During The Devil-Stoning. 13.

On first seeing the Ka’abah. 14.

At the Hatim or Hijr. [FN#10] The former is the 109th, the latter the 112th chapter of the Koran (I have translated it in a previous volume). [FN#11] These superstitions, I must remark, belong only to the vulgar. [FN#12] Strictly speaking we ought, after this, to have performed the ceremony called Al-Sai, or the running seven times between Mounts Safa and Marwah. Fatigue put this fresh trial completely out of the question. [FN#13] I have been diffuse in my description of this vestibule, as it is the general way of laying out a ground-floor at Meccah. During the pilgrimage time the lower hall is usually converted into a shop for the display of goods, especially when situated in a populous quarter. [FN#14] This is equivalent to throwing oneself upon the sofa in Europe. Only in the East it asserts a decided claim to superiority; the West would scarcely view it in that light. [FN#15] Ibn Haukal begins his cosmography with Meccah “because the temple of the Lord is situated there, and the holy Ka’abah is the navel of the earth, and Meccah is styled in sacred writ the parent city, or the mother of towns.” Unfortunately, Ibn Haukal, like most other Moslem travellers and geographers, says no more about Meccah. [FN#16] To distinguish it from the Jiyad (above the cemetery Al-Ma’ala) over which Khalid entered Meccah.

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