Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/705

Rh the sanctuary in the time of Mohammed. The Prophet destroyed the idols, but he left the characteristic form of worship the taivdf, or sevenfold circuit of the sanctuary, the worshipper kissing or touching the objects of his veneration and besides the black stone he recognized the so-called &quot; southern &quot; stone, the same presumably with that which is still touched in the tawaf at the Yemen corner (Muh. in Med., pp. 336, 425). The ceremony of the tawaf and the worship of stone fetishes was common to Mecca with other ancient Arabian sanctuaries. 1 It was, as it still is, a frequent religious exercise of the Meccans, and the first duty of one who returned to the city or arrived there under a vow of pilgrimage ; and thus the outside of the Ka ba was and is more important than the inside. Islam, did away with the worship of idols ; what was lost in interest by their suppression has been supplied by the invention of spots consecrated by recollections of Abraham, Ishmael, and Hagar, or held to be acceptable places of prayer. Thus the space of ten spans between the black stone and the door, which is on the east side, between the black and Irak corners, and a man s height from the ground, is called the Multazam, and here prayer should be offered after the tawaf with outstretched arms and breast pressed against the house. On the other side of the door, against the same wall, is a shallow trough which is said to mark the original site of the stone on which Abraham stood to build the Ka ba. Here the growth of the legend can be traced, for the place is now called the &quot; kneading-place &quot; (Ma jan) where the cement for the Ka ba was prepared. This name and story do not appear in the older accounts. Once more, on the north side of the Ka ba, there projects a low semicircular wall of marble with an opening at each end between it and the walls of the house. The space within is paved with mosaic, and is called the Hijr. It is included in the tawaf, and two slabs of verde antico within it are called the graves of Ishmael and Hagar, and are places of accept able prayer. Even the golden or gilded mizdb (water spout) that projects into the Hijr marks a place where prayer is heard, and another such place is the part of the west wall close to the Yemen corner. The feeling of religious conservatism which has preserved the structural rudeness of the Ka ba through so many centuries did not interfere with the adoption of costly surface decoration. In Mohammed s time the outer walls were covered by a vail (or kiswci) of striped Yemen cloth. The magnificence of the caliphs substituted a covering of figured brocade, and the sultan still sends with each pilgrim caravan from Cairo a new klswa of black brocade, adorned with a broad band embroidered with golden inscriptions from the Koran, as well as a richer curtain for the door. The aspect thus given to the Ka ba is seen in the woodcut ; there are openings to show the two sacred stones. 2 The door of two leaves, with its posts and lintel, is of silver gilt. The interior of the Ka ba is now opened but a few times every year ; there is a great scramble for admission the portable staircase being seldom brought forward and a great clamour for backshish ; thus the modern descriptions, from observations made under difficulties, are not very complete. Little change, however, seems to have been made since the time of Ibn Jubair, who describes the floor 1 See Ibn Hisham, i. 54; Azraki, p. 80 ( UzzainBatn Marr); Yakiit. iii. 705 (Otheyda) ; Bar Hebneus on Psalm xii. 9. Stones worshipped by circling round them bore the name dawdr or duwdr (Krehl, Rel. d. Amber, p. 69). The later Arabs not unnaturally viewed such cultus as imitated from that of Mecca (Yakut, iv. 622 ; comp. Dozy, Israelites te Mekka, p. 125, who draws very perverse inferences). 2 The old kiswa is removed on the 25th day of the month before the pilgrimage, and fragments of it are bought by the pilgrims as charms. Till the 10th day of the pilgrimage month the Ka ba is bare. 673 and walls as overlaid with richly variegated marbles, and the upper half of the walls as plated with silver thickly gilt, while the roof was vailed with coloured silk. Modem writers describe the place as windowless, but Ibn Jubair mentions five windows of rich stained glass from IrAk. Between the three pillars of teak hung thirteen silver lamps. A chest in the corner to the left of one entering contained Korans, and at the Irak corner a space was cut off enclosing the stair that leads to the roof. The door to this stair (called the door of mercy Bab el-E,ahma) was plated with silver by the caliph Mutawakkil. Here, in the time of Ibn Jubair, the Makam or standing-stone of Abraham was usually placed for better security, but brought out on great occasions (pp. 131, 161 ). 3 The houses of ancient Mecca pressed close upon the Ka ba, the noblest families, who traced their descent from Kosay, the reputed founder of the city, having their dwell ings immediately round the sanctuary. To the north of the Ka ba was the Dar el-Nad wa, or place of assembly of the Koreysh, where all matters of public interest were discussed. The multiplication of pilgrims after Islam soon made it necessary to clear away the nearest dwellings and enlarge the place of prayer around the Ancient House. Omar, Othman, and Ibn ,Zubeyr had all a share in this work, but the great founder of the mosque in its present form, with its spacious area and deep colonnades, was the caliph El- Mahdi, who spent enormous sums in bringing costly pillars from Egypt and Syria. The work was still incomplete at his death in 785 A.D., and was finished in less sumptuous style by his successor. Subsequent repairs and additions, extending down to Turkish times, have left little of El- Mahdi s work untouched, though a few of the pillars prob ably date from his days. There are more than five hundred pillars in all, of very various style and workman ship, and the enclosure 250 paces in length and 200 in breadth, according to Burckhardt s measurement is entered by nineteen archways irregularly disposed. After the Ka ba the principal points of interest in the mosque are the well Zamzam and the Makam Ibrahim. The former is a deep shaft enclosed in a massive vaulted building paved with marble, and, according to Mohammedan tradition, is the source (corresponding to the Beer-lahai-roi of Gen. xvi. 14) from which Hagar drew water for her son Ishmael. This of course is pure invention, and indeed the legend tells that the well was long covered up and redis covered by Abd el-Muttalib, the grandfather of the Prophet. Sacred wells are familiar features of Semitic sanctuaries, and Islam, retaining the well, made a quasi-Biblical story for it, and endowed its tepid waters with miraculous curative virtues. They are eagerly drunk by the pilgrims, or when poured over the body are held to give a miraculous refreshment after the fatigues of religious exercise, and the manufacture of bottles or jars for carrying the water to distant countries is quite a trade. Ibn Jubair (p. 139) mentions a curious superstition of the Meccans, who believed that the water rose in the shaft at the full moon of the month Sha ban. On this occasion a great crowd, especially of young people, thronged round the well with shouts of religious enthusiasm, while the servants of the well dashed buckets of water over their heads. The Makam or stand ing place of Abraham is also connected with a relic of heathenism, the ancient holy stone which once stood on the Ma jan, and is said to bear the prints of the patriarch s 3 Before Islam the Ka ba was opened every Monday and Thursday ; in the time of Ibn Jubair it was opened with considerable ceremony every Monday and Friday, and daily in the month Rajab. But, though prayer within the building is favoured by the example of the Prophet, it is not compulsory on the Moslem, and even in the time of Ibn Batiita the opportunities of entrance were reduced to Friday and the birthday of the Prophet. XV. - 85