The Houses Of The Northern Row Are Almost Totally In Ruins:

The row of shops (No.

16.) on that side were open without any doors. There were, besides, many sheds constructed in the midst of the street, where victuals might be purchased in great abundance, but at exorbitant prices.

On the declivity of the mountain to the north, called Djebel Thebeyr, a place is visited by the hadjys, where Abraham, as some accounts inform us, requested permission to offer up his son as a sacrifice. A granite block, cleft in two, is shown here, upon which the knife of Abraham fell, at the moment when the angel Gabriel showed him the ram close by. At the touch of the knife the stone separated in two. It is in commemoration of this sacrifice that the faithful, after the Hadj is completed, slaughter their victims. The commentators on the law, however, do not agree about the person whom Abraham intended to sacrifice. Some state him to have been Yakoub (Jacob), but the far greater number Ismayl. In the immediate neighbourhood of the block is a small cavern, capable of holding four or five persons, where Hadjer (or Hagar) is said to have given birth to Ismayl; this, however, directly contradicts even Mohammedan tradition, which says that Ismayl was born in Syria, and that his mother Hadjer carried him into the Hedjaz, when an infant at her breast; but the small cavern offering itself so conveniently, justified the substitution of Muna for Syria, as a fit birth-place for the father of the Bedouins, more especially as it attracts so many pious donations to the Mekkans, who sit around with outspread handkerchiefs. Where the valley terminates towards Mekka, is a small house of the Sherif, in which he makes his sacrifice, and throws off the ihram. It was mentioned, that in a side-valley leading from this place towards Djebel Nour, stands a mosque called Mesdjed el Ashra, where the followers of Mohammed used to pray; but I did not visit it. According to Azraky, another mosque, called Mesdjed el Kabsh, stood near the cavern; and Fasy says there was one between

[p.280] the first and second of the devil's pillars, which is probably that marked 20 in the plan.

To every division of the hadjys, its place of encampment is appointed in Wady Muna, or at Arafat; but the space is here much narrower. The Egyptian Hadj alights near the house of the Sherif, where Mohammed Aly had pitched his tent, in the vicinity of his cavalry. Two large leathern vessels, constantly kept filled with water, were placed in front of his tent, for the use of the hadjys. At a short distance from it, towards the Mesdjed el Kheyf, stood the tent of Soleyman Pasha of Damascus, whose caravan was encamped on the opposite side of the way; before his tent was placed a row of ten field-pieces, which he had brought with him from Damascus. His ammunition had exploded on the way, while the caravan halted at Beder, and fifty people had been killed by the accident; but Mohammed Aly had furnished him with a fresh supply; and the guns were frequently discharged, as were twelve others which stood near Mohammed Aly's tent.

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Words from 106565 to 107109 of 182297