He Enlarged The Building By
Adding Ten Handsome Pillars Of Carved Marble, With Gilt Capitals, On
The Northern Side.
In A.H. 202, Al-Ma'amun made further additions to
this Mosque.
It was from Al-Mahdi's Masjid that Al-Hakim bi'Amri 'llah,
the third Fatimite Caliph of Egypt, and the deity of the Druze sect,
determined to steal the bodies of the Prophet and his two companions.
About A.H. 412, he sent emissaries to Al-Madinah: the attempt, however,
failed, and the would-be violators of the tomb lost their lives. It is
generally supposed that Al-Hakim's object was to transfer the
Visitation to his own capital; but in one so manifestly insane it is
difficult to discover the spring of action. Two Christians, habited
like Maghrabi pilgrims, in A.H. 550, dug a mine from a neighbouring
house into the temple. They were discovered, beheaded, and burned to
ashes. In relating these events the Moslem historians mix up many
foolish preternaturalisms with credible matter. At last, to prevent a
recurrence of such sacrilegious attempts, Al-Malik al-Adil Nur al-Din
of the Baharite Mamluk Sultans, or, according to others, Sultan Nur
al-Din Shahid Mahmud bin Zangi, who, warned by a vision of the Apostle,
had started for Al-Madinah only in time to discover the two Christians,
surrounded the holy place with a deep trench filled with molten lead.
By this means Abu Bakr and Omar, who had run considerable risks of
their own, have ever since been enabled to occupy their last homes
undisturbed.
In A.H. 654, the fifth Mosque was erected in consequence of a fire,
which some authors attribute to a
[p.368]volcano that broke out close to the town in terrible
eruption[FN#51]; others, with more fanaticism and less probability, to
the schismatic Benu Husayn, then the guardians of the tomb. On this
occasion the Hujrah was saved, together with the old and venerable
copies of the Koran there deposited, especially the Cufic MSS., written
by Osman, the third Caliph. The piety of three sovereigns, Al-Mustasim
(last Caliph of Baghdad), Al-Muzaffar Shems al-Din Yusuf, chief of
Al-Yaman, and Al-Zahir Beybars, Baharite Sultan of Egypt, completed the
work in A.H. 688. This building was enlarged and beautified by the
princes of Egypt, and lasted upwards of two hundred years.
The sixth Mosque was built, almost as it now stands, by Kaid-Bey,
nineteenth Sultan of the Circassian Mamluk kings of Egypt, in A.H. 888:
it is now therefore more than four centuries old. Al-Mustasim's Mosque
had been struck by lightning during a storm; thirteen men were killed
at prayers, and the destroying element spared nothing but the interior
of the Hujrah.[FN#52] The railing and dome were restored; niches and a
pulpit were sent from Cairo, and the gates and minarets were
distributed as they are now. Not content with this, Kaid-Bey
established "Wakf" (bequests) and pensions, and introduced order among
the attendants on the tomb.
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