Travels In Arabia

J >> John Lewis Burckhardt >> Travels In Arabia

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"Omar ibn el Khatab widened the mosque with mud walls and palm-branches,
and, instead of the stems of palms, he made pillars of mud. He first
carried a wall round the Hedjra, or the place where the body of Mohammed
had been deposited at his death, and which was at first enclosed only by
palm-branches. The square enclosed by the walls of the mosque was
increased to one hundred and forty pikes in length, and one hundred and
twenty in breadth, A.H. 17.

"Othman built the walls of hewn stone: in A.H. 29, he renewed the
earthen pillars, strengthening the new ones with hoops of iron, and made
the roof of the precious Indian wood called Sadj. The square was
enlarged to one hundred and sixty pikes by one hundred and fifty; and
six gates were opened into it.

"Wolyd, he to whom Damascus owes its beautiful mosque, called Djama el
Ammouy, further enlarged the Mesdjed-e'-Neby in A.H. 91.

[p.351] Till then, the houses where the wives and daughter and female
relations of Mohammed had resided, stood close to the Hedjra, beyond the
precincts of the mosque, into which they had private gates.
Notwithstanding the great opposition he encountered, Wolyd compelled the
women to leave their houses, and to accept a fair price for them; he
then razed them, and extended the wall of the mosque on that side. The
Greek Emperor, with whom he happened to be at peace, sent him workmen
from Constantinople, who assisted in the new building; [Makrisi, in his
account of various sovereigns who performed the pilgrimage, says that
the Greek Emperor (whom he does not name) sent one hundred workmen to
Wolyd, and a present of a hundred thousand methkal of gold, together
with forty loads of small cut stones, for a mosaic pavement.] several of
whom, being Christians, behaved, as it is related, with great indecency;
one of them, in particular, when in the act of defiling the very tomb
of the Prophet, was killed by a stone which fell from the roof. New
stone pillars were now placed in the mosque, with gilt capitals. The
walls were cased with marble variously adorned, and parts of them
likewise gilt, and the whole building thus completely renewed.

"About A.H. 160, the Khalife El Mohdy still further enlarged the
enclosure, and made it two hundred and forty pikes in length; and in
this state the mosque remained for several centuries.

"Hakem b'amr Illah, the mad King of Egypt, who sent one of his
emissaries to destroy the black stone of the Kaaba, also made an
unsuccessful attempt to take from the mosque of Medina Mohammed's tomb,
and transport it to Cairo. In A.H. 557, in the time of El Melek el Adel
Noureddyn, king of Egypt, two Christians in disguise were discovered at
Medina, who had made a subterraneous passage from a neighbouring house
into the Hedjra, and stolen from thence articles of great value. Being
put to the torture, they confessed having been sent by the King of Spain
for that purpose; and they paid for their temerity with their lives.
Sultan Noureddyn, after this, carried a trench round the Hedjra, and
filled it with lead, to prevent similar attempts.

"In A.H. 654, a few months after the eruption of a volcano near the

[p.352] town, the mosque caught fire, and was burnt to the ground; but
the Korans deposited in the Hedjra were saved. This accident was
ascribed to the Persian sectaries of Beni Hosseyn, who were then the
guardians of the tomb. In the following year its restoration was
undertaken at the expense of the Khalife Mostasem Billah, Ibn el
Montaser Billah, and the lord of Yemen, El Mothaffer Shams eddyn Yousef,
and completed by El Dhaher Bybars, Sultan of Egypt, in A.H. 657. The
dome over the tomb was erected in 678. Several kings of Egypt
successively improved and enlarged the building, till A.H. 886, when it
was again destroyed by fire occasioned by lightning. The destruction was
complete; all the walls of the mosque, and part of those of the Hedjra,
the roof, and one hundred and twenty columns fell: all the books in the
mosque were destroyed; but the fire appears to have spared the interior
of the tomb in the Hedjra. Kayd Beg, then king of Egypt, to whom that
country and the Hedjaz owe a number of public works, completely rebuilt
the mosque, as it now stands, in A.H. 892. He sent three hundred workmen
from Cairo for that purpose. The interior of the Hedjra was cleared, and
three deep graves were found in the inside, full of rubbish; but the
author of this history, who himself entered it, saw no traces of tombs.
The original place of Mohammed's tomb was ascertained with great
difficulty. The walls of the Hedjra were then rebuilt, and the iron
railing placed round it which is now there. The dome was again raised
over it; the gates were distributed as they now are; a new mambar, or
pulpit, was sent as a present from Cairo, and the whole mosque assumed
its present form. Since the above period, a few immaterial improvements
have been made by the Othman Emperors of Constantinople."

