THE MAHMAL. (From an Original Picture.)
Shag͟hru ʾd-Durr, a beautiful Turkish female slave, who became the favourite wife of Sult̤ān aṣ-Ṣālih Najmu ʾd-dīn, and who on the death of his son (with whom terminated the dynasty of Aiyūb) caused herself to be acknowledged Queen of Egypt, performed the ḥajj in a magnificent litter borne by a camel. And for successive years her empty litter was sent yearly to Makkah, as an emblem of state. After her death, a similar litter was sent each year with the caravan of pilgrims from Cairo and Damascus, and is called maḥmal or maḥmil, a word signifying that by which anything is supported.
Mr. Lane, in his Modern Egyptians, vol. ii. p. 162, thus describes the maḥmal:—
“It is a square skeleton frame of wood with a pyramidal top, and has a covering of black brocade richly worked with inscriptions and ornamental embroidery in gold, in some parts upon a ground of green or red silk, and bordered with a fringe of silk, with tassels, surmounted by silver balls. Its covering is not always made after the same pattern with regard to the decorations; but in every cover that I have seen, I have remarked on the upper part of the front a view of the Temple of Makkah, worked in gold, and over it the Sultan’s cipher. It contains nothing; but has two copies of the Kurán, one on a small scroll, and the other in the usual form of a book, also small, each inclosed in a case of gilt silver, attached externally at the top. The five balls with crescents, which ornament the maḥmal, are of gilt silver. The maḥmal is borne by a fine tall camel, which is generally indulged with exemption from every kind of labour during the remainder of its life.”
THE MAHMAL. (Lane.)
Eastern travellers often confuse the maḥmal with the kiswah, or covering for the Kaʿbah, which is a totally distinct thing, although it is made in Cairo and sent at the same time as the maḥmal. [[KISWAH].]
The Wahhābīs prohibited the maḥmal as an object of vain pomp, and on one occasion intercepted the caravan which escorted it.
Captain Burton saw both the Egyptian and the Damascus maḥmals on the plain below ʿArafah at the time of the pilgrimage.