Until The
Time Of Acsham-Nomas, Which Is To Be Performed About Half An Hour After
Sunset.
(It is matter of sorrowful reflection, to compare the
indifference of many Christians with this zeal of these poor
Blind
Mahometans, who will, it is to be feared, rise up in judgment against
them and condemn them.) After their solemn performance of their
devotions thus at the Gibbel, they all at once receive that honourable
title of Hagge from the Emaum, and are so stiled to their dying day.
Immediately upon their receiving this name, the trumpet is sounded, and
they all leave the hill and return for Mecca, and being gone two or
three miles on their way[,] they then rest for that night[FN#34]; but
after nomas, before
[p.376] they go to rest, each person gathers nine-and-forty small
stones about the bigness of an hazle nut; the meaning of which I shall
acquaint you with presently.
“The next morning they move to a place called Mina, or Muna; the place,
as they say, where Abraham went to offer up his son Isaac,[FN#35] and
therefore in this place they sacrifice their sheep. It is about two or
three miles from Mecca. I was here shown a stone, or little rock, which
was parted in the middle. They told me, that when Abraham was going to
sacrifice his son, instead of striking him, Providence directed his
hand to this stone, which he clave in two. It must be a good stroke
indeed!
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