[p.353]GARDENS and plantations, as I have already said, surround the
town of Medina, with its suburbs, on three sides, and to the eastward
and southward extend to the distance of six or eight miles. They consist
principally of date-groves and wheat and barley fields; the latter
usually enclosed with mud walls, and containing small habitations for
the cultivators. Their houses in the immediate neighbourhood of the town
are well built, often with a vestibule supported by columns, and a
vaulted sitting-room adjoining, and a tank cased with stone in front of
them. They are the summer residence of many families of the town, who
make it a custom to pass there a couple of months in the hottest season.
Few of the date-groves, unless those dispersed over the fields, are at
all enclosed; and most of them are irrigated only by the torrents and
winter rains. The gardens themselves are very low, the earth being taken
from the middle parts of them, and heaped up round the walls, so as to
leave the space destined for agriculture, like a pit, ten or twelve feet
below the surface of the plain: this is done to get at a better soil,
experience having shown that the upper stratum is much more impregnated
with salt, and less fit for cultivation, than the lower. No great
industry is any where applied; much ground continues waste; and even
where the fields are laid out, no economy whatever is shown in the
culture of them. Many spots are wholly barren; and the saline nature of
the soil prevents the seed from growing. The ground towards the village
of Koba, and beyond it, in a south and east direction, is said to
consist of good earth, without any saline mixture; and in value it is
consequently much higher than that near the town, which, after rains, I
have seen completely covered for several days with a saline crust,
partly deposited from the waters, and partly evaporated from the soil
itself, in the more elevated spots which the waters do not reach.

Most of the gardens and plantations belong to the people of the

[p.354] town; and the Arabs who cultivate them (called nowakhele) are
mostly farmers. The property of the gardens is either mulk or wakf; the
former, if they belong to an individual; the latter, if they belong to
the mosque, or any of the medreses or pious foundations, from which they
are farmed, at very long leases, by the people of Medina themselves, who
re-let them on shorter terms to the cultivators. They pay no duties
whatever. Not the smallest land-tax, or miri, is levied; an immunity
which, I believe, all the fertile oases of the Hedjaz enjoyed previous
to the invasion by the Wahabys: these, however, had no sooner taken
possession of the town, than they taxed the soil, according to their
established rule. The fields were assessed, not by their produce in
corn, but in dates, the number of date-trees in every field being
usually proportionate to the fertility of the soil, and also to its crop
of grain. From every erdeb of dates the Wahaby tax-gatherers took their
quota either in kind or in money, according to the market-price they
then bore. These regulations caused the Wahabys to be disliked here much
more than they were at Mekka, where the inhabitants had no fields to be
taxed; and where the tax which the Wahabys had imposed was dispensed
with, or rather given up to the Sherif, the ancient governor of the
town, as I have already remarked. The Mekkans, besides, carried on
commerce, from which they could at all times derive some profit,
independent of the advantages accruing to them from the foreign hadjys.
The people of Medina, on the contrary, are very petty merchants; and
their main support depends upon the pilgrims, the yearly stipends from
Turkey, or their landed property. As they were obliged entirely to
renounce the former, and were curtailed in the profits from the latter;
and as the Wahabys showed much less respect for their venerated tomb
than they did for the Beitullah at Mekka, we cannot wonder that their
name is execrated by the people of Medina, and loaded with the most
opprobrious epithets.

The principal produce of the fields [They are here called Beled, (plur.
Boldan): the beled of such a one.] about Medina, is wheat and barley,
some clover, and garden-fruits, but chiefly dates. Barley is

