Page:The Northern Ḥeǧâz (1926).djvu/343

 malek, that at the various halting places on this Pilgrim Route he had reservoirs built and at some of them infirmaries for pilgrims who were sick.

No author mentions that the Omayyads had this highroad surveyed and furnished with milestones. Only in the holy bounds at Mecca did the Caliph Merwân ibn al-Ḥakam have milestones set up (Ibn Roste, Aʻlâḳ [De Goeje], p. 56). If this highroad had been furnished with milestones, the geographers would certainly have told us the distances of the various halting places in miles, as they do in the case of the highroad from al-Kûfa to al-Medîna. The older authors do not even record all the halting places from Damascus to Mecca and refer to them only in a general way without stating the distances.

Ibn Ḫordâḏbeh, Masâlik (De Goeje), p. 150, calls the first and second halting places beyond Damascus by the general name of manzal (inn), while the third he calls Ḏât al-Manâzel (the place with several inns). The first manzal certainly denotes al-Kiswe, while Ḏât al-Manâzel is Ḏerʻât, situated about 105 kilometers to the south of Damascus. Beyond this halting place the first name mentioned by him is that of Soṛar (330 km.), this being the correct reading rather than the erroneous Soraʻ of the text. Thence, according to Ibn Ḫordâḏbeh, the road leads to Tebûk, al-Muḥdaṯa, and al-Aḳraʻ. The name of this latter halting place has been preserved in the reservoir of al-Aḳraʻ, about two hundred kilometers south-southeast of Tebûk and not far from the railway station of al-Muṭallaʻ. The halting place of al-Muḥdaṯa is unknown to me, but it may be identical with the modern station of al-Muʻaẓẓam. The ancient halting place of al-Aḫẓar between al-Muʻaẓẓam and Tebûk is still remembered under this name, but there is no reference to al-Muḥdaṯa after the time of Sultan al-Malek al-Muʻaẓẓam, who had the reservoir of al-Muʻaẓẓam constructed. It is therefore probable that the old name al-Muḥdaṯa was replaced by the more modern al-Muʻaẓẓam. After al-Aḳraʻ the next halting place mentioned by Ibn Ḫordâḏbeh is al-Ǧunejne; this, however, should have come before al-Aḳraʻ and even before al-Muḥdaṯa. Al-Aḳraʻ is only forty kilometers away from the next halting place of al-Ḥeǧr, so that it is scarcely likely that there was still another halting place between them. About halfway between al-Aḫẓar and al-Muʻaẓẓam (al-Muḥdaṯa) is a place known as Ǧenâjen al-Ḳâẓi with scanty remains of the fortified building and reservoir with which all the pilgrims’ stations were provided. It is there that we may locate the ancient al-Ǧunejne. From al-Ḥeǧr the highroad proceeded to Wâdi al-Ḳura’, or the modern al-ʻEla’.

Ibn Roste, op. cit., p. 183, and Ḳodâma, Ḫarâǧ (De Goeje), p. 191, omit the first two halting places and mention the following ones in the same order as that recorded by Ibn Ḫordâḏbeh.

Al-Muḳaddasi, Aḥsan (De Goeje), pp. 249 f., states that the road leading to Tebûk begins at ʻAmmân. After two night halts it reaches Maʻân; after the same space, Tebûk; and after a further four nights it arrives at Tejma. Al-Muḳaddasi thus gives the distance from ʻAmmân to Maʻân as three days’ march, thence to Tebûk as likewise three, and from Tebûk to Tejma as five. From ʻAmmân to Maʻân is more than one hundred and ninety kilometers, so that one day’s march would work out at nearly sixty-three kilometers. The length of the daily march between Maʻân and Tebûk would be still greater, amounting to nearly