This Open Square Is Enclosed On The Eastern Side By A
Colonnade.
The pillars stand in a quadruple row; they are three deep on
the other sides, and are united by pointed arches, every four of which
support a small dome plastered and whitened on the outside.
These
domes, according to Kotobeddyn, are 152 in number.[FN#3] The
[p.295] pillars are above twenty feet in height, and generally from one
foot and a half to one foot and three quarters in diameter; but little
regularity has been observed in regard to them. Some are of white
marble, granite or porphyry; but the greater number are of common stone
of the Meccah mountains.[FN#4] El Fasy states the whole at 589, and
says they are all of marble excepting 126, which are of common stone,
and three of composition. Kotobeddyn reckons 555, of which, according
to him, 311 are of marble, and the rest of the stone taken from the
neighbouring mountains; but neither of these authors lived to see the
latest repairs of the Mosque, after the destruction occasioned by a
torrent in A.D. 1626.[FN#5] Between every three or four column stands
an octagonal one, about four feet in thickness. On the east side are
two shafts of reddish grey granite in one piece, and one fine grey
porphyry with slabs of white feldspath. On the north side is one red
granite column, and one of fine-grained red porphyry; these are
probably the columns which Kotobeddyn states to have been brought from
Egypt, and
[p.296] principally from Akhmim (Panopolis), when the chief (Caliph) El
Mohdy enlarged the Mosque in A.H. 163.
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