A Dictionary of Islam Being a cyclopedia of the...

The black colour of the kiswah, covering a large cube in the midst of a vast square, gives to the Kaʿbah, at first sight, a very singular and imposing appearance; as it is not fastened down tightly, the slightest breeze causes it to move in slow undulations, which are hailed with prayers by the congregation assembled round the building, as a sign of the presence of its guardian angels, whose wings, by their motion, are supposed to be the cause of the waving of the covering. Seventy thousand angels have the Kaʿbah in their holy care, and are ordered to transport it to Paradise, when the trumpet of the Last Judgment shall be sounded.

The clothing of the Kaʿbah was an ancient custom of the Pagan Arabs. The first kiswah, says Azraqī, was put on by Asad Tubbaʿ, one of the Ḥimyarite kings of Yaman; before Islām, it had two coverings, one for winter and the other for summer. In the early ages of Islām, it was sometimes white and sometimes red, and consisted of the richest brocade. In subsequent times it was furnished by the different Sultāns of Bagẖdad, Egypt, or Yaman, according to their respective influence over Makkah prevailed; for the clothing of the Kaʿbah appears to have always been considered as a proof of sovereignty over the Ḥijāz. Kalaun, Sultān of Egypt, assumed to himself and successors the exclusive right, and from them the Sultāns at Constantinople have inherited it. Kalaun appropriated the revenue of the two large villages, Bisaus and Sandabair, in Lower Egypt, to the expense of the kiswah, and Sultān Sulaiman ibn Salīm subsequently added several others; but the Kaʿbah has long been deprived of this resource.

Round the Kaʿbah is a good pavement of marble, about eight inches below the level of the great square; it was laid in A.H. 981, by order of the Sultān, and describes an irregular oval; it is surrounded by thirty-two slender gilt pillars, or rather poles, between every two of which are suspended seven glass lamps, always lighted after sunset. Beyond the poles is a second pavement, about eight paces broad, somewhat elevated above the first, but of coarser work; then another, six inches higher, and eighteen paces broad, upon which stand several small buildings; beyond this is the gravelled ground, so that two broad steps may be said to lead from the square down to the Kaʿbah. The small buildings just mentioned, which surround the Kaʿbah, are the five Maqāms, with the wall of Zamzam, the arch called Bābu ʾs-Salām (the Gate of Peace), and the mimbar (pulpit).

Opposite the four sides of the Kaʿbah stand four other small buildings, where the Imāms of the four orthodox Muḥammadan sects, the Ḥanafī, Shāfiʿī, Ḥanbalī, and Malakī, take their station, and guide the congregation in their prayers. The Maqāmu ʾl-Malakī, on the south, and that of Ḥanbalī, opposite the Black Stone, are small pavilions, open on all sides, and supported by four slender pillars, with a light sloping roof, terminating in a point, exactly in the style of Indian pagodas.

The Maqāmu ʾl-Ḥanafī, which is the largest, being fifteen paces by eight, is open on all sides, and supported by twelve small pillars; it has an upper storey, also open, where the Muʾaẕẕin, who calls to prayers, takes his stand. This was first built in A.H. 923, by Sultān Salīm I.; it was afterwards rebuilt by K͟hushgildī, Governor of Jiddah, in A.H. 947; but all the four Maqāms, as they now stand, were built in A.H. 1074. The Maqāmu ʾsh-Shāfiʿī is over the well Zamzam, to which it serves as an upper chamber.

Near their respective Maqāms, the adherents of the four different sects seat themselves for prayers. During my stay at Makkah, the Ḥanafīs always began their prayer first; but, according to Muslim custom, the Shāfiʿīs should pray first in the mosque, then the Ḥanafīs, Malakīs, and Ḥanbalīs. The evening prayer is an exception, which they are all enjoined to utter together. The Maqāmu ʾl-Ḥanbalī is the place where the officers of government and other great people are seated during prayers; here the Pasha and the Sharīf are placed, and, in their absence the eunuchs of the temple. These fill the space under this Maqām in front, and behind it the female pilgrims who visit the temple have their places assigned, to which they repair principally for the two evening prayers, few of them being seen in the mosque at the three other daily prayers. They also perform the t̤awāf, or walk round the Kaʿbah, but generally at night, though it is not uncommon to see them walking in the daytime among the men.

