And I
Fly To Thee From Ignominy In This World And The Next, And I Implore Thy
Pardon For The Present And For The Future.
O Lord, grant to me in this
Life Prosperity, and in the next Life Prosperity, and save me from the
Punishment of Fire.”
Thus finished a Shaut, or single course round the house. Of these we
performed the first three at the pace called Harwalah, very similar to
the French pas gymnastique, or Tarammul, that is to say, “moving the
shoulders as if walking in sand.” The four latter are performed in
Ta’ammul, slowly and leisurely; the reverse of the Sai, or running. These
seven Ashwat, or courses, are called collectively one Usbu ([Arabic]).
The Moslem origin of this custom is too well known to require mention.
After each Taufah[,] or circuit, we, being unable to kiss or even to
touch the Black Stone, fronted towards it, raised our hands to our
ears, exclaimed, “In the Name of Allah, and Allah is omnipotent!” kissed
our fingers, and resumed the ceremony of circumambulation, as before,
with “Allah, in Thy Belief,” &c.
At the conclusion of the Tawaf it was deemed advisable to attempt to
kiss the stone. For a time I stood
[p.168] looking in despair at the swarming crowd of Badawi and other
pilgrims that besieged it. But the boy Mohammed was equal to the
occasion. During our circuit he had displayed a fiery zeal against
heresy and schism, by foully abusing every Persian in his path[FN#8];
and the inopportune introduction of hard words into his prayers made
the latter a strange patchwork; as “Ave Maria purissima,—arrah, dont ye be
letting the pig at the pot,—sanctissima,” and so forth. He might, for
instance, be repeating “And I take Refuge with Thee from Ignominy in this
World,” when “O thou rejected one, son of the rejected!” would be the
interpolation addressed to some long-bearded Khorasani,—“And in that to come”—“O
hog and brother of a hoggess!” And so he continued till I wondered that
none dared to turn and rend him. After vainly addressing the pilgrims,
of whom nothing could be seen but a mosaic of occupits and
shoulder-blades, the boy Mohammed collected about half a dozen stalwart
Meccans, with whose assistance, by sheer strength, we wedged our way
into the thin and light-legged crowd. The Badawin turned round upon us
like wild-cats, but
[p.169] they had no daggers. The season being autumn, they had not
swelled themselves with milk for six months; and they had become such
living mummies, that I could have managed single-handed half a dozen of
them. After thus reaching the stone, despite popular indignation
testified by impatient shouts, we monopolised the use of it for at
least ten minutes. Whilst kissing it and rubbing hands and forehead
upon it I narrowly observed it, and came away persuaded that it is an
aerolite. It is curious that almost all travellers agree upon one
point, namely, that the stone is volcanic. Ali Bey calls it
“mineralogically” a “block of volcanic basalt, whose circumference is
sprinkled with little crystals, pointed and straw-like, with rhombs of
tile-red feldspath upon a dark background, like velvet or charcoal,
except one of its protuberances, which is reddish.” Burckhardt thought it
was “a lava containing several small extraneous particles of a whitish
and of a yellowish substance.”
Having kissed the stone we fought our way through the crowd to the
place called Al-Multazem. Here we pressed our stomachs, chests, and
right cheeks to the Ka’abah, raising our arms high above our heads and
exclaiming, “O Allah! O Lord of the Ancient House, free my Neck from
Hell-fire, and preserve me from every ill Deed, and make me contented
with that daily bread which Thou hast given to me, and bless me in all
Thou hast granted!” Then came the Istighfar, or begging of pardon; “I beg
Pardon of Allah the most high, who, there is no other God but He, the
Living, the Eternal, and unto Him I repent myself!” After which we
blessed the Prophet, and then asked for ourselves all that our souls
most desired.[FN#9]
[p.170] After embracing the Multazem, we repaired to the Shafe’is’ place of
prayer near the Makam Ibrahim, and there recited two prostrations,
technically called Sunnat al-Tawaf, or the (Apostle’s) practice of
circumambulation. The chapter repeated in the first was “Say thou, O
Infidels”: in the second, “Say thou He is the one God.[FN#10]” We then went
to the door of the building in which is Zemzem: there I was condemned
to another nauseous draught, and was deluged with two or three skinfuls
of water dashed over my head en douche. This ablution causes sins to
fall from the spirit like dust.[FN#11] During the potation we prayed, “O
Allah, verily I beg of Thee plentiful daily Bread, and profitable
Learning, and the healing of every Disease!” Then we returned towards the
Black Stone, stood far away opposite, because unable to touch it,
ejaculated the Takbir, the Tahlil, and the Hamdilah; and thoroughly
worn out with scorched feet and a burning head,—both extremities, it must
be remembered, were bare, and various delays had detained us till ten
A.M.,—I left the Mosque.[FN#12]
The boy Mohammed had miscalculated the amount of lodging in his mother’s
house. She, being a widow
[p.171] and a lone woman, had made over for the season all the
apartments to her brother, a lean old Meccan, of true ancient type,
vulture-faced, kite-clawed, with a laugh like a hyena, and a mere shell
of body. He regarded me with no favouring eye when I insisted as a
guest upon having some place of retirement; but he promised that, after
our return from Arafat, a little store-room should be cleared out for
me. With that I was obliged to be content, and to pass that day in the
common male drawing-room of the house, a vestibule on the ground floor,
called in Egypt a Takhta-bush.[FN#13] Entering, to the left (A) was a
large Mastabah, or platform, and at the bottom (B) a second, of smaller
dimensions and foully dirty.
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