Some say this
is the case in the present building, which has not been materially
altered in shape since its restoration by Al-Hajjaj, A.H. 83.
The roof
was then eighteen cubits long by fifteen broad.
[FN#15] In Ibn Jubayr’s time the Ka’abah was opened every day in Rajah, and
in other months on every Monday and Friday. The house may now be
entered ten or twelve times a year gratis; and by pilgrims as often as
they can collect, amongst parties, a sum sufficient to tempt the
guardians’ cupidity.
[FN#16] This mistake, in which Burckhardt is followed by all our
popular authors, is the more extraordinary, as all Arabic authors call
the door-wall Janib al-Mashrik—the Eastern side—or Wajh al-Bayt, the front
of the house, opposed to Zahr al-Bayt, the back. Niebuhr is equally in
error when he asserts that the door fronts to the South. Arabs always
hold the “Rukn al-Iraki,” or Irak angle, to face the polar star, and so it
appears in Ali Bey’s plan. The Ka’abah, therefore, has no Northern side.
And it must be observed that Moslem writers dispose the length of the
Ka’abah from East to West, whereas our travellers make it from North to
South. Ali Bey places the door only six feet from the pavement, but he
calculates distances by the old French measure. It is about seven feet
from the ground, and six from the corner of the Black Stone. Between
the two the space of wall is called Al-Multazem (in Burckhardt, by a
clerical error, “Al-Metzem,” vol. i. p. 173). It derives its name, the
“attached-to,” because here the circumambulator should apply his bosom, and
beg pardon for his sins. Al-Multazem, according to M. de Perceval,
following d’Ohsson, was formerly “le lieu des engagements,” whence, according
to him, its name[.] “Le Moltezem,” says M. Galland (Rits et Ceremonies du
Pelerinage de la Mecque), “qui est entre la pierre noire et la porte, est
l’endroit ou Mahomet se reconcilia avec ses dix compagnons, qui disaient
qu’il n’etait pas veritablement Prophete.”
[FN#17] From the Bab al-Ziyadah, or gate in the northern colonnade, you
descend by two flights of steps, in all about twenty-five. This
depression manifestly arises from the level of the town having been
raised, like Rome, by successive layers of ruins; the most populous and
substantial quarters (as the Shamiyah to the north) would, we might
expect, be the highest, and this is actually the case. But I am unable
to account satisfactorily for the second hollow within the temple, and
immediately around the house of Allah, where the door, according to all
historians, formerly on a level with the pavement, and now about seven
feet above it, shows the exact amount of depression, which cannot be
accounted for simply by calcation.
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