[p.361] in its immediate vicinity ; and though an avowed follower of any other religion than the Mohammedan is not permitted to enter the gates of the town, yet several instances occurred, during my stay there, (and while I resided at Yembo,) of Greek Christians employed in the commissariat of the army of Tousoun Pasha encamping within gun-shot of Medina, previous to their departure for the head-quarters of the Pasha, then in the province of Kasym.
[p.362] ACCOUNT OF SOME PLACES OF ZYARA,
OR OBJECTS OF PIOUS VISITATION IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF MEDINA.
ON the day after the pilgrim has performed his first duties at the mosque and the tomb, he usually visits the burial-ground of the town, in memory of the many saints who lie buried there. It is just beyond the town-walls, near the gate of Bab Djoma, and bears the name of El Bekya. A square of several hundred paces is enclosed by a wall which, on the southern side, joins the suburb, and on the others is surrounded with date-groves. Considering the sanctity of the persons whose bodies it contains, it is a very mean place; and perhaps the most dirty and miserable burial-ground in any eastern town of the size of Medina. It does not contain a single good tomb, nor even any large inscribed blocks of stone covering tombs; but instead, mere rude heaps of earth, with low borders of loose stones placed about them. The Wahabys are accused of having defaced the tombs; and in proof of this, the ruins of small domes and buildings are pointed out, which formerly covered the tombs of Othman, Abbas, Setna Fatme, and the aunts of Mohammed, which owed their destruction to those sectaries: but they would certainly not have annihilated every other simple tomb built of stone here, which they did neither at Mekka nor any other place. The miserable state of this cemetery must have existed prior to the Wahaby conquest, and is to be ascribed to the niggardly minds of the towns-people, who are little disposed to
[p.363] incur any expense in honouring the remains of their celebrated countrymen. The whole place is a confused accumulation of heaps of earth, wide pits, rubbish, without a single regular tomb-stone. The pilgrim is made to visit a number of graves, and, while standing before them, to repeat prayers for the dead. Many persons make it their exclusive profession to watch the whole day near each of the principal tombs, with a handkerchief spread out, in expectation of the pilgrims who come to visit them; and this is the exclusive privilege of certain Ferráshyns and their families, who have divided the tombs among themselves, where each takes his post, or sends his servant in his stead.
The most conspicuous personages that lie buried here are Ibrahim, the son of Mohammed, who died in his youth; Fatme, his daughter, according to the opinion of many, who say that she was buried here and not in the mosque; several of the wives of Mohammed; some of his daughters; his foster-mother; Fatme, the daughter of Asad, and mother of Aly; Abbas ibn Abd el Motalleb; Othman ibn Affan, one of the immediate successors of Mohammed, who collected the scattered leaves of the Koran into one volume; the Martyrs, or Shohada, as they are called, who were slain here by the army of the heretics under Yezyd ibn Mawya, whose commander, Moslim, in A.H. 60, (others say 62,) came from Syria and sacked the town, the inhabitants of which had acknowledged the rebel Abdallah ibn Hantala as their chief; Hassan ibn Aly, whose trunk only lies buried here, his head having been sent to Cairo, where it is preserved in the fine mosque called El Hassamya; the Imam Malek ibn Anes, the founder of the sect of the Malekites. Indeed so rich is Medina in the remains of great saints that they have almost lost their individual importance, while the relics of one of the persons just mentioned would be sufficient to render celebrated any other Moslim town. As a formula of the invocation addressed here to the manes of the saint, I shall transcribe that which is said with uplifted hands, after having performed a short prayer of two rikats, over the tomb of Othman ibn Affan: Peace be with thee, O Othman! Peace be with thee, O friend of the chosen! Peace be with
[p.364] thee, O collector of the Koran! Mayest thou deserve the contentment of God! May God ordain Paradise as thy dwelling, thy resting-place, thy habitation, and thy abode! I deposit on this spot, and near thee, O Othman, the profession everlasting, from this day to the day of judgment, that there is no God but God, and that Mohammed is his servant and his prophet.
The inhabitants of Medina bury all their dead on this ground, in the same homely tombs as those of the saints. Branches of palm-trees are stuck upon the graves, and changed once a year, at the feast of Ramadhan, when the family visits the grave of its relations, where it sometimes remains for several days.
VISIT TO DJEBEL OHOD.—One of the principal Zyara or places of sacred visitation of Medina, is Ohod, with the tomb of Hamze, the uncle of Mohammed. The mountain of Ohod forms part of the great chain, branching out from it into the eastern plain, so as to stand almost insulated. It is three quarters of an hours walk from the town. In the fourth year of the Hedjra, when Mohammed had fixed his residence at Medina, the idolatrous Koreysh, headed by Abou Sofyan, invaded these parts, and took post at this mountain. Mohammed issued from the town, and there fought, with great disparity of force, the most arduous battle in which he was ever engaged. His uncle Hamze was killed, together with seventy-five of his followers: he himself was wounded, but he killed with his own lance one of the bravest men of the opposite party, and gained at last a complete victory. The tomb of Hamze and of the seventy-five martyrs, as they are called, form the object of the visit to Djebel Ohod.
I started on foot, with my cicerone, by the Syrian gate, in the company of several other visiters; for it was thought unsafe to go there alone, from fear of Bedouin robbers. The visit is generally performed on Thursdays. We passed the place where the Syrian Hadj encamp, and where several wells and half-ruined tanks, cased with stone, supply the pilgrims with water during their three days stay at this place, in their way to and from Mekka. A little further on is a pretty kiosk, with a dome, now likewise half-ruined, called El Goreyn, where