Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah Volume Ii Part 32

[FN#12] This is an error. The stone is called Hajar Aswad, the Black Stone, or Hajar As'ad, the Blessed Stone. Moreover, it did not change its colour on account of the sins of the people who kissed it.

[FN#13] The Meccans, in effect, still make this a boast.

[FN#14] Nothing more blindly prejudiced than this statement. Moslems turn towards Meccah, as Christians towards Jerusalem.

[FN#15] As will afterwards be explained, all the four orthodox schools do not think it necessary to kiss the stone after each circ.u.mambulation.

[FN#16] These are mere local traditions. The original Ka'abah was composed of materials gathered from the six mountains of Paradise (chap. xx.) The present building is of grey granite quarried in a hill near Meccah.

[FN#17] Now Jabal Nur.

[FN#18] They come from the well-known Taif, which the country people call Hijaz, but never Habbash. The word Taif literally means the "circ.u.mambulator." It is said that when Adam settled at Meccah, finding the country barren, he prayed to Allah to supply him with a bit of fertile land. Immediately appeared a mountain, which having performed Tawaf round the Ka'abah, settled itself down eastward of Meccah. Hence, to the present day, Taif is called Kita min al-Sham, a piece of Syria, its fatherland.

[FN#19] This is an error of printing for "paces."

[FN#20] (Pitts' Note.) Not of ma.s.sy gold, as a late French author (who, I am sure, was never there) says. The door is of wood, only plated over with silver; much less is the inside of the Beat ceiled with ma.s.sy gold, as the same Frenchman a.s.serts. I can a.s.sure the world it is no such thing.

The door is of wood, thickly plated over with silver, in many parts gilt. And whatever hereabouts is gilt, the Meccans always call gold.

(R.F.B.) [FN#21] This is no longer the case. Few women ever enter the Ka'abah, on account of the personal danger they run there.

[FN#22] More correctly, at three of the corners, and the fourth opposite the southern third of the western wall.

[FN#23] It is deemed disrespectful to look at the ceiling, but pilgrims may turn their eyes in any other direction they please.

[FN#24] There are now three.

[FN#25] It is tucked up about six feet high.

[FN#26] It is a close kind of grey granite, which takes a high polish from the pilgrims' feet.

[FN#27] Now iron posts.

[FN#28] The Shafe'i school have not, and never had, a peculiar oratory like the other three schools. They pray near the well Zemzem.

[FN#29] This place contains the stone which served Abraham for a scaffold when he was erecting the Ka'abah. Some of our popular writers confound this stone with the Hajar al-Aswad.

[FN#30] (Pitts' Note.) The worthy Mons. Thevenot saith, that the waters of Meccah are bitter; but I never found them so, but as sweet and as good as any others, for aught as I could perceive.

Pitts has just remarked that he found the waters of Zemzem brackish. To my taste it was a salt-bitter, which was exceedingly disagreeable.

(R.F.B.) [FN#31] They are not so modest. 600,000 is the mystical number; others declare it to be incalculable. Oftentimes 70,000 have met at Arafat.

[FN#32] The cupola has now disappeared; there is a tall pillar of masonry-work, whitewashed, rising from a plastered floor, for praying.

[FN#33] On the 9th Zu'l Hijjah, or the Day of Arafat, the pilgrims, having taken their stations within the sacred limits, perform ablution about noon, and pray as directed at that hour. At three P.M., after again performing the usual devotions, or more frequently after neglecting them, they repair to the hill, and hear the sermon.

[FN#34] At Muzdalifah.

[FN#35] This, I need scarcely say, is speaking as a Christian. All Moslems believe that Ishmael, and not Isaac, was ordered to be sacrificed. The place to which Pitts alludes is still shown to pilgrims.

[FN#36] (Pitts' Note.) Monsieur de Thevenot saith, that they throw these stones at the Gibbel or Mount; but, indeed, it is otherwise; though I must needs say, he is very exact in almost every thing of Turkish matters; and I pay much deference to that great author.

[FN#37] The Rami or Jaculator now usually says, as he casts each stone, "In the name of Allah, and Allah is omnipotent (Raghman li'sh' Shaytani wa Khizyatih), in token of abhorrence to Satan, and for his ignominy (I do this)."

