Some Say This
Is The Case In The Present Building, Which Has Not Been Materially
Altered In Shape Since Its Restoration By Al-Hajjaj, A.H. 83.
The roof
was then eighteen cubits long by fifteen broad.
[FN#15] In Ibn Jubayr’s time the Ka’abah was opened every day in Rajah, and
in other months on every Monday and Friday.
The house may now be
entered ten or twelve times a year gratis; and by pilgrims as often as
they can collect, amongst parties, a sum sufficient to tempt the
guardians’ cupidity.
[FN#16] This mistake, in which Burckhardt is followed by all our
popular authors, is the more extraordinary, as all Arabic authors call
the door-wall Janib al-Mashrik—the Eastern side—or Wajh al-Bayt, the front
of the house, opposed to Zahr al-Bayt, the back. Niebuhr is equally in
error when he asserts that the door fronts to the South. Arabs always
hold the “Rukn al-Iraki,” or Irak angle, to face the polar star, and so it
appears in Ali Bey’s plan. The Ka’abah, therefore, has no Northern side.
And it must be observed that Moslem writers dispose the length of the
Ka’abah from East to West, whereas our travellers make it from North to
South. Ali Bey places the door only six feet from the pavement, but he
calculates distances by the old French measure. It is about seven feet
from the ground, and six from the corner of the Black Stone.
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