In Short, They
Make Use Of This Water Only To Drink, Take Abdes, And For Bathing:
Neither May They Take Abdes With It, Unless They First Cleanse Their
Secret Parts With Other Common Water.
Yea, such an high esteem they
have for it, that many Hagges carry it home to their respective
countries
In little latten or tin pots; and present it to their
friends, half a spoonful, may be, to each, who receive it in the hollow
of their hand with great care and abundance of thanks, sipping a little
of it, and bestowing the rest on their faces and naked heads; at the
same time holding up their hands, and desiring of God that they also
may be so happy and prosperous as to go on pilgrimage to Mecca. The
reason of their putting such an high value upon the water of this well,
is because (as they say) it is the place where Ishmael was laid by his
mother Hagar. I have heard them tell the story exactly as it is
recorded in the 21st chapter of Genesis; and they say, that in the very
place where the child paddled with his feet, the water flowed out.
“I shall now inform you how, when, and where, they receive the honourable
title of Hagges, for which they are at all this pains and expence.
“The Curbaen Byram, or the Feast of Sacrifice, follows two months and ten
days after the Ramadan fast. The eighth day after the said two months
they all enter into Hirrawem, i.e.} put on their mortifying habit
again, and in that manner go to a certain hill called Gibbel el Orphat
(El Arafat), i.e. the Mountain of Knowledge; for [p.374] there, they
say, Adam first found and knew his wife Eve. And they likewise say,
that she was buried at Gidda near the Red Sea; at whose sepulchre all
the Hagges who come to Mecca by way of the Red Sea, perform two
Erkaets-nomas, and, I think, no more. I could not but smile to hear
this their ridiculous tradition (for so I must pronounce it), when
observing the marks which were set, the one at the head, and the other
at the foot of the grave: I guessed them to be a bow-shot distant from
each other. On the middle of her supposed grave is a little Mosque
built, where the Hagges pay their religious respect.
“This Gibbel or hill is not so big as to contain the vast multitudes
which resort thither; for it is said by them, that there meet no less
than 70,000 souls every year, in the ninth day after the two months
after Ramadan; and if it happen that in any year there be wanting some
of that number, God, they say, will supply the deficiency by so many
angels.[FN#31]
“I do confess the number of Hagges I saw at this mountain was very great;
nevertheless, I cannot think they could amount to so many as 70,000.
There are certain bound-stones placed round the Gibbel, in the plain,
to shew how far the sacred ground (as they esteem it) extends; and many
are so zealous as to come and pitch their tents within these bounds,
some time before the hour of paying their devotion here comes, waiting
for it.
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