[FN#38] The Arabic would mean stone the devil and slay him, unless "wazbehe" be an error for "wa ashabih,"-"and his companions."

[FN#39] Even in the present day, men who have led "wild" lives in their youth, often date their reformation from the first pilgrimage.

[FN#40] Al-Yaman, Southern Arabia, whose "Akik," or cornelians were celebrated.

[FN#41] This is still practised in Moslem countries, being considered a decent way of begging during public prayers, without interrupting them.

[FN#42] These people will contract to board the pilgrim, and to provide him with a tent, as well as to convey his luggage.

[FN#43] The usual way now is in "Kitar," or in Indian file, each camel's halter being tied to the tail of the beast that precedes him. Pitts' "cottor"

must be a kitar, but he uses the word in another of its numerous senses.

[FN#44] This vehicle is the "Takht-rawan" of Arabia.

[FN#45] He describes the Mashals still in use. Lane has sketched them, Mod. Egypt. chap. vi.

[FN#46] Pitts means by "imaginary Abdes," the sand ablution,-lawful when water is wanted for sustaining life.

[FN#47] As I shall explain at a future time, there are still some Hijazi Badawin whose young men, before entering life, risk everything in order to plunder a Haji. They care little for the value of the article stolen, the exploit consists in stealing it.

[FN#48] The walls, therefore, were built between A.D. 1503 and A.D.

1680.

[FN#49] These are not windows, but simply the inter-columnar s.p.a.ces filled with grating.

[FN#50] This account is perfectly correct. The Eunuchs, however, do not go into the tomb; they only light the lamps in, and sweep the pa.s.sage round, the Sepulchre.

[FN#51] These are the small apertures in the Southern grating. See Chap. xvi.

[FN#52] The Caravan must have been near the harbour of Muwaylah, where supplies are abundant.

[p.390]APPENDIX VI.

GIOVANNI FINATI.

THE third pilgrim on our list is Giovanni Finati, who, under the Moslem name of "Haji Mohammed," made the campaign against the Wahhabis for the recovery of Meccah and Al-Madinah. A native of Ferrara, the eldest of the four scions of a small landed proprietor, "tenderly attached to his mother," and brought up most unwillingly for a holy vocation,-to use his own words, "instructed in all that course of frivolous and empty ceremonials and mysteries, which form a princ.i.p.al feature in the training of a priest for the Romish Church," in A.D. 1805, Giovanni Finati's name appeared in the list of Italian conscripts. After a few vain struggles with fate, he was marched to Milan, drilled and trained; the next year his division was ordered to the Tyrol, where the young man, "brought up for the church," instantly deserted. Discovered in his native town, he was sent under circ.u.mstances of suitable indignity to join his regiment at Venice, where a general act of grace, promulgated on occasion of Napoleon's short visit, preserved him from a platoon of infantry. His next move was to Spalato, in Dalmatia, where he marched under General Marmont to Cattaro, the last retreat of the hardy and warlike Montenegrins. At Budoa, a sea-port S.E. of Ragusa, having consulted an Albanian "captain-merchant," Giovanni Finati, and fifteen other Italians-

[p.391] "including the sergeant's wife," swore fidelity to one another, and deserted with all their arms and accoutrements. They pa.s.sed into the Albanese territory, and were hospitably treated as "soldiers, who had deserted from the infidel army in Dalmatia," by the Pasha, posted at Antivari to keep check upon the French operations. At first they were lodged in the Mosque, and the sergeant's wife had been set apart from the rest; but as they refused to apostatize they were made common slaves, and worked at the quarries till their "backs were sore." Under these circ.u.mstances, the sergeant discovering and promulgating his discovery that "the Mahometans believe as we do in a G.o.d; and upon examination that we might find the differences from our mother church to be less than we had imagined,"-all at once came the determination of professing to be Mohammedans. Our Italian Candide took the name of Mahomet, and became pipe-bearer to a Turkish general officer in the garrison. This young man trusted the deserter to such an extent that the doors of the Harim were open to him[FN#1], and Giovanni Finati repaid his kindness by seducing Fatimah, a Georgian girl, his master's favourite wife. The garrison then removed to Scutari. Being of course hated by his fellow servants, the renegade at last fell into disgrace, and exchanging the pipe-stick for the hatchet, he became a hewer of wood. This degradation did not diminish poor Fatimah's affection: she continued to visit him, and to leave little presents and tokens for him in his room. But presently the girl proved likely to become a mother,-their intercourse was more than suspected,-Giovanni Finati had a dread of circ.u.mcision,[FN#2]

