Terrible Earthquakes, Accompanied By A
Thundering Noise, Shook The Town; From Fourteen To Eighteen Were
Observed Each Night.
On the third of Jamadi al-Akhir, after the Isha
prayers, a fire burst out in the direction of
Al-Hijaz (eastward); it
resembled a vast city with a turretted and battlemental fort, in which
men appeared drawing the flame about, as it were, whilst it roared,
burned, and melted like a sea everything that came in its way.
Presently red and bluish streams, bursting from it, ran close to
Al-Madinah; and, at the same time, the city was fanned by a cooling
zephyr from the same direction. Al-Kistlani, an eye-witness, asserts
that “the brilliant light of the volcano made the face of the country as
bright as day; and the interior of the Harim was as if the sun shone
upon it, so that men worked and required nought of the sun and moon
(the latter of which was also eclipsed?).” Several saw the light at
Meccah, at Tayma (in Nijd, six days’ journey from Al-Madinah), and at
Busra, of Syria, reminding men of the Prophet’s saying, “A fire shall burst
forth from the direction of Al-Hijaz; its light shall make visible the
necks of the camels at Busra.” Historians relate that the length of the
stream was four parasangs (from fourteen to sixteen miles), its breadth
four miles (56? to the degree), and its depth about nine feet. It
flowed like a torrent with the waves of a sea; the rocks, melted by its
heat, stood up as a wall, and, for a time, it prevented the passage of
Badawin, who, coming from that direction, used to annoy the citizens.
Jamal Matari, one of the historians of Al-Madinah, relates that the
flames, which destroyed the stones, spared the trees; and he asserts
that some men, sent by the governor to inspect the fire, felt no heat;
also that the feathers of an arrow shot into it were burned whilst the
shaft remained whole.
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