About a foot in
dimension, and fixed in the wall somewhat higher than a man’s head. There
are servants attached to it, and the street sides are spread, as usual,
with the napkins of importunate beggars.
2. Maulid al-Nabi, or the Prophet’s birthplace.[FN#13] It is a little
chapel in the Suk al-Layl, not far from Mohammed bin Aun’s palace. It is
below the present level of the ground, and in the centre is a kind of
tent, concealing, it is said, a hole in the floor upon which Aminah sat
to be delivered.
3. In the quarter “Sha’ab Ali,” near the Maulid al-Nabi, is the birthplace of
Ali, another oratory below the ground. Here, as in the former place, a
Maulid and a Ziyarah are held on the anniversary of the Lion’s birth.
4. Near Khadijah’s house and the Natak al-Nabi is a place called
Al-Muttaka, from a stone against which the Prophet leaned when worn out
with fatigue. It is much visited by devotees; and some declare that on
one occasion, when the Father of Lies appeared to the Prophet in the
form of an elderly man, and tempted him to sin by asserting that the
Mosque-prayers were over, this stone, disclosing the fraud, caused the
Fiend to flee.
5. Maulid Hamzah, a little building at the old Bab Umrah, near the
Shabayki cemetery. Here was the Bazan, or channel down which the Ayn
Hunayn ran into the Birkat Majid. Many authorities doubt that Hamzah
was born at this place.[FN#14]
[p.255] The reader must now be as tired of “Pious Visitations” as I was.
Before leaving Meccah I was urgently invited to dine by old Ali bin Ya
Sin, the Zemzemi; a proof that he entertained inordinate expectations,
excited, it appeared, by the boy Mohammed, for the simple purpose of
exalting his own dignity. One day we were hurriedly summoned about
three P.M. to the senior’s house, a large building in the Zukak al-Hajar.
We found it full of pilgrims, amongst whom we had no trouble to
recognise our fellow-travellers, the quarrelsome old Arnaut and his
impudent slave-boy. Ali met us upon the staircase, and conducted us
into an upper room, where we sat upon diwans, and with pipes and coffee
prepared for dinner. Presently the semicircle arose to receive a
eunuch, who lodged somewhere in the house. He was a person of
importance, being the guardian of some dames of high degree at Cairo
and Constantinople: the highest place and
[p.256] the best pipe were unhesitatingly offered to and accepted by
him. He sat down with dignity, answered diplomatically certain
mysterious questions about the dames, and applied his blubber lips to a
handsome mouthpiece of lemon-coloured amber.
![Personal Narrative Of A Pilgrimage To Al-Madinah & Meccah - Volume 2 of 2 - By Captain Sir Richard F. Burton
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[P.254] As the Prophet was knocking at the door of Abu Bakr’s shop, a
stone gave him God - Page 169](../images/travel.jpg)
