The last, for if you yield,
such is your doom." Afterwards repenting, he bound himself with a huge
chain to the date-tree in whose place the column now stands, vowing to
continue there until Allah and the Apostle accepted his penitence-a
circumstance which did not take place till the tenth day, when his
hearing was gone and he had almost lost his sight.
The less celebrated pillars are the Ustuwanat al-Sarir, or Column of
the Cot, where the Apostle was wont to sit meditating on his humble
couch-frame of date-sticks. The Ustuwanat Ali notes the spot where the
fourth Caliph used to pray and watch near his father-in-law at night.
At the Ustuwanat al-Wufud, as its name denotes, the Apostle received
envoys, couriers, and emissaries from foreign places. The Ustuwanat
al-Tahajjud now stands where Mohammed, sitting upon his mat, passed the
night in prayer. And lastly is the Makam Jibrail (Gabriel's place), for
whose other name, Mirbaat al-Bair, "the Pole of the Beast of Burden," I
have been unable to find an explanation.
The four Riwaks, or porches, of the Madinah Mosque open upon a
hypaethral court of parallelogramic shape.
[p.337] The only remarkable object in it[FN#75] is a square of wooden
railing enclosing a place full of well-watered earth, called the Garden
of our Lady Fatimah.[FN#76] It now contains a dozen date-trees-in Ibn
Jubayr's time there were fifteen.
