WITHIN THE HAREM--SOME REMARKS ON THE ORTHODOX SECTS OF ISLÁM
The first thing I did before entering Mecca was to perform my ablutions
and say my prayers, according to the custom; and then I rode to the
encampment on the outskirts of the city where I hoped to find two
Persian friends of mine who, in accordance with a previous arrangement
between us, had been good enough to take along with them the camp
equipment which they had bought for me at Cairo. When I had discovered
their whereabouts, I dismissed Nassir, giving him a liberal present,
and then sat down to breakfast, my friends congratulating me upon my
safe arrival.
The meal over, Seyyid ’Alí took me under his wing, urging me to
accompany him to the Harem of the House of God without loss of time,
that we might perform the initial ceremony--namely, the compassing of
the Ka’bah--in the cool of the early morning. So bidding my friends
good-bye, I set out with my guide, who was in sore straits to cloak
his native mirthfulness in the folds of his íhram. Do what he would
to conceal his natural character, he could not wholly restrain it
within the limits of decorum incumbent on every pilgrim wearing that
winding-sheet of humility.
The streets were crowded with tents, camels, mules, asses, horses,
pariah dogs, and a motley crowd of pilgrims. The din the dogs made in
the small hours of the day was indescribable. A pack of jackals would
be quiet in comparison. Through even the narrowest lanes must pass the
lordly Sheríf and his suite, the sun-baked Sheykhs on horseback, the
ladies of the harem sitting astride of mules led by their servants, the
peasant pilgrims on foot, and every kind of beast of burden heavily
laden with water-skins and provisions. Accidents were consequently of
hourly occurrence in the press of the throng. On reaching the holy
precincts, my guide turned to me and said, in a cautious undertone,
pointing to the Ka’bah in the middle of the Harem: “What need have I of
the Ka’bah? it is only four walls; the Ka’bah round which I hop is the
face of my Beloved.”
Now, the word Harem which is used to designate the courtyard of every
Muhammadan mosque, means “holy place;” and thus the famous mosque of
Mecca or, more correctly, the open court in the middle of which the
House of God is situated bears the name of Harem. The same expression
is used by the Turks to denote the inner apartments of their houses,
since the women who dwell there are held sacred to the family. The
Harem of the Holy City is an imperfect rhomboid in shape, its opposite
sides being not quite equal. The length extends from east to west and
the breadth from north to south. The northern side is one hundred and
seventy-eight yards long, and the southern one hundred and eighty,
while the western side is one hundred and eighteen yards broad, and the
eastern one hundred and seventeen. Of the twenty-two gates that give
admittance to its precincts, eight are on the northern length, four
on the eastern breadth, seven on the southern length, and three on the
western breadth. The most sacred of these gates are the Gate of Peace
(Salám) and the Gate of Purity (Safá). The Gate of Peace, through which
the pilgrims must enter, taking care to say the prescribed prayer on
its threshold, leads into the extreme north-eastern end of the Harem;
while the Gate of Safá is the one in the centre of the southern length,
through which the pilgrims must pass out in order to say their prayers
on the platform beyond, from which platform, indeed, the gate takes its
name of Purity. There are no doors to these gates, and from every one
a flight of steps conducts the Faithful down to the Harem, the surface
of which lies about twelve feet below that of the streets, dipping
gradually another three feet towards the centre, where the Ka’bah
stands; and on the walls of each gate are inscribed the names of the
four Caliphs, Abú Bekr, ’Omar, ’Othmán, and ’Alí. The Shiahs, having
rubbed their hands on the name of the fourth Caliph, raise them to
their faces, and say: “May peace be with Muhammad and with his people.”
To the best of my reckoning, there are some five hundred and
seventy-five pillars in the colonnade that runs round the four sides
of the Harem. But the Muhammadans, in general, have a prejudice
against counting them, and the Meccans, in particular, declare them
to be “innumerable.” The eastern side of the Harem is enclosed by a
single row of columns, while the other sides have columns three deep.
These columns, roughly speaking, measure about two feet in diameter
and twenty feet in height. Some of them bear Arabic inscriptions that
are scarcely legible now, and others are strengthened by means of
iron bands or by iron shafts running from top to bottom. Every third
column is round, standing between two octagonal pillars, some four
feet apart; every second column supports a pointed arch; and every
fourth column a dome that is whitewashed from without, and painted from
within in stripes of blue, red, and yellow. The front of the arches
are coloured in the same gaudy fashion, as are also the greater number
of the seven beautiful minarets from which the muezzins raise the
voice of the Faith calling the pilgrims to prayers. There are three
of these minarets along the northern length, one at each corner of
the opposite side, a sixth along the eastern breadth, and a seventh
at the thither end of the cloister attached to the northern side of
the Harem. The columns, with the exception of a few on the northern
and eastern sides, said to have been brought from Egypt, reflect no
artistic taste whatever on the part of the sculptors that carved them.