[p.355] grown in much larger quantity than wheat; and barley-bread forms
a principal article of food with the lower classes. Its harvest is in
the middle of March. The crops are very thin; but the produce is of a
good quality, and sells in the market of Medina at about fifteen per
cent higher than the Egyptian. After harvest, the fields are left fallow
till the next year; for though there is sufficient water in the
wells [Every garden or field has its well, from whence the water is drawn
up by asses, cows, or camels, in large leathern buckets. I believe there
are no fields that are not regularly watered, and the seed of none is
left merely to the chance of the winter-rains.] to produce a second
irrigation, the soil is too poor to suffer it, without becoming entirely
exhausted. No oats are sown here, nor any where else in the Hedjaz. The
fruit-trees are found principally on the side of the village of Koba.
Pomegranates and grapes are said to be excellent, especially the former:
there are likewise some peaches, bananas, and, in the gardens of Koba, a
few water-melons, and vegetables, as spinach, turnips, leeks, onions,
carrots, and beans, but in very small quantities. The nebek-tree,
producing the lotus, is extremely common in the plain of Medina, as well
as in the neighbouring mountains; and incredible quantities of its fruit
are brought to market in March, when the lower classes make it a prime
article of food. But the staple produce of Medina is dates, for the
excellence of which fruit this neighbourhood is celebrated throughout
Arabia. The date-trees stand either in the enclosed fields, where they
are irrigated together with the seeds in the ground, or in the open
plain, where they are watered by the rains only: the fruit of the
latter, though less abundant, is more esteemed. Numbers of them grow
wild on the plain, but every tree has its owner. Their size is, in
general, inferior to that of the Egyptian palm-tree, fed by the rich
soil of the country, and the waters of the Nile; but their fruit is much
sweeter, and has a more fragrant smell.

The many different uses to which almost every part of the date-tree is
applied, have already been mentioned by several travellers; they render
it as dear to the settled Arab, as the camel is to the Bedouin.

[p.356] Mohammed, in one of the sayings recorded of him, compares the
virtuous and generous man to this noble tree. "He stands erect before
his Lord; in his every action he follows the impulse received from
above, and his whole life is devoted to the welfare of his fellow-
creatures." [See also the 1st Psalm, v. 3.--"And he shall be like a tree
planted by the rivers of water," &c.] The people of the Hedjaz, like the
Egyptians, make use of the leaves, the outer and inner bark of the
trunk, and the fleshy substance at the root of the leaves where they
spring from the trunk; and, besides this, they use the kernels of the
fruit, as food for their cattle: they soak them for two days in water,
when they become softened, and then give them to camels, cows, and
sheep, instead of barley; and they are said to be much more nutritive
than that grain. There are shops at Medina in which nothing else is sold
but date-kernels; and the beggars are continually employed, in all the
main streets, in picking up those that are thrown away. In the province
of Nedjed the Arabs grind the kernels for the same purpose; but this is
not done in the Hedjaz.

Various kinds of dates are found at Medina, as well as in all other
fruitful vallies of this country; and every place, almost, has its own
species, which grows no where else. I have heard that upwards of one
hundred different sorts of dates grow in the immediate neighbourhood of
the town; the author of the description of Medina mentions one hundred
and thirty. Of the most common sorts are the Djebely, the cheapest, and
I believe the most universally spread in the Hedjaz; the Heloua; the
Heleya, a very small date, not larger than a mulberry; it has its name
from its extraordinary sweetness, in which it does not yield to the
finest figs from Smyrna, and like them is covered, when dried, by a
saccharine crust. The inhabitants relate, that Mohammed performed a
great miracle with this date: he put a stone of it into the earth, which
immediately took root, grew up, and within five minutes a full-grown
tree, covered with fruit, stood before him. Another miracle is related
of the species called El Syhany, a tree of

[p.357] which addressed a loud "Salam Aleykum" to the Prophet, as he
passed under it. The Birny is esteemed the most wholesome, as it is
certainly the easiest of digestion: it was the favourite of Mohammed,
who advised the Arabs to eat seven of its fruit every morning before
breakfast. The Djeleby is the scarcest of them all: it is about three
inches in length, and one in breadth, and has a peculiarly agreeable
taste, although not so sweet as the Heleya. It seems that it grows with
great difficulty; for there are, at most, not more than one hundred
trees of this species, and they are less fertile than any of the other.
They grow in no part of the Hedjaz, but here and in the groves of Yembo
el Nakhel. The price of the Birny is twenty paras per keile, a measure,
containing at least one hundred and twenty dates, while the Djeleby is
sold at eight dates for twenty paras: they are in great request with the
hadjys, who usually carry some of these dates home, to present to their
friends, as coming from the city of the Prophet; and small boxes,
holding about one hundred of them, are made at Medina, for their
conveyance.

Dates form an article of food by far the most essential to the lower
classes of Medina: their harvest is expected with as much anxiety, and
attended with as much general rejoicings, as the vintage in the south of
Europe; and if the crop fails, which often happens, as these trees are
seldom known to produce abundantly for three or four successive years,
or is eaten up by the locusts, universal gloom overspreads the
population, as if a famine were apprehended.