[p.392] so he came to the felon resolution of flying alone from Scutari. He happened to meet his "original friend the captain-merchant,"

and in March, 1809, obtained from him a pa.s.sage to Egypt, the Al-Dorado to which all poverty-struck Albanian adventurers were then flocking. At Alexandr[i]a the new Mahomet, after twice deserting from a Christian service, at the risk of life and honour, voluntarily enlisted as an Albanian private soldier in a Moslem land; the navete with which he admires and comments upon his conduct is a curious moral phenomenon.

Thence he proceeded to Cairo, and became a "Balik bash" (corporal), in charge of six Albanian privates, of Mohammed Ali's body-guard. Ensued a campaign against the Mamluks in Upper Egypt, and his being present at the ma.s.sacre of those miscreants in the citadel of Cairo,-he confined his part in the affair to plundering from the Beys a "saddle richly mounted in silver gilt," and a slave girl with trinkets and money. He married the captive, and was stationed for six months at Matariyah (Heliopolis), with the force preparing to march upon Meccah, under Tussun Pasha. Here he suffered from thieves, and shot by mistake his Bim Bas.h.i.+ or sergeant, who was engaged in the unwonted and dangerous exercise of prayer in the dark. The affair was compromised by the amiable young commander-in-chief, who paid the blood money amounting to some thousand piastres. On the 6th October, 1811, the army started for Suez, where eighteen vessels waited to convey them to Yambu'. Mahomet a.s.sisted at the capture of that port, and was fortunate enough to escape alive from the desperate action of Jadaydah.[FN#3] Rheumatism obliged him

[p.393] to return to Cairo, where he began by divorcing his wife for great levity of conduct. In the early part of 1814, Mahomet, inspired by the news of Mohammed Ali Pasha's success in Al-Hijaz, joined a reinforcement of Albanians, travelled to Suez, touched at Yambu' and at Jeddah, a.s.sisted at the siege and capture of Kunfudah, and was present at its recapture by the Wahhabis. Wounded, sick, hara.s.sed by the Badawin, and disgusted by his commanding officer, he determined to desert again, adding, as an excuse, "not that the step, on my part at least, had the character of a complete desertion, since I intended to join the main body of the army;" and to his mania for desertion we owe the following particulars concerning the city of Meccah.

"Exulting in my escape, my mind was in a state to receive very strong impressions, and I was much struck with all I saw upon entering the city; for though it is neither large nor beautiful in itself, there is something in it that is calculated to impress a sort of awe, and it was the hour of noon when everything is very silent, except the Muezzins calling from the minarets.

"The princ.i.p.al feature of the city is that celebrated sacred enclosure which is placed about the centre of it; it is a vast paved court with doorways opening into it from every side, and with a covered colonnade carried all round like a cloister, while in the midst of the open s.p.a.ce stands the edifice called the Caaba, whose walls are entirely covered over on the outside with hangings of rich velvet,[FN#4] on which there are Arabic inscriptions embroidered in gold.

"Facing one of its angles (for this little edifice is of

[p.394] a square form),[FN#5] there is a well which is called the well Zemzem, of which the water is considered so peculiarly holy that some of it is even sent annually to the Sultan at Constantinople; and no person who comes to Meccah, whether on pilgrimage or for mere worldly considerations, ever fails both to drink of it and to use it in his ablutions, since it is supposed to wipe out the stain of all past transgressions.

"There is a stone also near the bottom of the building itself which all the visitants kiss as they pa.s.s round it, and the mult.i.tude of them has been so prodigious as to have worn the surface quite away.

