Jalālu ʾd-dīn as-Suyūt̤ī has devoted a whole volume to the consideration of the superabundant merits existing in the Masjidu ʾl-Aqṣā, which work has been translated into English by the Rev. James Reynolds (Oriental Translation Fund, 1836). He says it is called al-Aqṣā, because it is the most distant mosque to which pilgrimage is directed. [[JERUSALEM], [AS-SAKHRAH].]
MASJIDU ʾL-ḤARĀM (مسجد الحرام). “The Sacred Mosque.” The temple at Makkah which contains the Kaʿbah, or Cube-house, in which is placed the Ḥajaru ʾl-Aswad, or “Black Stone.” The term Baitu ʾllāh, or “House of God,” is applied to the whole enclosure, although it more specially denotes the Kaʿbah itself.
The following graphic account of this celebrated building is given by the traveller Burckhardt, who visited it in A.D. 1814. Captain R. Burton, who visited the temple thirty-eight years later, testifies to the great accuracy of Burckhardt’s description, and quotes his description in extenso. The account by Burckhardt is given in the present article, with some slight corrections.
The Kaʿbah stands in an oblong square, two hundred and fifty paces long, and two hundred broad, none of the sides of which runs quite in a straight line, though at first sight the whole appears to be of a regular shape. This open square is enclosed on the eastern side by a colonnade; the pillars stand in a quadruple row; they are three deep on the other sides, and united by pointed arches, every four of which support a small dome, plastered and whitened on the outside. These domes, according to Qut̤bu ʾd-dīn, are one hundred and fifty-two in number. Along the whole colonnade, on the four sides, lamps are suspended from the arches. Some are lighted every night, and all during the nights of Ramaẓān. The pillars are above twenty feet in height, and generally from one foot and a half to one foot and three quarters in diameter; but little regularity has been observed in regard to them. Some are of white marble, granite, or porphyry, but the greater number are of common stone of the Makkah mountains. Fasy states the whole at five hundred and eighty-nine, and says they are all of marble excepting one hundred and twenty-six, which are of common stone, and three of composition. Qut̤bu ʾd-dīn reckons five hundred and fifty-five, of which, according to him, three hundred and eleven are of marble, and the rest of stone taken from the neighbouring mountains; but neither of these authors lived to see the latest repairs of the mosque, after the destruction occasioned by a torrent, in A.D. 1626. Between every three or four columns stands an octagonal one, about four feet in thickness. On the east side are two shafts of reddish gray granite, in one piece, and one fine gray porphyry column with slabs of white feldspath. On the north side is one red granite column, and one of fine-grained red porphyry; these are probably the columns which Qut̤bu ʾd-dīn states to have been brought from Egypt, and principally from Akhinim (Panopolis), when the chief Mahdī enlarged the mosque, in A.H. 163. Among the four hundred and fifty or five hundred columns, which form the enclosure, I found not any two capitals or bases exactly alike. The capitals are of coarse Saracenic workmanship; some of them, which had served for former buildings, by the ignorance of the workmen have been placed upside down upon the shafts. I observed about half-a-dozen marble bases of good Grecian workmanship. A few of the marble columns bear Arabic or Cufic inscriptions, in which I read the dates A.H. 863 and A.H. 762. A column on the east side exhibits a very ancient Cufic inscription, somewhat defaced, which I could neither read nor copy. Those shafts, formed of the Makkan stone, cut principally from the side of the mountain near the Shubaikah quarter, are mostly in three pieces; but the marble shafts are in one piece.
THE SACRED MOSQUE, THE MASJIDU ʾL-ḤARĀM AT MAKKAH.
THE MASJIDU ʾL-ḤARĀM.
REFERENCES TO THE PLAN AND VIEW.
| 1 | The Kaʿbah. | k | The Kiswah, or silk covering with the golden band. | 13 | Qubbatu ʾs-Saʿb. | ||
| a | The Black Stone. | 2 | Pillars suspending lamps. | 14 | Qubbatu ʾl-ʿAbbās. | ||
| b | Ruknu ʾl-Yamānī. | 3 & 4 | Outer and Inner steps. | l l | Paved causeways, &c. | ||
| c | Ruknu ʾsh-Shāmī. | 5 | Building over the Well Zamzam. | m m | Gravelled spaces. | ||
| d | Tombs of Ismāʿīl and his mother. | 6 | Praying station, or Maqāmu ʾl-Ibrāhīm of the Shāfiʿīs. | 15 | Minaret of Bābu ʾs-Salām. | ||
| e | The Miʾzāb. | 7 | Maqāmu ʾl-Ḥanafī. | 16 | Minaret,, of,, Bābu ʿAlī. | ||
| f | The Wall of Ḥat̤īm. | 8 | Maqāmu ʾl-Malakī. | 17 | Minaret,, of,, Bābu ʾl-Wadāʿ. | ||
| g | Ruknu ʾl-ʿIrāq. | 9 | Maqāmu ʾl-Ḥanbalī. | 18 | Minaret,, of,, Bābu ʾl-ʿUmrah. | ||
| h | Spot called Miʿjan. | 10 | Mimbar or Pulpit. | 19 | Minaret,, of,, Bābu ʾz-Ziyādah. | ||
| i | Door. | 11 | Bābu ʾs-Salām or Shaibar. | 20 | Minaret,, of,, Madrasah Kail Beg. | ||
| j | Staircase to Roof. | 12 | Ad-Daraj or Staircase for the Kaʿbah. |