The Very Names, Say Moslem Divines, Make It Abundantly
Evident That Even As The Men Of Al-Madinah Were Of
Two parties,
friendly and hostile to the Prophet, so were these mountains.
[FN#12] This Cave is a Place of
Visitation, but I did not go there, as
it is on the Northern flank of the hill, and all assured me that it
contained nothing worth seeing. Many ignore it altogether.
[FN#13] Ohod, it is said, sent forth in the Prophet's day 360 springs,
of which ten or twelve now remain.
[FN#14] Meaning that the visitor must ascend several smaller eminences.
The time occupied is from eight to nine hours, but I should not advise
my successor to attempt it in the hot weather.
[FN#15] When engaged in such a holy errand as this, to have ridden away
for the purpose of inspecting a line of black stone, would have been
certain to arouse the suspicions of an Arab. Either, he would argue,
you recognise the place of some treasure described in your books, or
you are a magician seeking a talisman.
[FN#16] Most Arab authors place Ohod about two miles N. of Al-Madinah.
Al-Idrisi calls it the nearest hill, and calculates the distance at
6000 paces. Golius gives two leagues to Ohod and Ayr, which is much too
far. In our popular accounts, "Mohammed posted himself upon the hill of
Ohod, about six miles from Al-Madinah," two mistakes.
[FN#17] They are said to be seventy, but the heaps appeared to me at
least three times more numerous.
[FN#18] A Zawiyah in Northern Africa resembles the Takiyah of India,
Persia, and Egypt, being a monastery for Darwayshes who reside there
singly or in numbers. A Mosque, and sometimes, according to the
excellent practice of Al-Islam, a school, are attached to it.
[FN#19] Some historians relate that forty-six years after the battle of
Ohod, the tombs were laid bare by a torrent, when the corpses appeared
in their winding-sheets as if buried the day before. Some had their
hands upon their death wounds, from which fresh blood trickled when the
pressure was forcibly removed. In opposition to this Moslem theory, we
have that of the modern Greeks, namely, that if the body be not
decomposed within a year, it shows that the soul is not where it should
be.
[FN#20] In fairness I must confess to believing in the reality of these
phenomena, but not in their "spiritual" origin.
[FN#21] In Ibn Jubayr's time the tomb was red.
[FN#22] In the common tombs of martyrs, saints, and holy men, this
covering is usually of green cloth, with long white letters sewn upon
it. I forgot to ask whether it was temporarily absent from Hamzah's
grave.
[FN#23] All these erections are new. In Burckhardt's time they were
mere heaps of earth, with a few loose stones placed around them. I do
not know what has become of the third martyr, said to have been
interred near Hamzah.
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