Having performed the greater ablution, and used the toothstick as
directed, and dressed ourselves in white clothes, which the Apostle
loved, we were ready to start upon our holy errand. As my foot still
gave me great pain, Shaykh Hamid sent for a donkey. A wretched animal
appeared, raw-backed, lame of one leg, and wanting an ear, with
accoutrements to match, a pack-saddle without stirrups, and a halter
instead of a bridle. Such as the brute was, however, I had to mount it,
and to ride through the Misri gate, to the wonder of certain Badawin,
who, like the Indians, despise the ass.
"Honourable is the riding of a horse to the rider,
But the mule is a dishonour, and the donkey a disgrace,"
says their song. The Turkish pilgrims, however, who appear to take a
pride in ignoring all Arab points of prejudice, generally mount donkeys
when they cannot walk. The Badawin therefore settled among themselves,
audibly enough, that I was an Osmanli, who of course could not
understand Arabic, and they put the question generally,
"By what curse of Allah had they been subjected to ass-riders?"
But Shaykh Hamid is lecturing me upon the subject of the Mosque.
The Masjid Al-Nabawi, or the Prophet's Mosque, is one of the Haramayn,
or the "two sanctuaries" of Al-Islam,
[p.305] and is the second of the three[FN#1] most venerable places of
worship in the world; the other two being the Masjid al-Harim at Meccah
(connected with Abraham) and the Masjid al-Aksa of Jerusalem (the
peculiar place of Solomon). A Hadis or traditional saying of Mohammed
asserts, "One prayer in this my Mosque is more efficacious than a
thousand in other places, save only the Masjid al-Harim.[FN#2]" It is
therefore the visitor's duty, as long as he stays at Al-Madinah, to
pray there the five times per diem, to pass the day in it reading the
Koran, and the night, if possible, in watching and devotion.
A visit to the Masjid al-Nabawi, and the holy spots within it, is
technically called "Ziyarat" or Visitation.[FN#3] An essential
difference is made between this rite and Hajj or pilgrimage. The latter
is obligatory by Koranic order upon every Moslem once in his life: the
former is only a meritorious action. "Tawaf," or circumambulation of
the House of Allah at Meccah, must never be performed at the Apostle's
tomb. This should not be visited in the Ihram or pilgrim dress; men
should not kiss it, touch it with the hand, or press the bosom against
it, as at the Ka'abah; or rub the face with dust collected near the
sepulchre; and those who prostrate themselves before it, like certain
ignorant Indians, are held to be
[p.306] guilty of deadly sin. On the other hand, to spit upon any part
of the Mosque, or to treat it with contempt, is held to be the act of
an Infidel.
Thus the learned and religious have settled, one would have thought,
accurately enough the spiritual rank and dignity of the Masjid
al-Nabawi. But mankind, especially in the East, must always be in
extremes. The orthodox school of Al-Malik holds Al-Madinah, on account
of the sanctity of, and the religious benefits to be derived from,
Mohammed's tomb, more honourable than Meccah. Some declare that the
Apostle preferred his place of refuge, blessing it as Abraham did
Meccah. Moreover, as a tradition declares that every man's body is
drawn from the ground in which he is buried, Al-Madinah evidently had
the honour of supplying materials for the Apostle's person. Others,
like Omar, were uncertain which to prefer. The Wahhabis, on the other
hand, rejecting the Intercession of the Apostle on the Day of Judgment,
considering the grave of a mere mortal unworthy of notice, and highly
disgusted by the idolatrous respect paid to it by certain foolish
Moslems, plundered the sacred building with sacrilegious violence, and
forbade visitors from distant countries to enter Al-Madinah.[FN#4]
The general consensus of Al-Islam admits the superiority of the Bayt
Allah ("House of God") at Meccah to the whole world; and declares
Al-Madinah to be more venerable than every part of Meccah, and
consequently all the earth, except only the Bayt Allah. This last is a
juste milieu view by no means in favour with the inhabitants of either
place. In the meanwhile the Meccans claim unlimited superiority over
the Madani: the Madani over the Meccans.
[p.307]Passing through muddy streets,-they had been freshly watered
before evening time,-I came suddenly upon the Mosque. Like that at
Meccah, the approach is choked up by ignoble buildings, some actually
touching the holy "enceinte," others separated by a lane compared with
which the road round St. Paul's is a Vatican Square.[FN#5] There is no
outer front, no general prospect of the Prophet's Mosque; consequently,
as a building, it has neither beauty nor dignity.
And entering the Bab al-Rahmah[FN#6]-the Gate of Pity,-by a diminutive
flight of steps, I was astonished at the mean and tawdry appearance of
a place so universally venerated in the Moslem world. It is not, like
the Meccan Temple, grand and simple, the expression of a single sublime
idea: the longer I looked at it, the more it suggested the resemblance
of a museum of second-rate art, an old Curiosity-shop, full of
ornaments that are not accessories, and decorated with pauper splendour.
The Masjid al-Nabi is a parallelogram about four hundred and twenty
feet in length by three hundred and forty broad, the direction of the
long walls being nearly north and south. As usual in Al-Islam, it is a
hypaethral building with a spacious central area, called Al-Sahn,
Al-Hosh, Al-Haswah, or Al-Ramlah,[FN#7] surrounded by a peristyle with
numerous rows of pillars like the colonnades of an Italian cloister.
