Jerusalem, the City of Herod and Saladin

by Walter Besant; Edward Henry Palmer

In their religious ceremonies they make use of hymns, libations of wine, and sacrifices; to describe them in detail would be out of place in this work, I will, therefore, only mention one, which has an exceptional interest.

Amongst the ceremonies observed at their great feast is one called the “Consecration of the Fragrant Herb.” The officiating priest takes his seat in the midst of the assembly, and a white cloth, containing a kind of spice called mahlab, camphor, and some sprigs of olive or fragrant herb, is then placed before him. Two attendants then bring in a vessel filled with wine, and the master of the house in which the ceremony takes place, after appointing a third person to minister to them, kisses their hands all round, and humbly requests permission to provide the materials necessary for the feast. The high priest then, having prostrated himself upon the ground, and uttered a short invocation to certain mystic personages, distributes the sprigs of olive amongst the congregation, who rub them in their hands, and place them solemnly to their nose to inhale their fragrance.

This ceremony would alone furnish evidence of the antiquity of the Nuseiríyeh rites, for it is unquestionably the same as that alluded to by Ezekiel (viii. v. 17), when condemning the idolatrous practices of the Jews. In that passage the prophet (after mentioning “women weeping for Tammúz,” the Syrian Adonis, “twenty-five men with their backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces to the east, worshipping the sun in the east,” and thus showing beyond question that the particular form of idolatry which he is condemning is the sun worship of Syria) concludes with the following words: “Is it a light thing which they commit here? For they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose.”

The more sober Muslim historians tell us that Selmán el Fársí died at the age of ninety-eight or ninety-nine years; but some do not scruple to assert that he was over six hundred years old, and had personally witnessed the ministry of Christ. Nothing certain seems to be known of him, except that he died in the year A.D. 656, and no reason appears for his deification by the Nuseiríyeh except the fact that he was a Persian, and a friend of ‘Alí ibn Abí Talib. Abu Dhurrá is another of the companions of Mohammed, deified by the Nuseiríyeh (in whose pantheon he appears as the representative of the planet Jupiter), and is also said to have entered Jerusalem with the army of ‘Omar. He is buried at Medinah.

Sheddád ibn Aus. It is related that Mohammed, some little time before his death, predicted that Jerusalem would be conquered, and that Sheddád, and his sons after him, would become Imáms (or high priests) there, which prediction came to pass. Sheddád died in Jerusalem, A.D. 678, at the age of seventy-five, and was buried in the cemetery near the Bab er Rahmah, close under the walls of the Haram es Sheríf, where his tomb is still honoured by the faithful.

The Caliph Mo‘áwíyeh also visited Jerusalem before his accession to the throne, and it was in that city that the celebrated compact was made between him and ‘Άmir ibn el ‘Άs to revenge the murder of ‘Othmán. He died in Damascus, on the 1st of May, A.D. 680.

One of the most distinguished of Mohammedan pilgrims to Jerusalem was Ka‘ab el Ahbár ibn Máni‘, the Himyarite, familiarly called Abu Is’hak. He was by birth a Jew, but had embraced the Muslim religion during the caliphate of Abu Bekr, in consequence, as he alleged, of his finding in the Book of the Law a prophecy relating to Mohammed. He is chiefly remembered as having pointed out to ‘Omar, whom he accompanied to Jerusalem, the real position of the Sakhrah. The following tradition is also ascribed to him: that “Jerusalem once complained to the Almighty that she had been so frequently destroyed; to which God answered, ‘Be comforted, for I will fill thee, instead, with worshippers, who shall flock to thee as the vultures to their nests, and shall yearn for thee as the doves for their eggs.’” He died at Hums in A.D. 652.

Sellám ibn Caisar was one of the companions of Mohammed, and acted as governor of Jerusalem under the Caliph Mo‘áwíyeh.

The position of women amongst the first professors of Islám appears to have been much more honourable than amongst their later successors, and the early annals of the creed contain many notices of gifted and pious women who appeared to have exercised no small influence over the minds of their contemporaries. One of these distinguished females was Umm el Kheir, a freed woman of the noble family of ‘Agyl, and a native of Basora. She visited Jerusalem, where she died about the year 752. Her tomb is still to be seen on the Mount of Olives, in a retired corner south of the Chapel of the Ascension; and is much frequented by pilgrims. It is related that Umm el Kheir, one day, in the course of her devotions, cried out, “Oh, God, wilt thou consume with fire a heart that loves thee so?” When a mysterious voice replied to her, “Nay, we act not thus; entertain not such evil suspicions of us.” The precept, “Conceal your virtues as you would your vices,” is also attributed to the same saint.

Safíyah bint Hai, known as “The Mother of the Faithful,” was amongst the earliest pilgrims to Jerusalem, having visited it with the army of ‘Omar. To her is attributed the tradition that the division of the wicked from the good on the Day of Judgment will take place from the top of the Mount of Olives. She died about the year 670.