The
First Mahmal From Yemen Came In A.H. 960; And In A.H.1049, El Moayed
Billah, King, And Imam Of Yemen, Who Publicly Professed The Creed Of
Zeyd, Came With One To Arafat; And The Caravans Of Baghdad, Damascus,
And Cairo, Have Always Carried It With Them.
In A.H. 730, the Baghdad
caravan brought it to Arafat upon an elephant (vide Asamy).
I believe
the custom to have arisen in the battle-banner of the Bedouins, called
Merkeb and Otfe, which I have mentioned in my remarks on the Bedouins,
and which resemble the Mahmal, inasmuch as they are high wooden frames
placed upon camels.]
The preacher, or Khatyb, who is usually the Kadhy of Mekka, was mounted
upon a finely-caparisoned camel, which had been led up the steps; it
being traditionally said that Mohammed was always seated when he here
addressed his followers, a practice in which he was imitated by all the
Khalifes who came to the Hadj, and who from
[p.272] hence addressed their subjects in person. The Turkish gentleman
of Constantinople, however, unused to camel-riding, could not keep his
seat so well as the hardy Bedouin prophet; and the camel becoming
unruly, he was soon obliged to alight from it. He read his sermon from a
book in Arabic, which he held in his hands. At intervals of every four
or five minutes he paused, and stretched forth his arms to
implore blessings from above; while the assembled multitudes around and
before him, waved the skirts of their ihrams over their heads, and rent
the air with shouts of "Lebeyk, Allahuma Lebeyk," (i.e. Here we are, at
thy commands, O God!) During the wavings of the ihrams, the side of the
mountain, thickly crowded as it was by the people in their white
garments, had the appearance, of a cataract of water; while the green
umbrellas, with which several thousand hadjys, sitting on their camels
below, were provided, bore some resemblance to a verdant plain.
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