ARAFAT DAY: DAYBREAK
Pop, pop, pop! I lay between sleeping and waking, and wondered what the
noise could be. Bang, bang, bang! And again, bang, bang! I awoke with
a start--surprised to find myself wide awake; but an hour’s sleep is
not long enough to stupify a man. The reports grew louder, and the dogs
began to bark from every corner of the encampment.
“Come hither to prayers,” sang out the muezzins; “devotion is better
than sleep.” By that time every pilgrim was up and stirring. Wheuf!
the air of the false dawn, how chill it was! I summoned a servant,
telling him to light a fire outside the tent; other pilgrims followed
my example; and soon the hissing samovar gave promise of a cup of tea.
The eastern horizon, in the meantime, was growing redder and still
more red; and the pilgrims, having performed their ablutions and said
their prayers, began to intone the Talbiyah and the Tahlil, pouring out
their supplications to God and their belief in His unity, in a wailing
lilt of entreaty and contrition. Others stood in circles, beating
their breasts and singing the Labbaik. It was a scene of enthusiasm
impossible to describe.
Rap-tap-tap, tap-rap-rap, floated on the air: it was the sentinels
beating their drums to salute the break of day. Guns fired incessantly
on the hills and in the valley and on the plain. And now the hawkers
and the worshippers, the water-carriers and the paupers, the hungry
and the ascetic, all began to shout together. “Sweet water refreshes
the soul,” cried the water-carriers; “drink of the sacred water of
Ainé-Zobeideh.” “Give in the name of Allah,” whined the beggars; “my
living is in the gift of Allah. Are ye not the creatures of Allah?
Yá-Allah, yá-Allah!” “Light the fire and fill the cup,” said a Persian
officer, in his eagerness to break his fast. “And don’t forget to
‘fatten’ the water-pipe,” added his companion. “And you shall ‘dig up
its grandfather’ [that is, be the last to smoke it as it passes from
mouth to mouth], my friend,” said the officer, smiling.
When the sun came up on us, I saw Sheykh Eissa for the first time
that morning; he was standing at a distance of some yards, talking to
Seyyid ’Alí, whose handsome face shone with its usual expression of
light-hearted amusement. The two men bowed to me reverentially, their
hands folded on their breasts.
“Look, yá-Moulai,” said Seyyid ’Alí, “the top of the Mountain of Mercy
is so full of tents and animals and men, that the poor jinns, to say
nothing of the angels,----”
“Now, don’t talk blasphemy, my friend,” interrupted a priest called
Mullá Ahmad. “Do you think there is no room left for the angels?”
“God forbid!” cried Seyyid ’Alí, raising his eyes aloft. “They can
perch on the tent-poles, or on the camel-saddles.”
“Kofre-negueíd (don’t blaspheme)!” yelled the Mullá. “Don’t you
know that the angels are transparent? But for that the sun would be
eclipsed, so dense is the choir of angels in the circumambient air.”
“Is that so?” replied Seyyid ’Alí, with a smile that incensed his
questioner beyond all measure. “Does not the Holy Tradition say that
there must be six hundred thousand souls on this Blessed Plain, and
that the deficiency, if any, will be made up with the necessary number
of heavenly choristers? I had not thought that the deficiency was so
great as to cause so vast a reinvasion of light from above.”
“The Tradition,” shouted the Mullá, “says that there must be _fully_
six hundred thousand souls: there may be more, but there cannot be
less----”
“How many pilgrims are there, do you think?” I asked, interrupting the
Mullá.
“It is human to err,” he replied, sententiously; “but, however many
there may be, and I believe there are 600,000 and more, Allah may
increase them. And as for the angels, Seyyid ’Alí, they will confine
themselves to the regions of the air, immediately above us, and will
say ‘Amen’ to our prayers and supplications.”
“Multiply your estimate by 3 and divide it by 6, and you will not be
so far out of your reckoning, I think,” and so saying, I appealed to
Sheykh Eissa for his opinion.
The Sheykh scanned the encampment with critical eyes. “Let us say,” he
murmured at last, “that this city of tents on the plain and the hills
contains innumerable souls and moving beasts. Am I not right, Mullá
Ahmad?”
“Well said, my friend!” cried the Mullá. “Nobody save Allah--may I be
His sacrifice!--could count the number one by one. And who are we that
we should set a limit to God’s omnipotence and clemency?”