The arcades or porticoes are flat-ceilinged, domed above with the small
Media
[p.308] Naranja, or half-orange cupola of Spain, and divided into four
parts by narrow passages, three or four steps below the level of the
pavement. Along the whole inner length of the Northern short wall runs
the Majidi Riwak, so called from the then reigning Sultan.[FN#8] The
Western long wall is occupied by the Riwak of the Rahmah Gate; the
Eastern by that of the Bab al-Nisa, the "Women's Entrance.[FN#9]"
Embracing the inner length of the Southern short wall, and deeper by
nearly treble the amount of columns than the other porticoes, is the
main colonnade, called Al-Rauzah[FN#10] (the Garden), the adytum
containing all that is venerable in the building. These four Riwaks,
arched externally, are supported internally by pillars of different
shape and material, varying from fine porphyry to dirty plaster. The
Southern, where the sepulchre or cenotaph stands, is paved with
handsome slabs of white marble and marquetry work, here and there
covered with coarse matting, and above this by unclean carpets, well
worn by faithful feet.[FN#11]
But this is not the time for Tafarruj or lionising.
[p.309] Shaykh Hamid warns me, with a nudge, that other things are
expected of a Zair (visitor). He leads me to the Bab al-Salam, fighting
his way through a troop of beggars, and inquires markedly if I am
religiously pure.[FN#12] Then, placing our hands a little below and on
the left of the waist, the palm of the right covering the back of the
left, in the position of prayer, and beginning with the dexter
feet,[FN#13] we pace slowly forwards down the line called the Muwajihat
al-Sharifah, or "the Illustrous Fronting," which, divided off like an
aisle, runs parallel with the Southern wall of the Mosque. On my right
hand walks the Shaykh, who recites aloud the following prayer, making
me repeat it after him.[FN#14] It is literally rendered, as, indeed,
are all the formulae, and the reader is requested to excuse the
barbarous fidelity of the translation.
"In the Name of Allah and in the faith of Allah's Apostle! O Lord,
cause me to enter the Entering of Truth, and cause me to issue forth
the Issuing of Truth, and permit me to draw near to Thee, and make me a
Sultan Victorious[FN#15]!" Then follow blessings upon the Apostle, and
afterwards: "O Allah! open to me the Doors of Thy Mercy, and grant me
Entrance into it, and protect me from the Stoned Devil!"
During this preliminary prayer we had passed down two-thirds of the
Muwajihat al-Sharifah. On the left hand is a dwarf wall, about the
height of a man, painted with arabesques, and pierced with four small
doors which
[p.310] open into the Muwajihat. In this barrier are sundry small
erections, the niche called the Mihrab Sulaymani,[FN#16] the Mambar, or
pulpit, and the Mihrab al-Nabawi.[FN#17]
The two niches are of beautiful mosaic, richly worked with various
coloured marbles, and the pulpit is a graceful collection of slender
columns, elegant tracery, and inscriptions admirably carved. Arrived at
the Western small door in the dwarf wall, we entered the celebrated
spot called Al-Rauzah, after a saying of the Apostle's, "Between my
Tomb and my Pulpit is a Garden of the Gardens of Paradise.[FN#18]" On
the North and West sides it is
[p.311] not divided from the rest of the portico; on the South runs the
dwarf wall, and on the East it is limited by the west end of the
lattice-work containing the tomb.
Accompanied by my Muzawwir I entered the Rauzah, and was placed by him
with the Mukabbariyah[FN#19] behind me, fronting Meccah, with my right
shoulder opposite to, and about twenty feet distant from, the dexter
pillar of the Apostle's Pulpit.[FN#20] There, after saying the
afternoon prayers,[FN#21] I performed the usual two bows in honour of
the temple,[FN#22] and at the end of them recited the hundred and ninth
and the hundred and twelfth chapters of the Koran-the "Kul, ya
ayyuha'l-Kafiruna," and the "Surat al-Ikhlas," called also the "Kul,
Huw' Allah," or the Declaration of Unity; and may be thus translated:
"Say, He is the one God!
"The eternal God!
"He begets not, nor is He begot!
[p.312] "And unto Him the like is not."
After which was performed a single Sujdah (Prostration) of
Thanks,[FN#23] in gratitude to Allah for making it my fate to visit so
holy a spot.
This being the recognised time to give alms, I was besieged by beggars,
who spread their napkins before us on the ground, sprinkled with a few
coppers to excite generosity. But not wishing to be distracted by them,
before leaving Hamid's house I had changed two dollars, and had given
the coin to the boy Mohammed, who accompanied me, strictly charging him
to make that sum last through the Mosque.
My answer to the beggars was a reference to my attendant, backed by the
simple action of turning my pockets inside out; and, whilst he was
battling with the beggars, I proceeded to cast my first coup-d'oeil
upon the Rauzah.
The "Garden" is the most elaborate part of the Mosque. Little can be
said in its praise by day, when it bears the same relation to a
second-rate church in Rome as an English chapel-of-ease to Westminster
Abbey. It is a space of about eighty feet in length, tawdrily decorated
so as to resemble a garden. The carpets are flowered, and the pediments
of the columns are cased with bright green tiles, and adorned to the
height of a man with gaudy and unnatural vegetation in arabesque. It is
disfigured by handsome branched candelabras of cut crystal, the work, I
believe, of a London house, and presented to the shrine by the late
Abbas Pasha of Egypt.[FN#24]