on the tomb. In the tenth century, Sultan Sulayman the Magnificent paved with fine white marble the Rauzah or garden, which Kaid-Bey, not daring to alter, had left of earth, and erected the fine minaret that bears his name.

[p.369]During the dominion of the later Sultans, and of Mohammed Ali, a few trifling presents, of lamps, carpets, wax candles and chandeliers, and a few immaterial alterations, have been made. The present head of Al-Islam is, as I have before said, rebuilding one of the minarets and the Northern colonnade of the temple.

Such is the history of the Mosque's prosperity.

During the siege of Al-Madinah by the Wahhabis,[FN#53] the principal people seized and divided amongst themselves the treasures of the tomb, which must have been considerable. When the town surrendered, Sa'ud, accompanied by his principal officers, entered the Hujrah, but, terrified by dreams, he did not penetrate behind the curtain, or attempt to see the tomb. He plundered, however, the treasures in the passage, the "Kaukab al-Durri[FN#54]" (or pearl star), and the ornaments sent as presents from every part of Al-Islam. Part of these he sold, it is said, for 150,000 Riyals (dollars), to Ghalib, Sharif of Meccah, and the rest he carried with him to Daraiyah, his capital.[FN#55] An accident prevented any further desecration of the building. The greedy Wahhabis, allured by the appearance of the golden or gilt globes and crescents surmounting the green dome, attempted to throw down the latter. Two of their number, it is said, were killed by falling

[p.370]from the slippery roof,[FN#56] and the rest, struck by superstitious fears, abandoned the work of destruction. They injured, however, the prosperity of the place by taxing the inhabitants, by interrupting the annual remittances, and by forbidding visitors to approach the tomb. They are spoken of with abhorrence by the people, who quote a peculiarly bad trait in their characters, namely, that in return for any small religious assistance of prayer or recitation, they were in the habit of giving a few grains of gunpowder, or something equally valuable, instead of "stone-dollars.[FN#57]"

When Abdullah, son of Sa'ud, had concluded in A.D. 1815 a treaty of peace with Tussun Pasha, the Egyptian General bought back from the townspeople, for 10,000 Riyals, all the golden vessels that had not been melted down, and restored the treasure to its original place.

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