Yet It Is A Good Point In The Meccan Character,
That It Is Open To Reason, It Can Confess Itself
[P.237] in error, and it displays none of that doggedness of vice which
distinguishes the sinner of a more stolid race.
Like the people of
Southern Europe, the Semite is easily managed by a jest: though grave
and thoughtful, he is by no means deficient in the sly wit which we
call humour, and the solemn gravity of his words contrasts amusingly
with his ideas. He particularly excels in the Cervantic art, the spirit
of which, says Sterne, is to clothe low subjects in sublime language.
In Mohammed’s life we find that he by no means disdained a joke,
sometimes a little hasarde, as in the case of the Paradise-coveting old
woman. The redeeming qualities of the Meccan are his courage, his
bonhommie, his manly suavity of manners, his fiery sense of honour, his
strong family affections, his near approach to what we call patriotism,
and his general knowledge: the reproach of extreme ignorance which
Burckhardt directs against the Holy City has long ago sped to the Limbo
of things that were. The dark half of the picture is formed by pride,
bigotry, irreligion, greed of gain, immorality, and prodigal
ostentation. Of the pilgrimage ceremonies I cannot speak harshly. It
may be true that “the rites of the Ka’abah, emasculated of every idolatrous
tendency, still hang a strange unmeaning shroud around the living
theism of Islam.” But what nation, either in the West or in the East, has
been able to cast out from its ceremonies every suspicion of its old
idolatry? What are the English mistletoe, the Irish wake, the Pardon of
Brittany, the Carnival, and the Worship at Iserna? Better far to
consider the Meccan pilgrimage rites in the light of Evil-worship
turned into lessons of Good than to philosophize about their
strangeness, and to blunder in asserting them to be insignificant. Even
the Badawi circumambulating the Ka’abah fortifies his wild belief by the
fond thought that he treads the path of “Allah’s friend.”
At Arafat the good Moslem worships in imitation of
[p.238] the “Pure of Allah[FN#15]”; and when hurling stones and curses at
three senseless little buttresses which commemorate the appearance of
the fiend, the materialism of the action gives to its sentiment all the
strength and endurance of reality. The supernatural agencies of
pilgrimage are carefully and sparingly distributed. The angels who
restore the stones from Muna to Muzdalifah; the heavenly host whose
pinions cause the Ka’abah’s veil to rise and to wave, and the mysterious
complement of the pilgrim’s total at the Arafat sermon, all belong to the
category of spiritual creatures walking earth unseen,—a poetical tenet,
not condemned by Christianity. The Meccans are, it is true, to be
reproached with their open Mammon-worship, at times and at places the
most sacred and venerable; but this has no other effect upon the
pilgrims than to excite disgust and open reprehension. Here, however,
we see no such silly frauds as heavenly fire drawn from a
phosphor-match; nor do two rival churches fight in the flesh with teeth
and nails, requiring the contemptuous interference of an infidel power
to keep around order. Here we see no fair dames staring with their
glasses, braques at the Head of the Church; or supporting exhausted
nature with the furtive sandwich; or carrying pampered curs who, too
often, will not be silent; or scrambling and squeezing to hear
theatrical music, reckless of the fate of the old lady who—on such
occasions there is always one—has been “thrown down and cruelly trampled
upon by the crowd.” If the Meccan citizens are disposed to scoff at the
wild Takruri, they do it not so publicly or shamelessly as the Roman
jeering with ribald jest at the fanaticism of strangers from the bogs
of Ireland. Finally, at Meccah there is nothing theatrical, nothing
that suggests the opera; but all is simple and impressive, filling the
mind with
“A weight of awe not easy to be borne,”
and tending, I believe, after its fashion, to good.
[p.239] As regards the Meccan and Moslem belief that Abraham and his
son built the Ka’abah, it may be observed the Genesitic account of the
Great Patriarch has suggested to learned men the idea of two Abrahams,
one the son of Terah, another the son of Azar (fire), a Prometheus who
imported civilisation and knowledge into Arabia from Harran, the sacred
centre of Sabaean learning.[FN#16] Moslem historians all agree in
representing Abraham as a star-worshipper in youth, and Eusebius calls
the patriarch son of Athar; his father’s name, therefore, is no Arab
invention. Whether Ishmael or his sire ever visited Meccah to build the
Ka’abah is, in my humble opinion, an open question. The Jewish Scripture
informs us only that the patriarch dwelt at Beersheba and Gerar, in the
south-west of Palestine, without any allusion to the annual visit which
Moslems declare he paid to their Holy City. At the same time Arab
tradition speaks clearly and consistently upon the subject, and
generally omits those miraculous and superstitious adjuncts which cast
shadows of sore doubt upon the philosophic mind.
The amount of risk which a stranger must encounter at the pilgrimage
rites is still considerable. A learned Orientalist and divine intimated
his intention, in a work
[p.240] published but a few years ago, of visiting Meccah without
disguise. He was assured that the Turkish governor would now offer no
obstacle to a European traveller. I would strongly dissuade a friend
from making the attempt. It is true that the Frank is no longer, as in
Captain Head’s day,[FN#17] insulted when he ventures out of the Meccan
Gate of Jeddah; and that our Vice-Consuls and travellers are allowed,
on condition that their glance do not pollute the shrine, to visit Taif
and the regions lying Eastward of the Holy City.
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