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 the latter, as is so often the case, is merely copying his predecessor) there was only a small marble trough north of the rauḍa (or grave) which “is said to be the house of Fatima or her grave, but God only knows.” It is more probable that Fatima was buried in the Baḳī, where her tomb was also shown in the 12th century (Ibn Jubair, pp. 198 seq.).

The mosque was again extended by the caliph Mahdī ( 781) and was burned down in 1256. Of its appearance before the fire we have two authentic accounts by Ibn ʽAbd Rabbih early in the 10th century, and by Ibn Jubair, who visited it in 1184. The old mosque had a much finer and more regular appearance than the present one; the interior walls were richly adorned with marble and mosaic arabesques of trees and the like, and the outer walls with stone marquetry; the pillars of the south portico (seventeen in each row) were in white plaster with gilt capitals, the other pillars were of marble. Ibn ʽAbd Rabbih speaks of eighteen gates, of which in Ibn Jubair’s time, as at present, all but four were walled up. There were then three minarets. After the fire which took place just at the time of the fall of the caliphate, the mosque long lay in a miserable condition. Its repair was chiefly due to the Egyptian sultans, especially to Ḳāit Bey, whose restoration after a second fire in 1481 amounted almost to a complete reconstruction. Of the old building nothing seems to have remained but some of the columns and part of the walls. The minarets have also been rebuilt and two new ones added. The great dome above the tomb, the railing round it, and the pulpit, all date from Ḳāit Bey’s restoration.

The suburbs, which occupy as much space as the city proper, and are partly walled in, lie south-west of the town, from which they are separated by an open space, the halting-place of caravans. Through the suburbs runs the watercourse called Wadi Buthan, a tributary of W. Ḳanāt, which the Yanbuʽ road crosses by a stone bridge. The suburbs are the quarter of the peasants. Thirty or forty families with their cattle occupy a single courtyard (ḥōsh), and form a kind of community often at feud with its neighbours. The several clans of Medina must have lived in much the same way at the time of the Prophet. The famous cemetery called Baḳīʽ el-Gharḳad, the resting-place of a multitude of the “companions” of the Prophet, lies immediately to the west of the city. It once contained many monuments, the chief of which are described by Ibn Jubair. Burckhardt in 1815 found it a mere waste, but some of the mosques have since been rebuilt.

History.—The story of the Amalekites in Yathrib and of their conquest by the Hebrews in the time of Moses is purely fabulous (see Nöldeke, Über die Amalekiter, 1864, p. 36). The oasis, when it first comes into the light of history, was held by Jews, among whom emigrants from Yemen afterwards settled. From the time of the emigration of Mahomet ( 622) till the Omayyads removed the seat of empire from Medina to Damascus, the town springs into historic prominence as the capital of the new power that so rapidly changed the fate of the East. Its fall was not less rapid and complete, and since the battle of Harra and the sack of the city in 683 it has never regained political importance (see, B. §§ 1, 2, &c.). Mahomet invested the country round Medina with an inviolable character like that of the Haram round Mecca; but this provision has never been observed with strictness. After the fall of the caliphs, who maintained a governor in Medina, the native amirs enjoyed a fluctuating measure of independence, interrupted by the aggressions of the sherīfs of Mecca, or controlled by an intermittent Egyptian protectorate. The Turks after the conquest of Egypt held Medina for a time with a firmer hand; but their rule grew weak, and was almost nominal long before the Wahhābīs took the city in 1804. A Turko-Egyptian force retook it in 1812, and the Turks now maintain a pasha with a military establishment, while the cadi and chief agha of the mosque (a eunuch) are sent from Constantinople. In late years the influence of the Turkish government has been much strengthened, an important factor in its consideration being the construction of the railway from Syria to the Hejaz. Railway communication between Damascus and Medina was effected in 1908.

MEDINA, a village of Orleans county, in north-west New York, U.S.A., about 40 m. N.E. of Buffalo, and on Oak Orchard Creek. Pop. (1900), 4716, (857 foreign-born); (1905, state census), 5114; (1910) 5683. It is served by the New York Central & Hudson River railroad, by the Buffalo, Lockport & Rochester (interurban) railway, and by the Erie Canal. On Oak Orchard Creek and near the city are electric power plants, at the Medina Falls and at a large storage dam (60 ft. high) for water power, built in 1902. In the neighbourhood are extensive apple, peach and pear orchards; and vegetables, especially beans, are grown. There are valuable quarries of Medina sandstone, a good building-, paving- and flag-stone, varying in colour from light grey to brownish red, readily shaped and split, and less likely than limestone to crack or than granite to wear slippery; it was first found at Medina in 1837. There was a saw-mill on the creek near here in 1805, but the place was little settled before 1824, and its growth was due to the Erie Canal. It was incorporated in 1832.

 MEDINA SIDONIA, DON ALONSO PEREZ DE GUZMAN EL BUENO, (1550–1615), the commander-in-chief of the Spanish Armada, was born on the 10th of September 1550. He was the son of Don Juan Claros de Guzman, eldest son of the 6th duke, and of his wife Doña Leonor Manrique de Zuñiga y Sotomayor. His father died in 1555, and Don Alonso became duke, and master of one of the greatest fortunes in Europe, on the death of his grandfather in 1539. The family of Guzman was originally lords of Abiados, on the southern slope of the Picos de Europa in the hill country of Leon. The name is believed to be a contraction or corruption of Gundamaris, i.e. son of Gundamar. An early family tradition represents them as having come from Britain, and they may have descended from one of the Scandinavian invaders who attacked the north coast of Spain in the 10th century. It is in the 10th century that they first appear, and they grew great by the reconquest of the country from the Mahommedans. The branch to which the dukes of Medina Sidonia belonged was founded by Alonso Perez de Guzman (1256–1309), surnamed El Bueno, the good, in the sense of good at need, or stout-hearted. In 1296 he defended the town of Tarifa on behalf of Sancho IV., and when the besiegers threatened to murder one of his sons whom they held as a prisoner if he did not surrender, he allowed the boy to be killed. He was rewarded by great grants of crown land. The duchy of Medina Sidonia, the oldest in Spain, was conferred by John II. in 1445 on one of his descendants, Juan Alonzo de Guzman, count of Niebla. The addition “El Bueno” to the family name of Guzman was used by several of the house, which included many statesmen, generals and colonial viceroys. The 7th duke was betrothed in 1565 to Ana de Silva y Mendoza, who was then four years of age, the daughter of the prince of Eboli. In 1572 when the duchess was a little more than ten years of age, the pope granted a dispensation for the consummation of the marriage. The scandal of the time, for which there appears to be no foundation, accused Philip II. of a love intrigue with the princess of Eboli. The unvarying and unmerited favour he showed the duke has been accounted for on the ground that he