The present building which encloses Zamzam, stands close by the Maqāmu ʾl-Ḥanbalī, and was erected in A.H. 1072; it is of a square shape, and of massive construction, with an entrance to the north, opening into the room which contains the well. This room is beautifully ornamented with marbles of various colours; and adjoining to it, but having a separate door, is a small room with a stone reservoir, which is always full of Zamzam water; this the pilgrims get to drink by passing their hand with a cup through an iron grated opening, which serves as a window, into the reservoir, without entering the room.

The mouth of the well is surrounded by a wall five feet in height, and about ten feet in diameter. Upon this the people stand who draw up the water, in leathern buckets, an iron railing being so placed as to prevent their falling in. In Fasy’s time, there were eight marble basins in this room for the purpose of ablution.

From before dawn to near midnight, the well-room is constantly crowded with visitors. Everyone is at liberty to draw up the water for himself, but the labour is generally performed by persons placed there on purpose, and paid by the mosque; they expect also a trifle from those who come to drink, though they dare not demand it. I have been more than once in the room a quarter of an hour before I could get a draught of water, so great was the crowd. Devout pilgrims sometimes mount the wall and draw the bucket for several hours, in the hope of thus expiating their evil deeds.

Before the Wahhābī invasion, the well Zamzam belonged to the Sharīf, and the water becoming thus a monopoly, was only to be purchased at a high price; but one of Saʿūd’s first orders, on his arrival at Makkah, was to abolish this traffic, and the holy water is now dispensed gratis. The Turks consider it a miracle that the water of this well never diminishes, notwithstanding the continual draught from it. There is certainly no diminution in its depth, for, by an accurate inspection of the rope by which the buckets are drawn up, I found that the same length was required both at morning and evening, to reach the surface of the water. Upon inquiry, I learned from one of the persons who had descended in the time of the Wahhābīs to repair the masonry, that the water was flowing at the bottom, and that the well is therefore supplied by a subterraneous rivulet. The water is heavy to the taste, and sometimes in its colour resembles milk; but it is perfectly sweet, and differs very much from that of the brackish wells dispersed over the town. When first drawn up, it is slightly tepid, resembling, in this respect, many other fountains of the Ḥijāz.

Zamzam supplies the whole town, and there is scarcely one family that does not daily fill a jar with the water. This only serves, however, for drinking or for ablution, as it is thought impious to employ water so sacred for culinary purposes or on common occasions. Almost every pilgrim when he repairs to the mosque for evening prayer, has a jar of the water placed before him by those who earn their livelihood by performing this service.

The water is distributed in the mosque to all who are thirsty for a trifling fee, by water-carriers, with large jars upon their backs; these men are also paid by charitable pilgrims for supplying the poorer ones with this holy beverage immediately before or after prayers.

The water is regarded as an infallible cure for all diseases; and the devotees believe that the more they drink of it, the better their health will be, and their prayers the more acceptable to the Deity. I have seen some of them at the well swallowing such a quantity of it, as I should hardly have thought possible. A man who lived in the same house with me, and was ill of an intermittent fever, repaired every evening to Zamzam, and drank of the water till he was almost fainting; after which he lay for several hours extended upon his back, on the pavement near the Kaʿbah, and then returned to renew his draught. When by this practice he was brought to the verge of death, he declared himself fully convinced that the increase of his illness proceeded wholly from his being unable to swallow a sufficient quantity of the water. Many pilgrims, not content with drinking it merely, strip themselves in the room, and have buckets of it thrown over them, by which they believe that the heart is purified as well as the outer body.

Few pilgrims quit Makkah without carrying away some of this water in copper or tin bottles, either for the purpose of making presents, or for their own use in case of illness, when they drink it, or for ablution after death. I carried away four small bottles, with the intention of offering them as presents to the Muḥammadan kings in the black countries. I have seen it sold at Suez by pilgrims returning from Makkah, at the rate of one piastre for the quantity that filled a coffee-cup.

