Part 12

I have now described all the buildings within the enclosure of the Temple. [The ground-plan of the Temple given by Aly Bey el Abbassi is perfectly correct. This cannot be said of his plan of Mekka, nor of his different views in the Hedjaz: a comparison of my description with his work will show in what points I differ from him, as well in regard to the temple, as to the town and its inhabitants. His travels came to my hands after I had returned from Arabia. The view of the mosque given by d’Ohsson, in his valuable work, is tolerably correct, except that the Kaaba is too large in proportion to the rest of the building. The view of the town of Mekka, on the contrary, is very unfaithful. That in Niebuhr, which was copied from an ancient Arabic drawing, is less accurate than d’Ohsson’s. The original seems to have been taken before the last alterations made in the buildings of the Temple.]

The gravel-ground, and part of the adjoining outer pavement of the Kaaba, is covered, at the time of evening prayers, with carpets of from sixty to eighty feet in length, and four feet in breadth, of Egyptian manufacture, which are rolled up after prayers. The greater part of the hadjys bring their own carpets with them. The more distant parts of the area, and the floor under the colonnade, are spread with mats, brought from Souakin; the latter situation being the usual place for the performance of the mid-day and afternoon prayers. Many of these mats are presented to the mosque by the hadjys, for which they have in return the satisfaction of seeing their names inscribed on them in large characters.

At sun-set, great numbers assemble for the first evening prayer: they form themselves into several wide circles, sometimes as many as

There is an opinion prevalent at Mekka, founded on holy tradition, that the mosque will contain any number of the faithful; and that if even the whole Mohammedan community were to enter at once, they would all find room in it to pray. The guardian angels, it is said, would invisibly extend the dimensions of the building, and diminish the size of each individual. The fact is, that during the most numerous pilgrimages, the mosque, which can contain, I believe, about thirty-five thousand persons in the act of prayer, is never half filled. Even on Fridays, the greater part of the Mekkawys, contrary to the injunctions of the law, pray at home, if at all, and many hadjys follow their example. I could never count more than ten thousand individuals in the mosque at one time, even after the return from Arafat, when the whole body of hadjys were collected, for a few days, in and about the city.

At every hour of the day persons may be seen under the colonnade,

It is only during the hours of prayer that the great mosques of these countries partake of the sanctity of prayer, or in any degree seem to be regarded as consecrated places. In El Azhar, the first mosque at Cairo, I have seen boys crying pancakes for sale, barbers shaving their customers, and many of the lower orders eating their dinners, where, during prayers, not the slightest motion, nor even whisper, diverts the attention of the congregation. Not a sound but the voice of the Imam is heard during prayers in the great mosque at Mekka, which at other times is the place of meeting for men of business to converse on their affairs, and is sometimes so full of poor hadjys, or of diseased persons lying about under the colonnade, in the midst of their miserable baggage, as to have the appearance of an hospital rather than a temple. Boys play in the great square, and servants carry luggage across it, to pass by the nearest route from one part of the town to the other. In these respects, the temple of Mekka resembles the other great mosques of the East. But the holy Kaaba is rendered the scene of such indecencies and criminal acts, as cannot with propriety be more particularly noticed. They are not only practised here with impunity, but, it may be said, almost publicly; and my indignation has often been excited, on witnessing abominations which called forth from other passing spectators nothing more than a laugh or a slight reprimand.

In several parts of the colonnade, public schools are held, where young children are taught to spell and read: they form most noisy

Near the gate of the mosque called Bab-es’-Salam, a few Arab Sheikhs daily take their seat, with their ink-stand and paper, ready to write, for any applicant, letters, accounts, contracts, or any similar document. They also deal in written charms, like those current in the Black countries, such as amulets, and love-receipts, called “Kotob muhbat o kuboul.” They are principally employed by Bedouins, and demand an exorbitant remuneration.

Winding-sheets (keffen), and other linen washed in the waters of Zemzem, are constantly seen hanging to dry between the columns. Many hadjys purchase at Mekka the shroud in which they wish to be buried, and wash it themselves at the well of Zemzem, supposing that, if the corpse be wrapped in linen which has been wetted with this holy water, the peace of the soul after death will be more effectually secured. Some hadjys make this linen an article of traffic.

Mekka generally, but the mosque in particular, abounds with flocks of wild pigeons, which are considered to be the inviolable property of the temple, and are called the Pigeons of the Beitullah. Nobody dares to kill any of them, even when they enter the private houses. In the square of the mosque, several small stone basins are regularly filled with water for their use; here also Arab women expose to sale, upon small straw mats, corn and durra, which the pilgrims

The gates of the mosque are nineteen in number, and are distributed about it, without any order or symmetry. I subjoin their names, as they are usually written upon small cards by the Metowefs: in another column are the names by which they were known in more ancient times, principally taken from Azraky and Kotoby.

