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. Now, not being permitted to have a separate station for prayer, they suppose theirs to be suspended from heaven above the Ka’abah roof. [FN#38] The Makam al-Maliki is on the west of, and thirty-seven cubits from, the Ka’abah; that of the Hanbali forty-seven paces distant. [FN#39] Only the Mu’ezzin takes his stand here, and the Shafe’is pray behind their Imam on the pavement round the Ka’abah, between the corner of the well Zemzem, and the Makam Ibrahim. This place is forty cubits from the Ka’abah, that is say, eight cubits nearer than the Northern and Southern “Makams.” Thus the pavement forms an irregular oval ring round the house[.] [FN#40] In Burckhardt’s time the schools prayed according to the seniority of their founders, and they uttered the Azan of Al-Maghrib together, because that is a peculiarly delicate hour, which easily passes by unnoticed.

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