"Quite detached, but fronting to the Caaba, stand four pavilions (corresponding to the four sects of the Mahometan religion), adapted for the pilgrims; and though the concourse had of late years been from time to time much interrupted, there arrived just when I came to Meccah two Caravans of them, one Asiatic and one from the African side, amounting to not less than about 40,000 persons, who all seemed to be full of reverence towards the holy place.[FN#6]"

After commenting on the crowded state of the city, the lodging of pilgrims in tents and huts, or on the bare ground outside the walls,[FN#7] and the extravagant prices of provisions, Haji Mahomet proceeds with his description.

"Over and above the general ceremonies of the purification at the well, and of the kissing of the corner-stone,[FN#8]

[p.395]and of the walking round the Caaba a certain number of times in a devout manner, every one has also his own separate prayers to put up, and so to fulfil the conditions of his vow and the objects of his particular pilgrimage."

We have then an account of the Mosque-pigeons, for whom it is said, "some pilgrims bring with them even from the most remote countries a small quant.i.ty of grain, with which they may take the opportunity of feeding these birds." This may have occurred in times of scarcity; the grain is now sold in the Mosque.

"The superst.i.tions and ceremonies of the place," we are told, "are by no means completed within the city, for the pilgrims, after having performed their devotions for a certain time at the Caaba, at last in a sort of procession go to a place called Arafat, an eminence which stands detached in the centre of a valley; and in the way thither there is a part of the road for about the s.p.a.ce of a mile where it is customary to run.[FN#9] The road also pa.s.ses near a spot where was formerly a well which is superst.i.tiously supposed to be something unholy and cursed by the Prophet himself. And for this reason, every pilgrim as he goes by it throws a stone; and the custom is so universal and has prevailed so long that none can be picked up in the neighbourhood, and it is necessary therefore to provide them from a distance, and some persons even bring them out of their own remote countries, thinking thereby to gain the greater favour in the sight of Heaven.[FN#10]

[p.396]"Beyond this point stands a column,[FN#11] which is set up as the extreme limit of the pilgrimage, and this every pilgrim must have pa.s.sed before sunrise; while all such as have not gone beyond it by that time must wait till the next year, if they wish to be ent.i.tled to the consideration and privileges of complete Hajis, since, without this circ.u.mstance, all the rest remains imperfect.

"The hill of Arafat lying at a distance of seven hours from Meccah, it is necessary to set out very early in order to be there in time; many of the pilgrims, and especially the more devout amongst them, performing all the way on foot.

"When they have reached the place[FN#12] all who have any money according to their means sacrifice a sheep, and the rich often furnish those who are poor and dest.i.tute with the means of buying one.

"Such a quant.i.ty of sacrifices quite fills the whole open s.p.a.ce with victims, and the poor flock from all the country round to have meat distributed to them.

"After which, at the conclusion of the whole ceremony, all the names are registered by a scribe appointed for the purpose[FN#13]: and when this is finished the African

[p.397] and Asiatic Caravans part company and return to their own several countries, many detachments of the pilgrims visiting Medinah in the way."

Being desirous of enrolment in some new division of Mohammed Ali's army, Finati overcame the difficulty of personal access to him by getting a memorial written in Turkish and standing at the window of a house joined on to the enclosure of the great temple. After the sixth day the Pasha observed him, and in the "greatest rage imaginable" desired a detailed account of the defeat at Kunfudah. Finati then received five hundred piastres and an order to join a corps at Taif, together with a strict charge of secre[c]y, "since it was of importance that no reverse or check should be generally talked of." Before starting our author adds some "singular particulars" which escaped him in his account of Meccah.

"Many of the pilgrims go through the ceremony of walking the entire circuit of the city upon the outside; and the order in which this is performed is as follows. The devoted first goes without the gates, and, after presenting himself there to the religious officer who presides, throws off all his clothes, and takes a sort of large wrapping garment in lieu of them to cover himself; upon which he sets off walking at a very quick pace, or rather running, to reach the nearest of the four corners of the city, a sort of guide going with him at the same rate all the way, who prompts certain e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns or prayers, which he ought to mention at particular spots as he pa.s.ses; at every angle he finds a barber, who with wonderful quickness wets and shaves one quarter of his head, and so on; till he has reached the barber at the fourth angle, who completes the work. After which the

[p.398] pilgrim takes his clothes again, and has finished that act of devotion.[FN#14]