[p.49] being on the Eastern, whilst the latter lies upon the Western declivity of the hill. The position of this place is greatly admired, as commanding the fairest view of the Harim.
About a mile and a half South-east of Al-Bakia is a dome called Kuwwat Islam, the Strength of Al-Islam. Here the Apostle planted a dry palm-stick, which grew up, blossomed, and bore fruit at once. Moreover, on one occasion when the Moslems were unable to perform the pilgrimage, Mohammed here produced the appearance of a Kaabah, an Arafat, and all the appurtenances of the Hajj. I must warn my readers not to condemn the founder of Al-Islam for these puerile inventions.
The Masjid Onayn lies South of Hamzahs tomb. It is on a hill called Jabal al-Rumat, the Shooters Hill, and here during the battle of Ohod stood the archers of Al-Islam. According to some, the Prince of Martyrs here received his death-wound; others place that event at the Masjid al-Askar or the Masjid al-Wady.[FN#40]
Besides these fourteen, I find the names, and nothing but the names, of forty Mosques. The reader loses little by my unwillingness to offer him a detailed list of such appellations as Masjid Benu Abd al-Ashhal, Masjid Benu Harisah, Masjid Benu Harim, Masjid al-Fash, Masjid al-Sukiya, Masjid Benu Bayazah, Masjid Benu Hatmah,
Cum multis aliis quæ nunc perscribere longum est.
[FN#1] The cholera. See chapter xviii. [FN#2] The word Hawamid is plural of Hamidah, Hawazin of Hazimi. [FN#3] Anciently there was a Caravan from Maskat to Al-Madinah. My friends could not tell me when the line had been given up, but all were agreed that for years they had not seen an Oman caravan, the pilgrims preferring to enter Al-Hijaz via Jeddah. [FN#4] According to Abulfeda, Khaybar is six stations N.E. of Al-Madinah; it is four according to Al-Idrisi; but my informants assured me that camels go there easily, as the Tarikh al-Khamisy says, in three days. I should place it 80 miles N.N.E. of Al-Madinah. Al-Atwal locates it in 65° 20' E. lon., and 25° 20' N. lat; Al-Kanun in lon. 67° 30', and lat. 24° 20'; Ibn Said in lon. 64° 56', and lat. 27°; and DAnville in lon. 57°, and lat. 25°. In Burckhardts map, and those copied from it, Khaybar is placed about 2° distant from Al-Madinah, which I believe to be too far. [FN#5] The Parliamentary limit of an officers leave from India is five years: if he overstay that period, he forfeits his commission. {to me the comfort of reflecting that possibly at Meccah some opportunity of crossing the Peninsula might present itself. At any rate I had the certainty of seeing the strange wild country of the Hijaz, and of being present at the ceremonies of the Holy City. I must request the reader to bear with a Visitation once more: we shall conclude it with a ride to Al-Bakia.[FN#6] This venerable spot is frequented by the pious every day after the prayer at the Prophets Tomb, and especially on Fridays. [FN#6] The name means the place of many roots. It is also called Bakia Al-Gharkadthe place of many roots of the tree Rhamnus. Gharkad is translated in different ways: some term it the lote, others the tree of the Jews (Forskal, sub voce). [FN#7] See chapter xxi., ante. [FN#8] The same is said of the Makbarah Benu Salmah or Salim, a cemetery to the west of Al-Madinah, below rising ground called Jabal Sula. It has long ago been deserted. See chapter xiv. [FN#9] In those days Al-Madinah had no walls, and was clear of houses on the East of the Harim. [FN#10] These stones were removed by Al-Marwan, who determined that Osmans grave should not be distinguished from his fellows. For this act, the lieutenant of Muawiyah was reproved and blamed by pious Moslems. [FN#11] It ought to be high enough for the tenant to sit upright when answering the interrogatory angels. [FN#12] Because of this superstition, in every part of Al-Islam, some contrivance is made to prevent the earth pressing upon the body. [FN#13] This blessing is in Mohammeds words, as the beauty of the Arabic shows. Ayishah relates that in the month Safar, A.H. 11, one night the Prophet, who was beginning to suffer from the headache which caused his death, arose from his couch, and walked out into the darkness; whereupon she followed him in a fit of jealousy, thinking he might be about to visit some other wife. He went to Al-Bakia, delivered the above benediction (which others give somewhat differently), raised his hands three times, and turned to go home. Ayishah