One species of the Medina dates, the name of which I have forgotten,
remains perfectly green although ripe, and dried; another retains a
bright saffron colour: these dates are threaded on strings, and sold all
over the Hedjaz, where they go by the name of Kalayd es' Sham, or
necklaces of the North; and the young children frequently wear them
round the neck. The first dates are eaten in the begining of June, and
at that period of their growth are called Rotab; but the general date-
harvest is at the end of that month. In Egypt it is a month later. Dates
are dressed in many different ways by the Arabs; boiled in milk, broiled
with butter; or reduced to a thick pulp

[p.358] by boiling in water, over which honey is poured; and the Arabs
say that a good housewife will daily furnish her lord, for a month, a
dish of dates differently dressed.

In these gardens a very common tree is the Ithel, a species of tamarisk,
cultivated for its hard wood, of which the Arabs make their camels'
saddles, and every utensil that requires strong handles.

In the gardens we seldom find the ground perfectly level, and the
cultivation is often interrupted by heaps of rocks. On the N.W. and W.
sides of the town, the whole plain is so rocky as to defeat all attempts
at improvement. The cultivable soil is clay, mixed with a good deal of
chalk and sand, and is of a grayish white colour: in other parts it
consists of a yellow loam, and also of a substance very similar to bole-
earth; small conical pieces of the latter, about an inch and a half
long, and dried in the sun, are sold, suspended on a piece of riband, to
the visiters of Medina. It is related that Mohammed cured a Bedouin of
Beni Hareth, and several others, of a fever by washing their bodies with
water in which this earth had been dissolved; and the pilgrims are eager
to carry home a memorial of this miracle. The earth is taken from a
ditch at a place called El Medshounye, in the neighbourhood of the town.

All the rocky places, as well as the lower ridge of the northern
mountainous chain, are covered by a layer of volcanic rock: it is of a
bluish black colour, very porous, yet heavy, and, hard, not glazed, like
schlacken, and contains frequently small white substances in its pores
of the size of a pin's head, which I never found crystallised. The plain
has a completely black colour from this rock, and the small pieces with
which it is overspread. I met with no lava, although the nature of the
ground seemed strongly to indicate the neighbourhood of a volcano. Had I
enjoyed better health, I should have made some excursions to the more
distant parts of the gardens of Medina, to look for specimens of
minerals; but the first days of my stay were taken up in making out a
plan of the town, and gaining information on its inhabitants; and I was
not afterwards capable of the slightest bodily exertion. It was not till
my return to Cairo, that, in reading the description of Medina, which I
had purchased at the former place, (and of

[p.259] which, and of the descriptions of Mekka, I could never find
copies in the Hedjaz, notwithstanding all my endeavours,) I met with the
account of an earthquake and a volcanic eruption which took place in the
immediate neighbourhood of Medina about the middle of the thirteenth
century; and upon inquiry I learnt from a man of Medina, established at
Cairo, that the place of the stream of lava is still shown, at about one
hour E. of the town. During my stay, I remember to have once made the
observation to my cicerone, in going with him to Djebel Ohod, that the
country appeared as if all burnt by fire; but I received an unmeaning
reply; no hint or information afterwards in the town which could lead me
to suppose that I was near so interesting, a phenomenon of nature.

