[FN#317] The meal must be finished before the faster can plainly distinguish the white thread from the black thread (Koran ii. 183); some understand this literally, others apply it to the dark and silvery streak of zodiacal light which appears over the Eastern horizon an hour or so before sunrise. The fast then begins and ends with the disappearance of the sun. I have noticed its pains and penalties in my Pilgrimage, i. 110, etc.
[FN#318] For the "Azαn" or call to prayer see Lane, M. E., chapt. xviii. The chant, however, differs in every country, and a practical ear will know the land by its call.
[FN#319] Arab. "Hadνs" or saying of the Apostle.
[FN#320] "Al-I'itikaf" resembles the Christian "retreat;" but the worshipper generally retires to a mosque, especially in Meccah. The Apostle practised it on Jabal Hira and other places.
[FN#321] The word is the Heb. "Hagg" whose primary meaning is circularity of form or movement. Hence it applied to religious festivals in which dancing round the idol played a prime part; and Lucian of "saltation" says, dancing was from the beginning and coeval with the ancient god, Love. But man danced with joy before he worshipped, and, when he invented a systematic saltation, he made it represent two things, and only two things, love and war, in most primitive form, courtship and fighting.
[FN#322] Two adjoining ground-waves in Meccah. For these and for the places subsequently mentioned the curious will consult my Pilgrimage, iii. 226, etc.
[FN#323] The 'Umrah or lesser Pilgrimage, I have noted, is the ceremony performed in Meccah at any time out of the pilgrim-season proper, i.e. between the eighth and tenth days of the twelfth lunar month Zu 'l-Hijjah. It does not entitle the Moslem to be called Hαjj (pilgrim) or Hαjν as Persians and Indians corrupt the word.
[FN#324] I need hardly note that Mohammed borrowed his pilgrimage-practices from the pagan Arabs who, centuries before his day, danced around the Meccan Ka'abah. Nor can he be blamed for having perpetuated a Gentile rite, if indeed it be true that the Ka'abah contained relics of Abraham and Ishmael.
[FN#325] On first sighting Meccah. See Night xci.
[FN#326] Arab. "Tawαf:" the place is called Matαf and the guide Mutawwif. (Pilgrimage, iii. 193, 205.) The seven courses are termed Ashwαt.