The chief of Zamzam is one of the principal ʿUlamāʾ of Makkah. I need not remind the reader that Zamzam is supposed to be the spring found in the wilderness by Hagar, at the moment when her infant son Ishmael was dying of thirst. It seems probable that the town of Makkah owes its origin to this well. For many miles round, no sweet water is found, nor is there found in any part of the adjacent country so copious a supply.

On the north-east side of Zamzam stand two small buildings, one behind the other, called al-Qubbatain; they are covered by domes painted in the same manner as the mosque, and in them are kept water-jars, lamps, carpets, mats, brooms, and other articles used in the very mosque. These two ugly buildings are injurious to the interior appearance of the building, their heavy forms and structure being very disadvantageously contrasted with the light and airy shape of the Maqāms. I heard some pilgrims from Greece, men of better taste than the Arabs, express their regret that the Qubbatain should be allowed to disfigure the mosque. Their contents might be deposited in some of the buildings adjoining the mosque, of which they form no essential part, no religious importance being attached to them. They were built by K͟hushgildī, Governor of Jiddah, A.H. 947; one is called Qubbatu ʾl-ʿAbbās, from having been placed on the site of a small tank, said to have been formed by al-ʿAbbās, the uncle of Muḥammad.

A few paces west of Zamzam, and directly opposite to the door of the Kaʿbah, stands a ladder or staircase, which is moved up to the wall of the Kaʿbah, on the days when that building is opened, and by which the visitors ascend to the door; it is of wood, with some carved ornaments, moves on low wheels, and is sufficiently broad to admit of four persons ascending abreast. The first ladder was sent hither from Cairo in A.H. 818, by Muʾyad Abū ʾn-Nāṣir, King of Egypt; for in the Ḥijāz, it seems, there has always been so great a want of artizans, that whenever the mosque required any work, it was necessary to have mechanics brought from Cairo, and even sometimes from Constantinople.

In the same line with the ladder, and close by it stands a lightly-built, insulated, and circular arch, about fifteen feet wide and eighteen feet high, called Bābu ʾs-Salām, which must not be confounded with the great gate of the mosque bearing the same name. Those who enter the Baitu ʾllāh for the first time, are enjoined to do so by the outer and inner Bābu ʾs-Salām; in passing under the latter, they are to exclaim, “O God, may it be a happy entrance!” I do not know by whom this arch was built, but it appears to be modern.

Nearly in front of the Bābu ʾs-Salām, and nearer to the Kaʿbah than any of the other surrounding buildings, stands the Maqāmu Ibrāhīm. This is a small building, supported by six pillars about eight feet high, four of which are surrounded from top to bottom by a fine iron railing, which thus leaves the space beyond the two hind pillars open; within the railing is a frame about five feet square, terminating in a pyramidal top, and said to contain the sacred stone upon which Abraham stood when he built the Kaʿbah, and which, with the help of his son Ishmael, he had removed from hence to the place called Miʿjan, already mentioned. The stone is said to have yielded under the weight of the Patriarch, and to preserve the impression of his foot still visible upon it; but no pilgrim has ever seen it, as the frame is always entirely covered with a brocade of red silk richly embroidered. Persons are constantly seen before the railing, invoking the good offices of Abraham, and a short prayer must be uttered by the side of the Maqām, after the walk round the Kaʿbah is completed. It is said that many of the Companions, or first adherents of Muḥammad, were interred in the open space between this Maqām and Zamzam, from which circumstance it is one of the most favourite places of prayer in the mosque. In this part of the area, the K͟halīfah Sulaimān ibn ʿAbdi ʾl-Malik, brother of al-Walīd, built a fine reservoir in A.H. 97, which was filled from a spring east of ʿArafāt; but the Makkans destroyed it after his death, on the pretence that the water of Zamzam was preferable.