Those that are made of marble or of porphyry are in one piece--huge
blocks rough-hewn by unskilful hands--and the others are made of
granite or of sandstone from the neighbouring mountains, and composed
of three slabs, shaped, dressed, and then cemented together. At least
a dozen raised pavements--called Farsh-ul-Hajar--of varying widths,
lead to and from the gates of the Ka’bah, the broadest being from the
Zaideh gate to the House of God. The floor of the colonnades is paved
all round, but the granite slabs are put together in a very rough and
ready fashion. The inner path immediately round the Ka’bah is a few
inches below the general surface, itself some fifteen feet below that
of the streets without; but beyond the iron pillars, from which are
hung the glass lanterns that light up the precincts of the House of
God by night, rises a second paved way, somewhat higher than the inner
one, about five yards broad, while a third, on a still higher level, is
even wider. Bordering on this pavement from without are the Meghámé
Ibrahím, the Station of Abraham, the Bábé Shaibeh, the Arch of Peace, and
the four Megháms belonging to the four Sunni orthodox sects, behind
which runs the gravelled expanse of the Harem. Dozens of sweepers are
engaged daily in cleaning the floors and pavements, but their efforts,
in face of the crowd all too careless of the laws of cleanliness, are
vain.
Of the four Megháms above-mentioned the Meghámé-Hanefi is the largest,
and is situated to the east of the Ka’bah, some twelve yards from it.
It rests on twelve pillars, is open on all sides, and has a small upper
chamber, whence the muezzins call the Hanefites to prayer. These are
known as “the followers of reason,” and owe their origin to Abú Hanífa
al Nómán Ebn Thábet. He was born at Cufa in the eightieth year of the
Hegira, and died in the hundred and fiftieth in prison at Bagdad, where
he had been confined because he refused to be made a kádi or judge.
The reason he gave for refusing to officiate in that capacity may be
given in his own words. “If I speak the truth, they’ll say I am unfit;
but if I tell a lie a liar is not worthy to be a judge.” He is said
to have read the Kurán no less than seven thousand times during his
imprisonment. His doctrine brought into prominence by Abú Yúsúf, Chief
Justice under the Caliphs al Hádi and Harún ur Rashid, now prevails
generally among the Turks and Tartars. In the time of Ignorance the
Kuraish used to hold their councils where the Meghámé-Hanefi now
stands. The Maleki pulpit, to the south-west of the Ka’bah, is a small
building open on all sides, and resting on four pillars. The learned
doctor who founded the sect of the Malekites was called Malek Ebn Ans.
He was born at Medina in the year ninety of the Hegira, and there he
also died at the age of eighty-seven. His teaching is based on the
traditions of the Prophet. On his death-bed he said to a friend who
found him in tears: “How should I not weep, and who has more reason
to weep than I? Would to God that for every question decided by me
according to my own opinion I had received so many stripes, then would
my accounts be easier. Would to God I had never given any decision of
my own.” His followers are scattered over Africa, mainly in Barbary.
The Sháfeïtes have their Meghám on the top of the cupola-crowned
building which covers the Zem-Zem well, whence the criers call to
worship, but the congregation pray round the Ka’bah itself. The author
of this, the third orthodox sect, went by the name of Muhammad Ebn
Edris al Sháfeí. His birthplace is uncertain. Some say he was born at
Caza, others at Ascalon, in Palestine, on the very day that Abú Hanifa
died in the year one hundred and fifty of the Hegira. At the age of
seven he was taken to Mecca, where he was educated. He is said to have
been the first Muhammadan to reduce the science of jurisprudence into a
systematic method, and he was undoubtedly a man of great learning, of
sincere piety, and of calm, deliberate judgment. Two sayings attributed
to him throw a light on his character: “Whoever pretends to love the
world and its Creator at the same time is a liar;” “I am considering
first whether it be better to speak or to hold my tongue.” This was
said to a man who, having asked his opinion and received no reply,
demanded an explanation of this silence. The doctrine of this sect,
like that of the Malekites, is founded on the traditions of Muhammad,
and is now embraced by a good many people in Arabia and by a few in
Persia as well.