Modern Names. Ancient Names.

Bab-es’-Salam, composed of 3 Bab beni Sheybe. smaller gates, or arches. Bab el Neby 2 Bab el Djenaiz, The dead being carried through it to the mosque, that prayers may be said over their bodies. Bab el Abbas. 3 Bab Sertakat. Opposite to this the house of Abbas once stood. Bab Aly 3 Bab Beni Hashem. Bab el Zeyt 2 Bab Bazan. Bab el Ashra Bab el Baghle 2 Bab el Szafa 5 Bab Beni Makhzoum. Bab Sherif 2 Bab el Djyad. Bab Medjahed 2 Bab el Dokhmase Bab Zoleykha 2 Bab Sherif Adjelan (who built it.) Bab Om Hany. 2 So called from the daughter of Aby Taleb. Bab el Wodaa. 2 Bab el Hazoura Through which the pilgrim passes in taking his final leave of the temple. Bab Ibrahim 1 Bab el Kheyatyn, or Bab Djomah. [So called, not from Abraham, but from a tailor who had his shop near it.]

Bab el Omra 1 Through which the pilgrims issue to visit the Omra. Also called Beni Saham. Bab Ateek 1 Bab Amer Ibn el Aas, or Bab el Sedra. Bab el Bastye 1 Bab el Adjale. Bab el Kotoby 1 Bab Zyade Dar el Nedoua. [Taking its name from the famous author of a History of Mekka, who lived in an adjoining lane, and opened this small gate into the mosque. Bab Zyade 3 Bab Dereybe 1 Bab Medrese. -- Total number of arches 39

The principal of these gates are:--on the north side, Bab-es-Salam, by which every pilgrim enters the mosque; Bab Abbas; Bab el Neby, by which Mohammed is said to have always entered the mosque; Bab Aly. On the east side, Bab el Zeyt, or Bab el Ashra, through which the ten first Sahabe, or adherents of Mohammed, used to enter; Bab el Szafa; two gates called Biban el Sherif, opposite the palaces of the Sherif. On the south side, Bab Ibrahim, where the colonnade projects beyond the straight line of the columns, and forms a small square; Bab el Omra, through which it is necessary to pass, on visiting the Omra. On the west side, Bab el Zyade, forming a projecting square similar to that at Bab Ibrahim, but larger. Most of these gates have high pointed arches; but a few round arches are seen among them, which, like all the arches of this kind in the Hedjaz, are nearly semi-circular. They are without any ornament, except the inscription on the exterior, which commemorates the name of the builder; and they are all posterior in date to the fourteenth century. As each gate consists of two or three arches, or divisions, separated by narrow walls, these divisions are counted in the enumeration of the gates leading into the Kaaba, and thus make up the number thirty-nine. There being no doors to the gates, the mosque is consequently open at all

The outside walls of the mosque are those of the houses which surround it on all sides. These houses belonged originally to the mosque; the greater part are now the property of individuals, who have purchased them; they are let out to the richest hadjys, at very high prices, as much as five hundred piastres being given, during the pilgrimage, for a good apartment, with windows opening into the mosque. Windows have, in consequence, been opened in many parts of the walls, on a level with the street, and above that of the floor of the colonnades: Hadjys living in these apartments are allowed to perform the Friday’s prayers at home; because, having the Kaaba in view from the windows, they are supposed to be in the mosque itself, and to join in prayer those assembled within the temple. Upon a level with the ground-floor of the colonnades, and opening into them, are small apartments formed in the walls, having the appearance of dungeons: these have remained the property of the mosque, while the houses above them belong to private individuals. They are let out to watermen, who deposit in them the Zemzem jars; or to less opulent hadjys, who wish to live in the mosque. Some of the surrounding houses still belong to the mosque, and were originally intended for public schools, as their name of Medrese implies: they are now all let out to hadjys. In one of the largest of them, Mohammed Aly Pasha lived; in another Hassan Pasha. [One of the finest Medreses in Mekka, built by order of Kail Beg, Sultan of Egypt, in A.H. 888, in the side of the mosque fronting the street Masaa, has also become a private building, after having been deprived of its revenue by the peculation of its guardians. Besides the Medreses, there were other buildings of less extent erected by different Sultans of Egypt and Constantinople for similar purposes, called Rebat, where poor pilgrims might reside, who chose to study there; but these have shared the fate of the Medreses, and are now either the private property of Mekkawys, or let to individuals on long leases by the mosque, and used as common lodging- houses.]