The Turkish authorities were almost as ignorant in the matter as the
rest of the pilgrims. Some of the former said 280,000, others 380,000;
a more daring calculation was twice the first number (560,000);
and the most timid of all was that of a Turkish official of my
acquaintance, who estimated the concourse of pilgrims at 250,000. Now,
in 1807, there were 83,000 pilgrims in Mecca, according to Ali Bey;
in 1814, Burkhardt, the Swiss traveller, who visited the Holy City in
disguise, under the name of Sheykh Ibrahim, calculated that there were
70,000 pilgrims; while Richard Burton (Sheykh Abdullah), in 1850, found
the number reduced to 50,000;--a number which, in 1902, was increased
fivefold, in my humble opinion; indeed, I maintain with the utmost
confidence that this calculation of mine, if somewhat too high, cannot
possibly be reduced below 220,000; for the opinion among the Meccans
was unanimous that the Bedouin and foreign elements, on the occasion of
my pilgrimage, were more than four times as numerous than they had been
within the memory of the oldest inhabitants.
Now, as regards the plan of the encampment, it has always been the
endeavour of the well-to-do to keep as close to the Mountain of Mercy
(the Hill of Arafat) as possible, and the consequence of this is that
the whole expanse of the northern face of the plain is more or less
aristocratic, with an effort to regularity in the arrangement of the
tents, the most distinguished camping-places being in the north-eastern
angle, where the Sheríf’s pavilions are pitched, and all along the
north and north-western ridges, where the tents of the Turkish soldiery
and the foreign grandees spread themselves in unbroken lines to the
point of attraction in the north-east. For to sun themselves in the
light of the Sheríf’s beneficent eye, is the ambition of all pilgrims
who have any claim to regard themselves as gentlefolk. The more the
plain slopes to the south, the more it is covered with the tents of the
vulgar and with the pilgrims that have no tents at all; while midway
between the two extremes are the booths and stalls of the open-air
bazaars: these are also scattered here and there in every encampment.
The Syrian and the Egyptian caravans, with their respective Mahmils,
take up their appointed places, nowadays, without any serious dispute
arising between them; but in olden times the rivalry was so keen and
so bitter, that blood was often shed. The Meccan religious officials,
the Turkish civil and military authorities, and the privileged grandees
of all nations, including, of course, the Persian Consul-General,
follow the precedent of immemorial custom; but for the rest the rule of
“first come, first served” holds good in every quarter of the plain,
I mean within the limits of the broadly defined distinctions of class
which make it expedient, if not compulsory, for the paupers and less
reputable pilgrims to keep to the south, leaving the northern regions
to their brethren of higher castes. In theory, the Mussulmans are all
equal, each to each; but, socially, they are at least as exclusive
as the Christians, and infinitely more exacting where etiquette and
ceremony are concerned; while at Mecca, the Kiblah of the Faith,
there is, with the yearly influx of pilgrims of heterogeneous races,
a growing tendency to assimilate the two most striking effects of
western centralisation as seen in the capitals of Europe--namely, an
inclination to become more and more tolerant in matters of religion,
and a determination to regard wealth as the determinative factor in
separating class from class. To every student of Islám the first of
these is of tremendous importance. He must bear constantly in mind
that the embroilments between the seventy-two sects, so far from being
irreconcilable, show a steady inclination to become less marked in the
holy city of Mecca at the present day, notwithstanding the hostility
of the priests towards a complete reunion. Time was when the Shiahs,
to which sect the Persians and the Nakhowalis of Medina belong, were
precluded from exercising their religious rites in their own way, and
when they were even shut out from the regular encampment on the plain
of Arafat. But to-day they are not only allowed to gain salvation
as the spirit moves them through the performance of their special
ceremonies; they are also accorded the privilege of following the time
laid down in their own almanacks for the due solemnisation of their
sacred rites, and that altogether apart from the Orthodox sects who
follow invariably the instructions of the Kazi of Mecca.
This is an immense gain; let us consider what it means: Does it not
mean that the Prophet’s aim in making Pilgrimage an inseparable part
of the Faith, is getting, year by year, a step nearer to completion?
And if so, can the enthusiast’s belief in the possibility of an united
Islám--an Islám rooted in “one life, one law, one element, the one
far-off divine event,” be dismissed as a dream too spiritual to be
substantiated? I say no; for a dream that is already a spiritual truth,
as it most certainly is among the enlightened at the present time,
may one day become a political fact in the eyes of the whole world.
However, come with me to the Persian encampment, and I will tell you
on the way something more about the city of tents, as well as something
more of the Mussulmans of the Shiah persuasion.
[Illustration: A LEARNED MUSSULMAN OF INDIA.]
