Zairs Are Ordered To Visit The Mosque
Perfumed, And In Their Best Clothes, And The Hanafi School Deems It
Lawful
On this occasion only to wear dresses of pure silk.
[FN#13] In this Mosque, as in all others, it
Is proper to enter with
the right foot, and to retire with the left.
[FN#14] I must warn the reader that almost every Muzawwir has his own
litany, which descends from father to son: moreover, all the books
differ at least as much as do the oral authorities.
[FN#15] That is to say, "over the world, the flesh, and the devil."
[FN#16] This by strangers is called the Masalla Shafe'i, or the Place
of Prayer of the Shafe'i school. It was sent from Constantinople about
100 years ago, by Sultan Sulayman the Magnificent. He built the
Sulaymaniyah minaret, and has immortalised his name at Al-Madinah, as
well as at Meccah, by the number of his donations to the shrine.
[FN#17] Here is supposed to have been one of the Prophet's favourite
stations of prayer. It is commonly called the Musalla Hanafi, because
now appropriated by that school.
[FN#18] This tradition, like most others referring to events posterior
to the Prophet's death, is differently given, and so important are the
variations, that I only admire how all Al-Islam does not follow Wahhabi
example, and summarily consign them to oblivion. Some read "Between my
dwelling-house (in the Mosque) and my place of Prayer (in the Barr
al-Manakhah) is a Garden of the Gardens of Paradise." Others again,
"Between my house and my pulpit is a Garden of the Gardens of
Paradise." A third tradition-"Between my tomb and my pulpit is a Garden
of the Gardens of Paradise, and verily my pulpit is in my Full
Cistern," or "upon a Full Cistern of the Cisterns of Paradise," has
given rise to a new superstition.
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