[p.98] after returning from Wady Muna, and again on taking leave of
Mekka. The Towaf, or walk round the Kaaba, should also be performed as
often as convenient; and few foreigners live at Mekka, who do not make
it a point to execute it twice daily; in the evening and before day-
break.
Prior to the age of Mohammed, when idolatry prevailed in Arabia, the
Kaaba was regarded as a sacred object, and visited with religious
veneration by persons who performed the Towaf nearly in the same manner
as their descendants do at present. The building, however, was, in those
times, ornamented with three hundred and sixty idols, and there was a
very important difference in the ceremony; for men and women were then
obliged to appear in a state of perfect nudity, that their sins might be
thrown off with their garments. The Mohammedan Hadj or pilgrimage, and
the visit to the Kaaba, are, therefore, nothing more than a continuation
and confirmation of the ancient custom. In like manner, Szafa and
Meroua were esteemed by the old Arabians as holy places, which contained
images of the gods Motam and Nehyk; and here the idolaters used to walk
from the one place to the other, after their return from the pilgrimage
to Arafat. Here, if we may believe Mohammedan tradition, Hadjer, the
mother of Ismayl, wandered about in the Desert, after she had been
driven from Abrahams house, that she might not witness the death of her
infant son, whom she had laid down almost expiring from thirst; when the
angel Gabriel appearing, struck the ground with his foot, which caused
the well of Zemzem immediately to spring forth. In commemoration of the
wanderings of Hadjer, who in her affliction had gone seven times between
Szafa and Meroua, the walk from one place to the other is said to have
been instituted.
El Azraky relates that, when the idolatrous Arabs had concluded the
ceremonies of the Hadj at Arafat, all the different tribes that had been
present, assembled, on their return to Mekka, at the holy place called
Szafa, there to extol, in loud and impassioned strains, the glory of
their ancestors, their battles, and the fame of their
[p.99] nation. From each tribe, in its turn, arose a poet who addressed
the multitude. To our tribe, exclaimed he, belonged such and such
eminent warriors and generous Arabs; and now, he added, we boast of
others. He then recited their names, and sang their praises; concluding
with a strain of heroic poetry, and an appeal to the other tribes, in
words like the following:--Let him who denies the truth of what I have
said, or who lays claim to as much glory, honour, and virtue as we do,
prove it here! Some rival poet then arose, and celebrated in similar
language the equal or superior glory attached to his own tribe,
endeavouring, at the same time, to undervalue or ridicule his rivals
pretensions.
To allay the animosity and jealousies produced by this custom; or,
perhaps, to break the independent spirit of his fierce Bedouins,
Mohammed abolished it by a passage in the Koran, which says:--When you
have completed the rites of the pilgrimage, remember God, as you
formerly were wont to commemorate your forefathers, and with still
greater fervency. Thus, probably, was removed the cause of many
quarrels; but, at the same time, this stern lawgiver destroyed the
influence which the songs of those rival national bards exercised over
the martial virtues and literary genius of their countrymen.
The visit of the Omra was likewise an ancient custom. Mohammed retained
the practice; and it is said that he frequently recited his evening
prayers on that spot.
Having completed the fatiguing ceremonies of the Towaf and Say, I had a
part of my head shaved, and remained sitting in the barbers shop, not
knowing any other place of repose. I inquired after lodgings, but
learned that the town was already full of pilgrims, and that many
others, who were expected, had engaged apartments. After some time,
however, I found a man who offered me a ready-furnished room: of this I
took possession, and having no servant, boarded with the owner. He and
his family, consisting of a wife and two children, retired into a small,
open court-yard, on the side of my room. The landlord was a poor man
from Medina,