In the meanwhile the Meccans claim unlimited superiority over
the Madani: the Madani over the Meccans.
[p.307]Passing through muddy streets,-they had been freshly watered
before evening time,-I came suddenly upon the Mosque. Like that at
Meccah, the approach is choked up by ignoble buildings, some actually
touching the holy "enceinte," others separated by a lane compared with
which the road round St. Paul's is a Vatican Square.[FN#5] There is no
outer front, no general prospect of the Prophet's Mosque; consequently,
as a building, it has neither beauty nor dignity.
And entering the Bab al-Rahmah[FN#6]-the Gate of Pity,-by a diminutive
flight of steps, I was astonished at the mean and tawdry appearance of
a place so universally venerated in the Moslem world. It is not, like
the Meccan Temple, grand and simple, the expression of a single sublime
idea: the longer I looked at it, the more it suggested the resemblance
of a museum of second-rate art, an old Curiosity-shop, full of
ornaments that are not accessories, and decorated with pauper splendour.
The Masjid al-Nabi is a parallelogram about four hundred and twenty
feet in length by three hundred and forty broad, the direction of the
long walls being nearly north and south.
