Personal Narrative Of A Pilgrimage To Al-Madinah & Meccah - Volume 2 of 2 - By Captain Sir Richard F. Burton





























 -  Among the 450 or 500 columns
which form the enclosure I found not any two capitals or bases exactly
alike - Page 378
Personal Narrative Of A Pilgrimage To Al-Madinah & Meccah - Volume 2 of 2 - By Captain Sir Richard F. Burton - Page 378 of 630 - First - Home

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Among The 450 Or 500 Columns Which Form The Enclosure I Found Not Any Two Capitals Or Bases Exactly Alike.

The capitals are of coarse Saracen workmanship; some of them, which had served for former buildings, by the ignorance of the workmen, have been placed upside down upon the shafts.

I observed about half a dozen marble bases of good Grecian workmanship. A few of the marble columns bear Arabic or Cufic inscriptions, in which I read the dates 863 and 762 (A.H.).[FN#6] A column on the east side exhibits a very ancient Cufic inscription, somewhat defaced, which I could neither read nor copy. Some of the columns are strengthened with broad iron rings or bands,[FN#7] as in many other Saracen buildings of the East. They were first employed by Ibn Dhaher Berkouk, king of Egypt, in rebuilding the Mosque, which had been destroyed by fire in A.H. 802.[FN#8]”

“Some parts of the walls and arches are gaudily painted in stripes of yellow, red, and blue, as are also the minarets. Paintings of flowers, in the usual Muselman

[p.297] style, are nowhere seen; the floors of the colonnades are paved with large stones badly cemented together.”

“Some paved causeways lead from the colonnades towards the Kaabah, or Holy House, in the centre.[FN#9] They are of sufficient breadth to admit four or five persons to walk abreast, and they are elevated about nine inches above the ground. Between these causeways, which are covered with fine gravel or sand, grass appears growing in several places, produced by the Zem Zem water oozing out of the jars which are placed in the ground in long rows during the day.[FN#10] There is a descent of eight or ten steps from the gates on the north side into the platform of the colonnade, and of three or four steps from the gates on the south side.”

“Towards the middle of this area stands the Kaabah; it is 115 paces from the north colonnade, and 88 from the south.

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