The Bir Al-Aris,[FN#26] So Called After A Jew Of Al-Madinah, Is One Which The Apostle Delighted To Visit.

He would sit upon its brink with his bare legs hanging over the side, and his companions used to imitate his example.

This practice caused a sad disaster. In the sixth year of his caliphate, Osman, according to Abulfeda and Yakut, dropped from his finger the propheti[c] ring which, engraved in three lines with "Mohammed-Apostle-(of) Allah," had served to seal the letters sent to neighbouring kings, and had descended to the first three successors.[FN#27] The precious article was not recovered after three days' search, and the well was thenceforward called Bir al-Khatim-of the Seal Ring. It is also called the Bir al-Taflat-of Saliva[FN#28]-because the Prophet honoured it by expectoration, as, by-the-bye, he seems to have done to almost all the wells in Al-Madinah. The effect of the operation upon the Bir al-Aris, says the historians, was to sweeten the water, which before was salt. Their testimony, however, did not prevent my detecting a pronounced medicinal taste in the lukewarm draught drawn for me by Shaykh Hamid. In Mohammed's days the total number of wells is recorded to

[p.414] have been twenty: most of them have long since disappeared; but there still remain seven, whose waters were drunk by the Prophet, and which, in consequence, the Zair is directed to visit.[FN#29] They are known by the classical title of Saba Abar, or the seven wells, and their names are included in this couplet:

"Aris and Ghars, and Rumah and Buza'at And Busat, with Bayruha and Ihn."[FN#30]

[p.415]After my sleep, which was allowed to last until a pipe or two of Latakia had gone round the party, we remounted our animals. Returning towards Al-Madinah, my companions pointed out to me, on the left of the village, a garden called Al-Madshuniyah. It contains a quarry of the yellow loam or bole-earth, called by the Arabs, Tafl, by the Persians, Gil-i-Sarshui, and by the Sindians, Metu. It is used as soap in many parts of the East, and, mixed with oil, it is supposed to cool the body, and to render the skin fresh and supple. It is related that the Prophet cured a Badawi of the Benu Haris tribe, of fever, by washing him with a pot of Tafl dissolved in water, and hence the earth of Al-Madinah derived its healing fame. As far as I could learn from the Madani, this clay is no longer valued by them, either medicinally or cosmetically: the only use they could mention was its being eaten by the fair sex, when in the peculiar state described by "chlorosis."

[FN#1] The Baradiyah or gugglets of Al-Madinah are large and heavy, of a reddish-grey colour, and celebrated for cooling water, a property not possessed by those of Meccan fabric. [FN#2] I afterwards found reason to doubt this location.

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