ʿARAFĀT (عرفات), or ʿArafah. The “Mount of Recognition,” situated twelve miles from Makkah; the place where the pilgrims stay on the ninth day of the pilgrimage, and recite the mid-day and afternoon prayers, and hear the K͟hut̤bah or sermon. Hence it is a name given to the ninth day of the month Ẕū ʾl-Ḥijjah. Upon the origin of the name given to this mountain, Burton says, “The Holy Hill owes its name to the following legend:—When our first parents forfeited heaven for eating wheat, which deprived them of their primeval purity, they were cast down upon earth. The serpent descended upon Ispahān, the peacock at Cābul; Satan at Bilbays (others say Semnān or Seistān), Eve upon ʿArafāt, and Adam at Ceylon (Sarandīb). The latter, determining to seek his wife, began a journey, to which the earth owes its present mottled appearance. Wherever our first father placed his foot, which was large, a town afterwards arose; and between the strides will always be country. Wandering for many years, he came to the Mountain of Mercy, where our common mother was continually calling upon his name, and their recognition of each other gave the place the name of ʿArafah.”
ARĀẒĪ (اراضى). Lit. “lands”; the sale of lands. Tombs are not included in the sale of lands. A place or station for casting the harvest is not considered to be amongst the rights and advantages of land, and therefore does not enter into the sale of it. (Baillie’s Law of Sale, pages 54, 55.) [[LAND].]
ARCHITECTURE. The term Saracenic is usually applied by English writers to Muḥammadan architecture. But though the style may be traced to the Arabians, they cannot themselves be considered the inventors of it. They had, in fact, no distinctive style of their own when they made their rapid conquests, but adapted existing styles of architecture to meet the religious and national feelings of the Muslims.
Muḥammad built a mosque at al-Madīnah, but it was an exceedingly simple structure, and he left no directions in the Qurʾān or in the Traditions on the subject.
The typical varieties of the earlier Muḥammadan architecture are those which appeared in Spain and in Egypt; its later form appeared in Constantinople. The oldest specimen of Saracenic architecture in Spain is the mosque of Cordova, which now serves as the cathedral of the city. It was commenced by the K͟halīfah ʿAbdu ʾr-Raḥmān, 786 A.D., with the avowed intention that it should be the finest mosque in the world, and Byzantine architects are said to have been specially invited to superintend its construction.
IN THE SANCTUARY OF THE CATHEDRAL OF CORDOVA.
The earliest of the Muḥammadan buildings in Egypt, of which any portions still remain, is the Mosque of ʿAmr at old Cairo, begun about A.D. 642, but greatly altered or rebuilt about sixty years later.
On the capture of Constantinople, St. Sophia was converted by the Muslim conquerors into their chief Mosque, and made their architectural model. The older Saracenic style, as seen at Cordova and old Cairo, continued to be the basis of the new, but it was modified throughout by Byzantine influence. In Persia we may clearly trace in Muḥammadan buildings the older Persian type, and in India the Saracenic architects showed the same pliancy in adopting the styles of the various peoples amongst whom they settled. It thus happens (says Fergusson, in his History of Indian Architecture), that we have at least twelve or fifteen different styles of Muḥammadan architecture in Central Asia and in India.
