I Was Surprised At The
Disproportion Of Female Nomenclature—The Missing Number Of Fair Ones
Seemed To Double That Of The Other Sex—And At A Practice So Opposed To
The Customs Of The Moslem World.
At length the boy Mohammed enlightened
me.
Egyptian and other bold women, when unable to join the pilgrimage,
will pay or persuade a friend to shout their names
[p.190] in hearing of the Holy Hill, with a view of ensuring a real
presence at the desired spot next year. So the welkin rang with the
indecent sounds of O Fatimah! O Zaynab! O Khayz’ran![FN#25] Plunderers,
too, were abroad. As we returned to the tent we found a crowd assembled
near it; a woman had seized a thief as he was beginning operations, and
had the courage to hold his beard till men ran to her assistance. And
we were obliged to defend by force our position against a knot of
grave-diggers, who would bury a little heap of bodies within a yard or
two of our tent.
One point struck me at once—the difference in point of cleanliness
between an encampment of citizens and of Badawin. Poor Mas’ud sat holding
his nose in ineffable disgust, for which he was derided by the Meccans.
I consoled him with quoting the celebrated song of Maysunah, the
beautiful Badawi wife of the Caliph Mu’awiyah. Nothing can be more
charming in its own Arabic than this little song; the Badawin never
hear it without screams of joy.
“O take these purple robes away,
Give back my cloak of camel’s hair,
And bear me from this tow’ring pile
To where the Black Tents flap i’ the air.
The camel’s colt with falt’ring tread,
The dog that bays at all but me,
Delight me more than ambling mules—
Than every art of minstrelsy;
And any cousin, poor but free,
Might take me, fatted ass! from thee.[FN#26]”
[p.191] The old man, delighted, clapped my shoulder, and exclaimed,
“Verily, O Father of Mustachios, I will show thee the black tents of my
tribe this year!”
At length night came, and we threw ourselves upon our rugs, but not to
sleep. Close by, to our bane, was a prayerful old gentleman, who began
his devotions at a late hour and concluded them not before dawn. He
reminded me of the undergraduate my neighbour at Trinity College,
Oxford, who would spout Aeschylus at two A.M. Sometimes the chant would
grow drowsy, and my ears would hear a dull retreating sound; presently,
as if in self-reproach, it would rise to a sharp treble, and proceed at
a rate perfectly appalling. The coffee-houses, too, were by no means
silent; deep into the night I heard the clapping of hands accompanying
merry Arab songs, and the loud shouts of laughter of the Egyptian
hemp-drinkers. And the guards and protectors of the camp were not
“Charleys” or night-nurses.
[FN#1] Pilgrims who would win the heavenly reward promised to those who
walk, start at an early hour.
[FN#2] The true Badawi, when in the tainted atmosphere of towns, is
always known by bits of cotton in his nostrils, or by his kerchief
tightly drawn over his nose, a heavy frown marking extreme disgust.
[FN#3] Anciently called Hira. It is still visited as the place of the
Prophet’s early lucubrations, and because here the first verse of the
Koran descended. As I did not ascend the hill, I must refer readers for
a description of it to Burckhardt, vol. i. p. 320.
[FN#4] Al-Abtah, “low ground”; Al Khayf, “the declivity”; Fina Makkah, the “court
of Meccah”; Al-Muhassib (from Hasba, a shining white pebble), corrupted
by our authors to Mihsab and Mohsab.
[FN#5] The spot where Kusay fought and where Mohammed made his covenant.
[FN#6] If Ptolemy’s “Minœi” be rightly located in this valley, the present name
and derivation “Muna” (desire), because Adam here desired Paradise of
Allah, must be modern. Sale, following Pococke, makes “Mina” (from Mana)
allude to the flowing of victims’ blood. Possibly it may be the plural of
Minyat, which in many Arabic dialects means a village. This basin was
doubtless thickly populated in ancient times, and Moslem historians
mention its seven idols, representing the seven planets.
[FN#7] According to Mohammed the pebbles of the accepted are removed by
angels; as, however, each man and woman must throw 49 or 70 stones, it
is fair to suspect the intervention of something more material. Animals
are frightened away by the bustling crowd, and flies are found in
myriads.
[FN#8] This demoniacal practice is still as firmly believed in Arabia
as it formerly was in Europe.
[FN#9] Probably because here Satan appeared to tempt Adam, Abraham, and
Ishmael. The Qanoon e Islam erroneously calls it the “Valley of Muhasurah,”
and corrupts Mashar al-Haram into “Muzar al-Haram” (the holy shrine).
[FN#10] Many, even since Sale corrected the error, have confounded this
Mashar al-Haram with Masjid al-H?r?m of Meccah. According to Al-Fasi,
quoted by Burckhardt, it is the name of a little eminence at the end of
the Muzdalifah valley, and anciently called Jabal Kuzah; it is also, he
says, applied to “an elevated platform inclosing the mosque of Muzdalifah.”
Ibn Jubayr makes Mashar al-Haram synonymous with Muzdalifah, to which
he gives a third name, “Jami.”
[FN#11] Buckhardt calls it “Mazoumeyn,” or Al-Mazik, the pass. “Akeshab” may
mean wooded or rugged; in which latter sense it is frequently applied
to hills. Kayka’an and Abu Kubays at Meccah are called Al-Akshshabayn in
some books. The left hill, in Ibn Jubayr’s time, was celebrated as a
meeting-place for brigands.
[FN#12] Kutb al-Din makes another Bazan the Southern limit of Meccah.
[FN#13] Burckhardt calls this building, which he confounds with the “Jami
Ibrahim,” the Jami Nimre; others Namirah, Nimrah, Namrah, and Namurah.
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