Page:A Moslem seeker after God - showing Islam at its best in the life and teaching of al-Ghazali, mystic and theologian of the eleventh century (IA moslemseekeraft00zwem).pdf/138

 ham/* which was previously a Jewish synagogue. The natives erected there six sepulchres, which they tell foreigners are those of the Patriarchs and their wives, demanding money as a condition of seeing them. If a Jew gives an additional fee to the keeper of the cave, an iron door which dates from the time of our forefathers opens, and the visitor descends with a lighted candle. He crosses two empty caves, and in the third sees six tombs, on which the names of the three Patriarchs and their wives are inscribed in Hebrew characters. The cave is filled with barrels containing bones of people, which are taken there as to a sacred place. At the end of the field of the Machpelah stands Abraham’s house with a spring in front of it. " 1

The mosque of Hebron, over the tomb of Abra ham, consists at present of a quadrangular platform about seventy yards long by thirty-five wide. The tomb which it covers is one of the sites which few Christian eyes have seen. It is permitted to none but Moslems to approach nearer the entrance than the seventh step of the staircase along the eastern wall. 8

"The Jewish Encyclopaedia," article "Machpelah." 2 A recent traveller says: "There is a hole in the wall which is supposed to communicate with the cave below. Jews write letters to Abraham and place them in this hole, to tell him how badly they are being treated by the Moslems. But the Moslem boys are said to know that the hole has no great depth, and to collect these letters and burn them before Abraham has seen them."