Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/850

Rh 818 MEDINA neighbourhood of the town to unite farther west at a place called Zaghaba, whence they descend to the sea through the &quot; mountains of the Tihama&quot; the rough country between Medina and its port of Yanbu under the name of W. Idam. Southwards from Medina the plain extends unbroken, but with a slight rise, as far as the eye can reach. The convergence of torrent courses in the neigh bourhood of Medina makes this one of the best-watered spots in northern Arabia. The city lies close to one of the great volcanic centres of the peninsula, which was in violent eruption as late as 1266 A.D., when the lava stream approached within an hour s distance of the walls, and dammed up W. Kanat. The result of this and older pre historic eruptions has been to confine the underground water, so important in Arabian tillage, which can be reached at any point of the oasis by sinking deep wells. Many of the wells are brackish, and the natural fertility of the volcanic soil is in many places impaired by the salt with which it is impregnated ; but the date palm grows well everywhere, and the groves, interspersed with gardens and corn-fields, which surround the city on all sides except the west, have been famous from the time of the Prophet. Thus situated, Medina was originally a city of agriculturists, not like Mecca a city of merchants ; nor, apart from the indispensable trade in provisions, has it ever acquired commercial importance like that which Mecca owes to the pilgrimage. 1 Landowners and cultivators are still a chief element in the population of the city and suburbs. The latter, who are called Nawdkhila, and more or less openly profess the Shi a opinions, form a sort of separate caste, marrying only among themselves. The townsmen proper, on the other hand, are a very motley race. 2 The mechanical arts, which the true Arab despises, are chiefly practised by foreigners. New settlers remain behind with each pilgrimage ; and the many offices of profit connected with the mosque, the stipends paid by the sultan to every inhabitant, and the gains to be derived by pilgrim-cicerones (Muzawwirs) or by those who make it a business to say prayers at the Prophet s mosque for persons who send a fee from a distance, as well as the alms which the -citizens are accustomed to collect when they go abroad, especially in Turkey, keep up an idle population greatly in excess of that which the district would naturally support in the present defective state of agriculture. The population of the city and suburbs may be from 16,000 to 20,000 souls. The city proper is surrounded by a solid stone wall, 3 with towers and four massive gateways of good architecture, forming an irregular oval running to a kind of angle at the north-west, where stands the cistle, held by a Turkish garrison. The houses are good stone buildings similar in style to those of Mecca ; the streets are narrow but clean, and in part paved. 4 There is a copious supply of&quot; watsr conducted from a tepid source at the village of Kuba, 2 miles south, and distributed in underground cisterns in each quarter. 5 The glory of Medina, and the only im- 1 The pilgrimage to Medina, though highly meritorious, is not obli gatory, and it is not tied to a single season, so that there is no great concourse at one time, and no fair like that of Mecca. 2 A small number of families in Mecca still claim to represent the ancient An.sar, the &quot;defenders&quot; of Mohammed. But in fact the old population emigrated en masse after the sack of Medina by Muslim in 633, and passed into Spain in the armies of Musa. In the 13th century one old man of the Khazraj and one old voman of the Aus tribe were all that remained of the old stock in Medina (Makkari, i. 187; Dozy, Mus. d Espagne, i. 111). The aristocratic family of the Bern I,Ioseyn, who claim descent from the martyr of Kerbela, and so from the Prophet, have apparently a better established pedigree. 3 According to Ibn Khallikan (Slane s transl., iii. 927) the walls are of the 12th century, the work of Jamal el-Din el-Ispahani. 4 The Balat or great paved street of Medina, a very unusual feature in an Eastern town, dates from the 1st century of Islam. See Wiisteu- i eld s abstract of Samhudi, p. 115. 6 Kuba is famous as the place where the prophet lived before he portant building, is the mosque of the Prophet, in th& eastern part of the city, a spacious enclosed court between 400 and 500 feet in length from north to south, and two- thirds as much in breadth. The minarets and the lofty dome above the sacred graves are imposing features, but the circuit is hemmed in by houses or narrow lanes, and is not remarkable except for the principal gate (Bab el-Salam) at the southern end of the west front, facing the sacred graves, which is richly inlaid with marbles and fine tiles, and adorned with golden inscriptions. This gate leads into a deep portico, with ten rows of pillars, running along the southern wall. Near the further end of the portico, but not adjoining the walls, is a sort of doorless house or chamber hung with rich curtains, which is supposed to contain the graves of Mohammed, Abubekr, and Omar. To the north of this is a smaller chamber of the same kind, draped in black, which is said to represent the house or tomb of Fatima. Both are enclosed within an iron railing, so closely interwoven with brass wire-work that a glimpse of the so-called tombs can only be got through certain apertures where intercessory prayer is addressed to the prophet, and pious salutations are paid to the other saints. 6 The portico in front of the railing is not ineffective, at least by night light. It is paved with marble, and in the eastern part with mosaic, laid with rich carpets; the southern wall is clothed with marble pierced with windows of good stained glass, and the great railing has a striking aspect ; but an air of tawdriness is imparted by the vulgar painting of the columns, especially in the space between the tomb and the pulpit, which has received, in accordance with a tradition of the Prophet, the name of the Garden (rauda), and is decorated with barbaric attempts to carry out this idea in colour. 7 The throng of visitors passing along the south wall from the Bab el-Salam to salute the tombs is separated from the Garden by a wooden partition about 8 feet high, painted in arabesques. The other three sides of the interior court h;ve porticos of less depth and mean aspect, with three or four rows of pillars. Within the court are the well of the Prophet and some palm trees said to have been planted by Fatima. The original mosque was a low building of brick roofed with palm branches, and much smaller than the present structure. The wooden pulpit from which Mohammed preached appears to have stood on the same place with the present pulpit in the middle of the south portico. The dwelling of the Prophet and the huts of his women adjoined the mosque. Mohammed died in the hut of Aisha, and was buried where he died; Abubekr and Omar were afterwards buried beside him. Now in 711 A.D. the mosque, which had previously been enlarged by Omar and Othman, was entirely reconstructed on a grander scale and in Byzantine style by Greek and Coptic artificers at the command of the caliph Walicl and under the direction of Omar ibn Abd el- Azfz. The enlarged plan included the huts above named, which were pulled down. Thus the place of the Prophet s burial was brought within the mosque ; but the recorded discontent of the city at this step shows that the feeling which regards the tomb as the great glory of the mosque, and the pilgrimage to it as the most meritorious that can be undertaken except that to Mecca, was still quite unknown. It is not even certain entered Medina, and the site of the first mosque in which he prayed. It lies amidst orchards in the richest part of the oasis 6 The space between the railing and the tomb is seldom entered except by the servants of the mosque. It contains the treasures of the mosque in jewels and plate, which wore once very considerable but have been repeatedly plundered, last of all by the Wahhabis in the beginning of the present century. 7 Tbi word rauda also means a mausoleum, and is applied by Ibn Jubair to the tomli itself. Thus the. tradition that the space between the pulpit and tomb was called by the Prophet one of the gardens of Paradise probably arose from a mistake.