In Al-Idrisi’S Time It Was Of Wood; Now It Is Said To Be Gold, But It Looks Very Dingy. [FN#29] Usually Called The Hajar Al-Akhzar, Or Green Stone.

Al-Idrisi speaks of a white stone covering Ishmael’s remains; Ibn Jubayr of “green marble, longish, in form

Of a Mihrab arch, and near it a white round slab, in both of which are spots that make them appear yellow.” Near them, we are told, and towards the Iraki corner, is the tomb of Hagar, under a green slab one span and a half broad, and pilgrims used to pray at both places. Ali Bey erroneously applies the words Al-Hajar Ismail to the parapet about the slab. [FN#30] My measurements give five feet six inches. In Al-Idrisi’s day the wall was fifty cubits long. [FN#31] Al-Hatim ([Arabic] lit. the “broken”). Burckhardt asserts that the Mekkawi no longer apply the word, as some historians do, to the space bounded by the Ka’abah, the Partition, the Zemzem, and the Makam of Ibrahim. I heard it, however, so used by learned Meccans, and they gave as the meaning of the name the break in this part of the oval pavement which surrounds the Ka’abah. Historians relate that all who rebuilt the “House of Allah” followed Abraham’s plan till the Kuraysh, and after them Al-Hajjaj curtailed it in the direction of Al-Hatim, which part was then first broken off, and ever since remained so. [FN#32] Al-Hijr ([Arabic]) is the space separated, as the name denotes, from the Ka’abah. Some suppose that Abraham here penned his sheep. Possibly Ali Bey means this part of the Temple when he speaks of Al-Hajar ([Arabic]) Ismail—les pierres d’Ismail. [FN#33] “Al-Hajjaj”; this, as will afterwards be seen, is a mistake. He excluded the Hatim. [FN#34] As well as memory serves me, for I have preserved no note, the inscriptions are in the marble casing, and indeed no other stone meets the eye. [FN#35] It is a fine, close, grey polished granite: the walk is called Al-Mataf, or the place of circumambulation. [FN#36] These are now iron posts, very numerous, supporting cross rods, and of tolerably elegant shape. In Ali Bey’s time there were “trente-une colonnes minces en piliers en bronze.” Some native works say thirty-three, including two marble columns. Between each two hang several white or green glass globe-lamps, with wicks and oil floating on water; their light is faint and dismal. The whole of the lamps in the Harim is said to be more than 1000, yet they serve but to “make darkness visible.” [FN#37] There are only four “Makams,” the Hanafi, Maliki, Hanbali, and the Makam Ibrahim; and there is some error of diction below, for in these it is that the Imams stand before their congregations, and nearest the Ka’abah. In Ibn Jubayr’s time the Zaydi sect was allowed an Imam, though known to be schismatics and abusers of the caliphs.

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