There Was A Startling Contrast With The Origin Of This
Ceremony,—
“When the poor outcast on the cheerless wild,
Arabia’s parent, clasped her fainting child,”—
As the Turkish infantry marched, in European dress, with sloped arms,
down the Masa’a to relieve guard. By the side of the half-naked, running
Badawin, they look as if Epochs, disconnected by long centuries, had
met. A laxity, too, there was in the frequent appearance of dogs upon
this holy and most memorial ground, which said little in favour of the
religious strictness of the administration.[FN#34]
Our Sai ended at Mount Marwah. There we dismounted, and sat outside a
barber’s shop, on the right-hand of the street. He operated upon our
heads, causing us to repeat, “O Allah, this my Forelock is in Thy Hand,
then grant me for every Hair a light on the Resurrection-day, O Most
Merciful of the Merciful!” This, and the paying for it, constituted the
fourth portion of the Umrah, or Little Pilgrimage.
Throwing the skirts of our garments over our heads, to show
that our “Ihram” was now exchanged for the normal state, “Ihlal,” we cantered
to the Harim, prayed there a two-bow prayer, and returned home not a
little fatigued.
[FN#1] Not more than one-quarter of the pilgrims who appear at Arafat
go on to Al-Madinah: the expense, the hardships, and the dangers of the
journey account for the smallness of the number. In theology it is “Jaiz,”
or admissible, to begin with the Prophet’s place of burial.
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