The Meghám of the fourth orthodox sect, that bears the name of
Hanbalí, is situated not far from the Zem-Zem well, opposite the Black
Stone--which is itself embodied in the south-eastern wall of the
Ka’bah--and is of the same structure as that of the Sháfeïtes. It is
there that the Sheríf and many of the other dignitaries perform their
worship. It is divided into two compartments by means of a canvas wall,
the men occupying the front, and the women the back part, at evening
prayers. There are two traditions as to the birthplace of Ahmed Ebn
Hanbal, who founded this school of religious thought. Those who believe
him to have been born at Merve, in Khorasán, the native city of his
parents, assure us that his mother brought him thence to Bagdad when he
was still at the breast; while others declare that he was born after
his mother’s arrival in that city, in the year of the Hegira 164. He
was an intimate friend of al Sháfeí, who was also his master, and was
so well instructed by him in the traditions of the Prophet that it is
said he could repeat over a million of them. On his return from Egypt
he refused to acknowledge the Kurán to be created, and was consequently
scourged and cast into prison by order of the Caliph al Mutasem. On the
day of his death no fewer than twenty thousand Christians, Jews, and
Magians embraced the Mussulman faith, and he was followed to his grave
by eight hundred thousand men and sixty thousand women. This sect soon
became extremely powerful, so much so indeed that in the year 323 H.,
in the Caliphate of al Rádi, they burst from all restraint in their
iconoclastic zeal, breaking into people’s houses in Bagdad, spilling
any wine they found, chastising the singing women they came across,
and smashing their musical instruments in bits. A severe edict had the
effect of bridling their undisciplined fervour, so that the Hanbalites
are not very numerous nowadays outside the boundaries of Arabia. The
followers of these four men worship together in the evening, but at
other times they pray in the order of their seniority. The four pulpits
were erected, in 973 of the Hegira, by Sultán Suleymán, who also
founded, outside the Harem, a school for fifteen students under a head
master and a preacher for each one of the orthodox sects, allotting to
every school a portion of the floor of the Harem as a place of worship.
These schools are said to be still flourishing, and are subsidised from
the funds of the Ka’bah.
Before the time of the Prophet the ground on which the Harem is now
situated belonged to several landlords of the tribe of Kuraish, who
laid great store by the property on account of its proximity to the
House of God. To Omar, the second Caliph, the idea of extending the
Harem first occurred, and it was he who built the walls round it. The
gates were erected by Abdullah Zobair. Thenceforward every Caliph and
every Sultán made a point of beautifying the sacred enclosure until
it came at last to wear its present appearance. However, considering
the enormous sums contributed by the quick and the dead on purpose to
keep it in repair it is being shamefully neglected in this year of the
Flight. How the priests who batten on the fund can find it in their
consciences to watch the decay of their surroundings without loosening
their purse-strings in order to check it is a source of wonder to many
a child of Islám. They are “resigned,” these unrighteous stewards, for
no other reason than because theirs is a bed of roses. “After us the
Deluge” is their motto, and it cannot be denied that of all the sacred
places of the Faith that of the Harem, situated as it is in the gap of
the surrounding cliffs and dipping as it does towards the centre where
the Ka’bah stands, is the best adapted to be a target to the winds and
the rain. For the floods, when they descend, rush down the flights of
steps of the gateways and inundate the open sanctuaries, and that is
why the Ka’bah has been so often destroyed and rebuilt in the course
of the centuries. These priests of the Harem may be as wise as serpents
where their own interests are involved, but they are not so harmless as
doves where those of the Faithful in general clamour for redress.
Talking of the Deluge reminds me of the pigeons that strut about the
floor of the Harem or wing their flight above its sacred buildings.
They are the prettiest birds imaginable, and so tame that they will
come and perch on the pilgrims’ shoulders and feed out of their hands.
In colour they are of a blueish brown, with deeper spots of the same
colour on their breasts and backs. They have grey rings round their
necks, and their wings are streaked with black lines. A traditionist
says that to feed one of these birds is to ensure to one’s self a
sumptuous palace in heaven; whereas to kill one of them is as bad as
committing homicide, and meets with the same punishment hereafter.
The consequence of this belief is that there are crowds of women
whose business it is to sell grain to the pilgrims for the Harem
pigeons, about twenty grains of wheat in a box costing not less than
one piastre. The tradition was that the pigeons never alighted on the
domes and minarets of the Harem, but hovered above them, like guardian
angels. The fact that the sanctuaries now stand in frequent need of
whitewashing is taken to be a proof of the growing wickedness of the
people, and a certain sign that the Day of Judgment is at hand.
[Illustration: A MOORISH GENTLEMAN IN MOORISH DRESS.]