hurried back, but she could not conceal her agitation from her husband, who asked her what she had done. Upon her confessing her suspicions, he sternly informed her that he had gone forth, by order of the Archangel Gabriel, to bless and to intercede for the people of Al-Bakia. Some authors relate a more facetious termination of the colloquy.M.C. de Perceval (Essai, &c., vol. iii. p. 314.) [FN#14] Limping Osman, as the Persians contemptuously call him, was slain by rebels, and therefore became a martyr according to the Sunnis. The Shiahs justify the murder, saying it was the act of an Ijma al-Muslimin, or the general consensus of Al-Islam, which in their opinion ratifies an act of lynch law. [FN#15] This specifying the father Affan, proves him to have been a Moslem. Abu Bakrs father, Kahafah, and Omars Al-Khattab, are not mentioned by name in the Ceremonies of Visitation. [FN#16] The Christian reader must remember that the Moslems rank angelic nature, under certain conditions, below human nature. [FN#17] Osman married two daughters of the Prophet, a circumstance which the Sunnis quote as honourable to him: the Shiahs, on the contrary, declare that he killed them both by ill-treatment. [FN#18] These men are generally descendants of the Saint whose tomb they own: they receive pensions from the Mudir of the Mosque, and retain all fees presented to them by visitors. Some families are respectably supported in this way. [FN#19] This woman, according to some accounts, also saved Mohammeds life, when an Arab Kahin or diviner, foreseeing that the child was destined to subvert the national faith, urged the bystanders to bury their swords in his bosom. The Sharifs of Meccah still entrust their children to the Badawin, that they may be hardened by the discipline of the Desert. And the late Pasha of Egypt gave one of his sons in charge of the Anizah tribe, near Akabah. Burckhardt (Travels in Arabia, vol. i. p. 427) makes some sensible remarks about this custom, which cannot be too much praised. [FN#20] Al- Sadiyah, a double entendre; it means auspicious, and also alludes to Halimahs tribe, the Benu Saad. [FN#21] Both these words are titles of the Prophet. Al-Mustafa means the Chosen; Al-Mujtaba, the Accepted. [FN#22] There being, according to the Moslems, many heavens and many earths. [FN#23] See chapter xx. [FN#24] The Shafei school allows its disciples to curse Al-Yazid, the son of Muawiyah, whose cruelties to the descendants of the Prophet, and crimes and vices, have made him the Judas Iscariot of Al-Islam. I have heard Hanafi Moslems, especially Sayyids, revile him; but this is not, strictly speaking, correct. The Shiahs, of course, place no limits to their abuse of him. You first call a man Omar, then Shimr, (the slayer of Al-Hosayn), and lastly, Yazid, beyond which insult does not extend. [FN#25] Ukayl or Akil, as many write the name, died at Damascus, during the Caliphate of Al-Muawiyah. Some say he was buried there, others that his corpse was transplanted to Al-Madinah, and buried in a place where formerly his house, known as Dar Ukayl, stood. [FN#26] Some are of opinion that the ceremonies of Ziyarat formerly did, and still should begin here. But the order of visitation differs infinitely, and no two authors seem to agree. I was led by Shaykh Hamid, and indulged in no scruples. [FN#27] Burckhardt makes a series of mistakes upon this subject. Hassan ibn Aly, whose trunk only lies buried here (in El Bakia), his head having been sent to Cairo, where it is preserved in the fine Mosque called El-Hassanya. The Mosque Al-Hasanayn (the two Hasans) is supposed to contain only the head of Al-Hosayn, which, when the Crusaders took Ascalon, was brought from thence by Sultan Salih or Beybars, and conveyed to Cairo. As I have said before, the Persians in Egypt openly show their contempt of this tradition. It must be remembered that Al-Hasan died poisoned at Al-Madinah by his wife Jaadah. Al-Hosayn, on the other hand, was slain and decapitated at Kerbela. According to the Shiahs, Zayn al-Abidin obtained from Yazid, after a space of forty days, his fathers head, and carried it back to Kerbela, for which reason the event is known to the Persians as Chilleyeh sar o tan, the forty days of (separation between) the head and trunk. They vehemently deny that the body lies at Kerbela, and the head at Cairo. Others, again, declare that Al-Hosayns head was sent by Yazid to Amir bin al-As, the