When The Sai Rite
Is Performed, As It Should Be, By A Pedestrian, He Mounts The Steps To
About The
Height of a man, and then turns towards the temple.
[FN#26] I will not trouble the reader with this
Niyat, which is the
same as that used in the Tawaf rite.
[FN#27] Almost every Mutawwif, it must be remembered, has his own set
of prayers.
[FN#28] “Safa” means a large, hard rock; “Marwah,” hard, white flints, full of
fire.
[FN#29] In former times a devastating torrent used to sweep this place
after rains. The Fiumara bed has now disappeared, and the pillars are
used as landmarks. Galland observes that these columns are planted upon
the place which supported Eve’s knees, when, after 300 years’ separation,
she was found by Adam.
[FN#30] This house is called in books Rubat al-Abbas.
[FN#31] Here once stood “As’af” and “Naylah,” two idols, some say a man and a
woman metamorphosed for stupration in the Temple.
[FN#32] Koran, chap. ii.
[FN#33] Ibn Jubayr gives 893 steps: other authorities make the distance
780 short cubits, the size of an average man’s forearm.
[FN#34] The ceremony of running between Safa and Marwah is supposed to
represent Hagar seeking water for her son. Usually pilgrims perform
this rite on the morning of visiting the Ka’aba.
[p.247] CHAPTER XXXIII.
PLACES OF PIOUS VISITATION AT MECCAH.
THE traveller has little work at the Holy City.
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