On the side of Maqāmu Ibrāhīm, facing the middle part of the front of the Kaʿbah, stands the Mimbar, or pulpit, of the mosque; it is elegantly formed of fine white marble, with many sculptured ornaments, and was sent as a present to the mosque in A.H. 969, by Sultān Sulaimān ibn Salīm. A straight narrow staircase leads up to the post of the k͟hat̤īb, or preacher, which is surmounted by a gilt polygonal pointed steeple, resembling an obelisk. Here a sermon is preached on Fridays, and on certain festivals; these, like the Friday sermons of all mosques in the Muḥammadan countries, are usually of the same tenour, with some slight alterations upon extraordinary occasions. Before the Wahhābīs invaded Makkah, prayers were added for the Sultān and the Sharīf; but these were forbidden by Saʿūd. Since the Turkish conquest, however, the ancient custom has been restored. The right of preaching in the Mimbar is vested in several of the first ʿUlamāʾ in Makkah; they are always elderly persons, and officiate in rotation. In ancient times Muḥammad himself, his successors, and the K͟halīfahs, whenever they came to Makkah, mounted the pulpit, and preached to the people.

The k͟hat̤īb, or preacher, appears in the Mimbar wrapped in a white cloak, which covers his head and body, and with a stick in hand; a practice observed also in Egypt and Syria, in memory of the first age of Islām, when the preachers found it necessary to be armed, from fear of being surprised. As in other mosques, two green flags are placed on each side of him.

About the Mimbar, the visitors of the Kaʿbah deposit their shoes; as it is neither permitted to walk round the Kaʿbah with covered feet, nor thought decent to carry the shoes in the hand, as is done in other mosques. Several persons keep watch over the shoes, for which they expect a small present; but the vicinity of the holy temple does not intimidate the dishonest, for I lost successively from this spot three new pairs of shoes; and the same thing happens to many pilgrims.

The gravel-ground, and part of the adjoining outer pavement of the Kaʿbah 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 pilgrims 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 pilgrims, for which they have in return the satisfaction of seeing their names inscribed on them in large characters.

At sunset, great numbers assemble for the first evening prayer; they form themselves into several wide circles, sometimes as many as twenty, around the Kaʿbah, as a common centre before which every person makes his prostration; and thus, as the Muḥammadan doctors observe, Makkah is the only spot throughout the world in which the true believer can, with propriety, turn during his prayers towards any point of the compass. The Imām takes his post near the gate of the Kaʿbah, and his genuflexions are imitated by the whole assembled multitude. The effect of the joint prostrations of six or eight thousand persons, added to the recollection of the distance and various quarters from whence they come, or for what purpose, cannot fail to impress the most cool-minded spectator with some degree of awe. At night, when the lamps are lighted, and numbers of devotees are performing the T̤awāf round the Kaʿbah, the sight of the busy crowds, the voices of the Mut̤awwifs, intent upon making themselves heard by those to whom they recite their prayers, the loud conversation of many idle persons, the running, playing, and laughing of boys, give to the whole a very different appearance, and one more resembling that of a place of public amusement. The crowd, however, leaves the mosque about nine o’clock, when it again becomes the place of silent meditation and prayer to the few visitors who are led to the spot by sincere piety, and not worldly motives or fashion.

There is an opinion prevalent at Makkah, founded on holy tradition, that the mosque will contain any number of the faithful; and that if even the whole Muḥammadan 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 Makkans, contrary to the injunctions of the law, pray at home, if at all, and many pilgrims follow their example. I could never count more than ten thousand individuals in the mosque at one time, even after the return from ʿArafāt, when the whole body of pilgrims was collected for a few days in and about the city.

At every hour of the day persons may be seen under the colonnade, occupied in reading the Qurʾān and other religious books; and here many poor Indians, or negroes, spread their mats, and pass the whole period of their residence at Makkah. Here they both eat and sleep; but cooking is not allowed. During the hours of noon, many persons come to repose beneath the cool shade of the vaulted roof of the colonnade; a custom which not only accounts for the mode of construction observed in the old Muḥammadan temples of Egypt and Arabia, but for that also of the ancient Egyptian temples, the immense porticoes of which were probably left open to the idolatrous natives, whose mud-built houses could afford them but an imperfect refuge against the mid-day heats.