On entering the Harem all men are equal, all privileges of rank must be
waived. The most despotic Oriental ruler has no power over his fellows
there. Even the Hereditary Sheríf of Mecca must be as courteous to his
servants or his slaves as he would be to the Sultan of Turkey were he
present. Everybody is come to worship his Creator, the Ruler Supreme
over empires and republics, and so all distinctions of rank are laid
aside. The Prophet, wise in his generation beyond all men, was the
first to protect the helpless against despotism by ruling the conduct
of human affairs through the principle of religious equality. But for
his laws the lower classes of the East would have been at the mercy of
their co-religionists of the higher castes. If the Prophet alternately
cajoled and coerced the superstitious to be virtuous and meek by the
promise of a material Paradise and by the fear of a material Hell, what
then? He sought merely to achieve his end through the weaknesses of the
natural man, knowing that there is nothing that men covet more than the
permanent pleasures which satiate human passions, and nothing that they
had rather shun than a punishment which endures for ever. The spirit of
his teaching and his laws, however, was anything but material. It made
for unity and fraternity and equality, and the consequence was that in
the early days of the Faith his followers were inspired by the noblest
aspirations of the mind and heart. And as for the corporeal joys of
Paradise they knew that these were not the highest their Prophet had
promised to them, for they hoped to attain to that most blessed degree
of heavenly felicity which is reserved for the Faithful who are found
worthy to behold God’s face from the rising of the sun till the going
down of the same. The case is otherwise with the majority of the
Muhammadans of to-day. For their country and their countrymen they
take too little thought, each one of them beseeching God to shower His
favours on himself or herself alone. The priests of the Golden Age of
the Faith sat on a camel or stood on a high hill and preached, not
on form but on spirit. Their watchword was unity--unity of religion
under the banner of faith and charity. To-day, on the contrary, the
Mullás of Mecca mount a pulpit and air their erudition, that is,
their knowledge of the traditions, as they interpret them according
to their respective schools, and end with a few wandering, lifeless
sentences in condemnation of all heretics, in contempt of this life,
and in praise of the world to come. A philosopher would consider their
sermons ridiculous. The freethinkers of the times of ’Omar and ’Alí had
no sound excuse for raising their voices against the priests, who were
then the guides of the mind as well as those of the conduct. But the
wonder now is that a Faithful can be found to obey the behests of these
tradition-ridden miracle-mongers, who do nothing to lessen the breach
between the sects, but leave the more enlightened laymen to lead the
way to reunion.
Muhammad set these miracle-mongers a good example. For we read that
when Muaz was appointed Governor of Yemen he was asked by the Prophet
by what rule he would be guided in the administration of the province.
“By the law of the Kurán,” said Muaz. “But if you find no direction
therein?” “Then I will act according to the example of the Prophet.”
“But if that fails?” “Then I will exercise my own judgment.” Muhammad
not only approved of the answer of his follower, but also advised his
other representatives to follow the same rule of conduct. That rule
ought to be written over the door of every mosque in Islám. My Meccan
experiences prove this, that the faith of the priest is stagnant
from the want of the breath of reason. In its decadence Islám is
priest-begotten and priest-ridden. In its purity it was full of the
spirit of the Holy Ghost, a religion simple and sincere, whereof such
men as ’Alí and ’Omar were made. The founder would be the first to
cleanse the minds of his present-day disciples of the false traditions
that have been ascribed to him. He would bid them look up, facing the
light, and setting their thoughts free to soar. In his lifetime he,
believing “God to be more loving to His servants than the mother to
her young,” fought strenuously and with a patience almost sublime to
overcome the corrupt and idolatrous practices of his fellow-countrymen
of the time of Ignorance. Not otherwise would he fight to-day in order
to free his co-religionists from the ever-permeating spread of the
priestly misinterpretations of his message. His voice would be raised
to proclaim the right of every man to reject what is unreasonable in
the dictations of the priests. “Knowledge,” said he on one occasion,
“is our friend in the desert, our companion when friendless, our
ornament among friends, our armour against our enemies.... To listen to
the words of the learned and to inculcate the lessons of science is of
more value than religious exercises.”
Now, a religion which is lively to-day chiefly through the appeal
it can make to what is corporeal and comfortable, as is undoubtedly
the case with Islámism at the present time, stands in sore need of a
spiritual reformer, the more so because its spirit is still alive,
in the pages of the Kurán and in the memory of the mighty dead. Many
Muslims still seek the name, and are diligent in seeking it, but they
less often try to find the object, forgetting that the moon is not in
the stream but in the sky. “He, God, is the Enduring, and all else
passeth away”--all except such futile traditions as, heaven knows, are
dead enough to have earned a decent burial, and the arbitrary ruling of
the priests, to whose pernicious influence there would appear to be no
limit. The hearts of these unrighteous stewards deserve to be branded
with the two matchless odes, admirably translated by Professor Browne,
of Cambridge University, which are inscribed on the tomb of Háfiz, in
an orange garden at Shíráz, the two first lines of which run:
“Where is the good tidings of union with Thee? for I will rise up
with my whole heart;
I am a bird of Paradise, and I will soar upwards from the snare of
the world.”
And again:
“O heart, be the slave of the King of the World, and be a king!
Abide continually under the protection of God’s favour!”