Close to Bab Ibrahim is a large Medrese, now the property of Seyd Ageyl, one of the principal merchants of the town, whose ware-house opens into the mosque. This person, who is aged, has the reputation

Among other buildings forming the enclosure of the Mesjed, is the Mehkam, or house of justice, close by the Bab Zyade: it is a fine, firmly-built structure, with lofty arches in the interior, and has a row of high windows looking into the mosque. It is inhabited by the Kadhy. Adjoining to it stands a large Medrese, inclosing a square, known by the name of Medrese Soleymanye, built by Sultan Soleyman, and his son Selym II., in A.H. 973. It is always well filled with Turkish hadjys, the friends of the Kadhy, who disposes of the lodgings.

The exterior of the mosque is adorned with seven minarets, irregularly distributed:--1. Minaret of Bab el Omra; 2. of Bab el Salam; 3. of Bab Aly; 4. of Bab el Wodaa; 5. of Medrese Kail Beg; 6. of Bab el Zyade; 7. of Medreset Sultan Soleyman. They are quadrangular or round steeples, in no way differing from other minarets. The entrance to them is from the different buildings round the mosque, which they adjoin. A beautiful view of the busy crowd below is obtained by ascending the most northern one.

It will have been seen by the foregoing description, that the mosque of Mekka differs little in its construction from many other buildings of the same nature in Asia. The mosque of Zakaria at Aleppo, the great mosque called El Amouy at Damascus, and the greater number of the larger mosques at Cairo, are constructed exactly

The service of the mosque occupies a vast number of people. The Khatybs, Imams, Muftis, those attached to Zemzem, the Mueddins who call to prayers, numbers of olemas, who deliver lectures, lamp-lighters, and a crowd of menial servants, are all employed about the Beitullah. They receive regular pay from the mosque, besides what they share of the presents made to it by hadjys, for the purpose of distribution; those not made for such purpose, are reserved for the repairs of the building. The revenue of the mosque is considerable, although it has been deprived of the best branches of its income.

There are few towns or districts of the Turkish empire in which it does not possess property in land or houses; but the annual amount of this property is often withheld by provincial governors, or at least it is reduced, by the hands through which it passes, to a small proportion of its real value. El Is-haaky, in his History of Egypt, states, that in the time of Sultan Achmed, the son of Sultan Mohammed, (who died in A.H. 1027,) Egypt sent yearly to Mekka two hundred and ninety-five purses, destined principally for the mosque, and forty-eight thousand and eighty erdebs of corn. Bayazyd Ibn Sultan Mohammed Khan (in 912) fixed the income of Mekka and Medina, to be sent from Constantinople, at fourteen thousand ducats per annum, in addition to what his predecessors had already ordered; and Sultan Solyman Ibn Selym I. increased the annual income of Mekka, sent from Constantinople, which his father Selym had fixed at seven thousand erdebs of corn, to ten thousand erdebs, and five thousand for the inhabitants of

The income of the mosque must not be confounded with that of a number of Mekkawys, including many of the servants, which they derive from other pious foundations in the Turkish empire, known by the name of Surra, and of which a great part still remains untouched. The donations of the hadjys, however, are so ample as to afford abundant subsistence to the great numbers of idle persons employed about the mosque; and as long as the pilgrimage exists, there is no reason to apprehend their wanting either the necessaries or the luxuries of life.

The first officer of the mosque is the Nayb el Haram, or Hares el Haram, the guardian who keeps the keys of the Kaaba. In his hands are deposited the sums bestowed as presents to the building, and which he distributes in conjunction with the Kadhy: under his directions,

Most of the eunuchs, or Towashye, are negroes; a few were copper- coloured Indians. One of the former is sometimes sent to the Soudan countries, to collect presents for the Kaaba. The fate of a eunuch of this description is mentioned by Bruce. Some years since a Towashye obtained permission to return to Soudan, on presenting another person to the mosque in his stead. He then repaired to Borgo, west of Darfour, and is now the powerful governor of a province.

Whenever negro hadjys come to Mekka, they never fail to pay assiduous court to the Towashyes. A Towashye, after having been once attached to the service of the Kaaba, which confers on him the appellation of Towashye el Neby (the Prophet’s eunuch), can never enter into any other service.

In the time of Ramadhan, (the last days of which month, in 1814, I passed at Mekka,) the mosque is particularly brilliant. The hadjys, at that period, (which happened to be in the hottest time of the year,) generally performed the three first daily prayers at home, but assembled

The termination of the Hadj gives a very different appearance to the temple. Disease and mortality, which succeed to the fatigues endured on the journey, or are caused by the light covering of the