The first thing that struck me, by the light of day, was the contrast
presented by the personal cleanliness of such of the pilgrims as had
performed their ablutions, and the inconceivable filthiness of the
surroundings in which they lived. To attempt to describe the causes
that resulted in this insanitary condition of the encampment (a
condition that, in the absence of any medical help worth mentioning,
added considerably to the violence of the cholera and the number of
its victims) would be to enumerate the disgusting habits of every
individual camp-follower in the train of the grandees, not to allude
to those of the poor and destitute, who either lived under tattered
rags over rude crossbars, like the dervishes, or slept with the vermin
on the naked ground. The scene was pleasing to the eye, no doubt; but
the contagion spread by its most picturesque features was none the less
overpowering to the nose. At a distance it was artistic: a glimpse of
gipsy life twinkling with colour; walk into it, and it was only fetid
stench and festering pollution. The tents of the less poverty-stricken
caravans were pitched in rings called _dowars_; the beasts of burden
being hobbled in the centre, or tethered to the tent-pegs outside; and
the shape and colour of the tents, if less various than the facial
types of those who dwelt in them, were sufficiently diversified, in
certain quarters, to relieve the monotony of the general picture.
Red within and white without, the tents of the middle classes were
dome-shaped, while those of the privileged dignitaries were as
sumptuous and varied in colour and form as those of the poorest classes
were ingenious in contrivance. The Sherífian colours were green and
gold and red, and the most beautiful pavilions of all were certainly
his. After these, perhaps, came those belonging to the Persian
Consul-General, who made a not unsuccessful attempt to compete with
the highest in the splendour and completeness of his camp equipment.
Moreover, the thoroughfares of the select corner of the plain were,
upon the whole, well-ordered and creditably policed, more especially
was this the case with those in closest proximity to the Turkish
authorities.
And now with these preliminary remarks on the appearance of the city
of tents by day, I will ask the readers to follow me into the Persian
encampment situated midway between the Syrian and Egyptian caravans;
for it is my present wish to be the means of introducing him to that
interesting Shiah sect that flourishes in the neighbourhood of Medina
and is known by the name of Nakhowalis. I had a long talk with about
a dozen of these men (they had accompanied the Persian pilgrims from
Medina to Mecca as guides) and it is on the information that I gleaned
from them that this short paragraph is based.
Well, when the Prophet fled from Mecca, with a few devoted followers,
he was received by a great number of the people of Medina with every
mark of confidence. Those who fled with him were afterwards called
Mohajer or Immigrants, while those who went out to help him from the
city of refuge came to be known by the name of Anssar or Auxiliaries.
It is from the latter party that the Nakhowalis claim descent. They
now number about two thousand families, and live, in open feud with
the Orthodox inhabitants, outside the city gates. They have their own
mosques and cemetery, as they are not allowed to worship within the
Harem of the Prophet’s Tomb, nor were they permitted, until quite
recently, to cross its threshold. The cause of all their disabilities,
however, is of a political rather than religious nature; for all of
them hold the first two Caliphs in execration, the greater number
forswearing allegiance to Othman as well. The bond of sympathy between
the two groups thus formed is the veneration and love they bear
Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, ’Alí, whom they believe to have been
the lawful successor of the Prophet. However much or little they may
differ in doctrine from the Shiahs of Persia, they are acknowledged by
the latter as belonging to the same communion; indeed, the Persians
contribute, year by year, considerable sums of money to the support of
these distant co-religionists of theirs--sums which are handed over
to them by one of the Persian pilgrims. Moreover, a Nakhowali, if he
chance to visit the country of the Lion and the Sun, will be sure to
return with bags full of money; nor is this charity of a sort that
loses both itself and friend, the recipient being quick in responding
to every act of friendship, as many a Persian pilgrim had good reason
to remember if, as it usually happened, he took up his abode at
the friendly hearth of a Nakhowali. Hospitable and chivalrous, the
Nakhowalis adhere strictly to this unwritten law of the desert-born,
that a guest must be protected even if he be an infidel; none the less
they count both Jew and Christian as unclean, being as scrupulous
in this particular as the Persians, whose rules they follow in the
discharge of their religious purifications.
My informants, who were armed to the teeth, were handsome, swarthy,
and fearless-looking. They bitterly resented the fact that, on certain
points of religious observance, they were constrained to obey the
instructions of the Kazi of Medina, rather than those of their own
clergy. They declared that this obedience had been wrung from them as
a condition of their freedom to have priests of their own; but since
I had not an opportunity of going to Medina to see for myself, it
would be unwise to give further publicity to reports which reached me
either through the Orthodox Madani, who were naturally antagonistic,
or through the Shiah Nakhowalis, who were not less certainly biassed
in their own favour. Their womenfolk (to make an end of this short
discourse) are reputed to be the most beautiful of all at Medina; they
were so closely veiled, however, that they might just as well have been
the ugliest--none save their husbands could tell.
The scene now changes.