governor of Al-Madinah, and was by him buried near Fatimahs Tomb. Nor are they wanting who declare, that after Yazids death the head was found in his treasury, and was shrouded and buried at Damascus. Such is the uncertainty which hangs over the early history of Al-Islam[.] [FN#28] The names of the fifth and sixth Imams, Mohammed al-Bakia and Jaafar al-Sadik, were omitted by Hamid, as doubtful whether they are really buried here or not. [FN#29] Moslem historians seem to delight in the obscurity which hangs over the ladys last resting-place, as if it were an honour even for the receptacle of her ashes to be concealed from the eyes of men. Some place her in the Harim, relying upon this tradition: Fatimah, feeling about to die, rose up joyfully, performed the greater ablution, dressed herself in pure garments, spread a mat upon the floor of her house near the Prophets Tomb, lay down fronting the Kiblah, placed her hand under her cheek, and said to her attendant, I am pure and in a pure dress; now let no one uncover my body, but bury me where I lie! When Ali returned he found his wife dead, and complied with her last wishes. Omar bin Abd al-Aziz believed this tradition, when he included the room in the Mosque; and generally in Al-Islam Fatimah is supposed to be buried in the Harim. Those who suppose the Prophets daughter to be buried in Al-Bakia rely upon a saying of the Imam Hasan, If men will not allow me to sleep beside my grandsire, place me in Al-Bakia, by my mother. They give the following account of his death and burial. His body was bathed and shrouded by Ali and Omar Salmah. Others say that Asma Bint Umays, the wife of Abu Bakr, was present with Fatimah, who at her last hour complained of being carried out, as was the custom of those days, to burial like a man. Asma promised to make her a covered bier, like a brides litter, of palm sticks, in shape like what she had seen in Abyssinia: whereupon Fatimah smiled for the first time after her fathers death, and exacted from her a promise to allow no one entrance as long as her corpse was in the house. Ayishah, shortly afterwards knocking at the door, was refused admittance by Asma; the former complained of this to her father, and declared that her stepmother had been making a brides litter to carry out the corpse. Abu Bakr went to the door, and when informed by his wife that all was the result of Fatimahs orders, he returned home making no objection. The death of the Prophets daughter was concealed by her own desire from high and low; she was buried at night, and none accompanied her bier, or prayed at her grave, except Ali and a few relatives. The Shiahs found a charge of irreverence and disrespect against Abu Bakr for absence on this occasion. The third place which claims Fatimahs honoured remains, is a small Mosque in Al-Bakia, South of the Sepulchre of Abbas. It was called Bayt al-HuznHouse of Mourningbecause here the lady passed the end of her days, lamenting the loss of her father. Her tomb appears to have formerly been shown there. Now visitors pray, and pray only twice,at the Harim, and in the Kubbat al-Abbasiyah. [FN#30] The other celebrities in Al-Bakia are:
Fatimah bint Asad, mother of Ali. She was buried with great religious pomp. The Prophet shrouded her with his own garment (to prevent hell from touching her), dug her grave, lay down in it (that it might never squeeze or be narrow to her), assisted in carrying the bier, prayed over her, and proclaimed her certain of future felicity. Over her tomb was written, The grave hath not closed upon one like Fatimah, daughter of Asad. Historians relate that Mohammed lay down in only four graves: 1. Khadijahs, at Meccah. 2. Kasims, her son by him. 3. That of Umm Ruman, Ayishahs mother. 4. That of Abdullah al-Mazni, a friend and companion.
Abd al-Rahman bin Auf was interred near Osman bin Mazun. Ayishah offered to bury him in her house near the Prophet, but he replied that he did not wish to narrow her abode, and that he had promised to sleep by the side of his friend Mazun. I have already alluded to the belief that none has been able to occupy the spare place in the Hujrah.
Ibn Hufazah al-Sahmi, who was one of the Ashab al-Hijratayn (who had accompanied both flights, the greater and the lesser), here died of a wound received at Ohod, and was buried in Shawwal, A.H. 3, one month after Osman bin Mazun.
Abdullah bin Masud, who, according to others, is buried at Kufah.