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 al-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 prayer, not the slightest motion, nor even whisper, diverts the attention of the congregation. Not a sound but the voice of the Imām, is heard during prayers in the great mosque at Makkah, 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 pilgrims, or of diseased persons lying about under the colonnade, in midst of their miserable baggage, as to have the appearance of a 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 Makkah resembles the other great mosques of the East. But the holy Kaʿbah 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 are most noisy groups, and the schoolmaster’s stick is in constant action. Some learned men of Makkah deliver lectures on religious subjects every afternoon under the colonnade, but the auditors are seldom numerous. On Fridays, after prayer, some Turkish ʿUlamāʾ explain to their countrymen assembled around them a few chapters of the Qurʾān, after which each of the audience kisses the hand of the expositor, and drops money into his cap. I particularly admired the fluency of speech of one of these ʿUlamāʾ, although I did not understand him, the lecture being delivered in the Turkish language. His gesticulations, and the inflexions of his voice, were most expressive; but, like an actor on the stage, he would laugh and cry in the same minute, and adapt his features to his purpose in the most skilful manner. He was a native of Brusa, and amassed a considerable sum of money.

Winding sheets (kafan) and other linen washed in the waters of Zamzam, are constantly seen hanging to dry between the columns. Many pilgrims purchase at Makkah the shroud in which they wish to be buried, and wash it themselves at the well of Zamzam, 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 pilgrims make this linen an article of traffic.

Makkah generally, but the mosque in particular, abounds in flocks of wild pigeons, which are considered to be the inviolable property of the temple, and are called the pigeons of the Baitu ʾllāh. 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 for sale, upon small straw mats, corn and durrah, which the pilgrims purchase, and throw to the pigeons. I have seen some of the public women take this mode of exhibiting themselves, and of bargaining with the pilgrims, under pretence of selling them corn for the sacred pigeons.

The gates of the mosque are nineteen in number, and are distributed about it, without any order or symmetry. The principal of these gates are: on the north side, Bābu ʾs-Salām, by which every pilgrim enters the mosque; Bābu ʾl-ʿAbbās; Bābu ʾn-Nabī, by which Muḥammad is said to have always entered the mosque; Bābu ʿAlī. On the east side: Bābu Zai, or Bābu ʾl-ʿAshrah, through which the ten first adherents of Muḥammad used to enter; Bābu ʾṣ-Ṣafā; two gates called Bībānu ʾsh-Sharīf, opposite the palaces of the Sharīf. On the south side: Bābu Ibrāhīm, where the colonnade projects beyond the straight line of the columns, and forms a small square; Bābu ʾl-ʿUmrah, through which it is necessary to pass, on visiting the ʿUmrah. On the west side: Bābu ʾz-Ziyādah, forming a projecting square similar to that at Bābu Ibrāhīm, 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 Ḥijāz, are nearly semicircular. 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 Kaʿbah, and thus make up the number thirty-nine.

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 pilgrims, 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. Pilgrims living in these apartments are allowed to perform the Friday’s prayers at home, because, having the Kaʿbah 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 Zamzam jars, or to less opulent pilgrims 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 Madrasah implies; they are now all let out to pilgrims. In one of the largest of them, Muḥammad ʿAlī Pasha lived; in another Ḥasan Pasha.

Close to Bābu Ibrāhīm is a large madrasah, now the property of Saiyid Ageyl, one of the principal merchants of the town, whose warehouse opens into the mosque. This person, who is aged, has the reputation of great sanctity; and it is said that the hand of the Sharīf G͟hālib, when once in the act of collaring him for refusing to advance some money, was momentarily struck with palsy. He has evening assemblies in his house, where theological books are read, and religious topics discussed.

Among other buildings forming the enclosure of the mosque, is the Miḥkam, or house of justice, close by the Bābu ʾz-Ziyādah; 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 Qāẓī. Adjoining to it stands a large Madrasah, enclosing a square, known by the name of Madrasah Sulaimān, built by Sultān Sulaimān and his son Salīm II., in A.H. 973. It is always well filled with Turkish pilgrims, the friends of the Qāẓī, who disposes of the lodgings.

The exterior of the mosque is adorned with seven minarets, irregularly distributed: 1. Minaret of Bābu ʾl-ʿUmrah; 2. of Bābu ʾs-Salām; 3. of Bābu ʿAlī; 4. of Bābu ʾl-Wadāʿ; 5. of Madrasah Kail Beg; 6. of Bābu ʾz-Ziyādah; 7. of Madrasah Sultān Sulaimān. 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. (Taken, with slight alterations, chiefly in the spelling of Arabic words and names, from Burckhardt’s Travels in Arabia, vol. i. p. 243.)