Some extracts from the work to which I have alluded, describing this
eruption, may be thought worthy of the reader's attention, and are given
in the subjoined note. ["On the first of the month Djomad el Akhyr, in
A.H. 654, a slight earthquake was felt in the town; on the third,
another stronger shock took place, during the day; about two o'clock in
the ensuing morning, repeated violent shocks awakened the inhabitants,
increasing in force during the rest of the morning, and continuing at
intervals till Friday the sixth of the month. Many houses and walls
tumbled down. On Friday morning a thundering noise was heard, and at
mid-day the fire burst forth. On the spot where it issued from the earth
a smoke first arose, which completely darkened the sky. To the eastward
of the town, towards the close of day, the flames were visible, a fiery
mass of immense size, which bore the appearance of a large town, with
walls, battlements, and minarets, ascending to heaven. Out of this flame
issued a river of red and blue fire, accompanied with the noise of
thunder. The burning waves carried whole rocks before them, and farther
on heaped them up like high mounds. The river was approaching nearer to
the town, when Providence sent a cool breeze, which arrested its further
progress on this side. All the inhabitants of Medina passed that night
in the great mosque; and the reflection of the fire changed that night
into day-light. The fiery river took a northern direction, and
terminated at the mountain called Djebel Wayra, standing in the valley
called Wady el Shathat, which is a little to the eastward of Djebel Ohod
[two miles and a half from Medina]. For five days the flame was seen
ascending, and the river remained burning for three months. Nobody could
approach it on account of its heat. It destroyed all rocks; but, (says
the historian,) this being the sacred territory of Medina, where
Mohammed had ordained that no trees should be cut within a certain
space, it spared all the trees it met with in its course. The entire
length of the river was four farsakh, or twelve miles; the breadth of it
four miles; and its depth, eight or nine feet. The valley of Shathat was
quite choked up; and the place where it is thus choked, called from this
circumstance El Sedd, is still to be seen. The flame was seen at Yembo
and at Mekka. An Arab of Teyma (a small town in the N.E. Desert from six
to eight days' journey from Medina) wrote a letter during night by the
light reflected from it to that distance.
"In the same year, a great inundation of the Tigris happened, by
which half the town of Baghdad was destroyed; and at the close of this
same year the temple of Medina itself was burnt to the ground.
"The Arabs were prepared to witness such a conflagration; for they
remembered the saying of Mohammed, that 'the day of judgment will not
happen until a fire shall appear in the Hedjaz, which shall cause the
necks of the camels at Basra to shine.'"]

From this account the stream of lava must be sought at about one

[p.360] hour distant to the E. of the town. The volcanic productions
which cover the immediate neighbourhood of the town and the plain to the
west of it, are probably owing to former eruptions of the same volcano;
for nothing is said, in the relation, of stones having been cast out of
the crater to any considerable distance, and the whole plain to the
westward, as far as Wady Akyk, three miles distant, is covered with the
above-described volcanic productions. I have little doubt that on many
other points of that great chain of mountains, similar volcanoes have
existed. The great number of warm springs found at almost every station
of the road to Mekka, authorises such a conjecture.

I am here induced, by a passage in the extract contained in the last
note, to offer the following remark. According to the strict precept of
Mohammed, that part of the territory of Medina which encompassed the
town in a circle of twelve miles, having on the S. side Djebel Ayre, and
on the N. side Djebel Thor, (a small mountain just behind Djebel Ohod,)
as the boundary, should be considered sacred; no person should be slain
therein, except aggressors, and enemies, in self-defence, or infidels
who polluted it; and neither game should be killed nor trees cut in such
a holy territory. This interdiction, however, is at present completely
set aside; trees are cut, game is killed, bloody affrays happen in the
town itself and

[p.361] in its immediate vicinity ; and though an avowed follower of any
other religion than the Mohammedan is not permitted to enter the gates
of the town, yet several instances occurred, during my stay there, (and
while I resided at Yembo,) of Greek Christians employed in the
commissariat of the army of Tousoun Pasha encamping within gun-shot of
Medina, previous to their departure for the head-quarters of the Pasha,
then in the province of Kasym.

[p.362] ACCOUNT OF SOME PLACES OF ZYARA,

OR OBJECTS OF PIOUS VISITATION IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF MEDINA.

ON the day after the pilgrim has performed his first duties at the
mosque and the tomb, he usually visits the burial-ground of the town, in
memory of the many saints who lie buried there. It is just beyond the
town-walls, near the gate of Bab Djoma, and bears the name of El Bekya.
A square of several hundred paces is enclosed by a wall which, on the
southern side, joins the suburb, and on the others is surrounded with
date-groves. Considering the sanctity of the persons whose bodies it
contains, it is a very mean place; and perhaps the most dirty and
miserable burial-ground in any eastern town of the size of Medina. It
does not contain a single good tomb, nor even any large inscribed blocks
of stone covering tombs; but instead, mere rude heaps of earth, with low
borders of loose stones placed about them. The Wahabys are accused of
having defaced the tombs; and in proof of this, the ruins of small domes
and buildings are pointed out, which formerly covered the tombs of
Othman, Abbas, Setna Fatme, and the aunts of Mohammed, which owed their
destruction to those sectaries: but they would certainly not have
annihilated every other simple tomb built of stone here, which they did
neither at Mekka nor any other place. The miserable state of this
cemetery must have existed prior to the Wahaby conquest, and is to be
ascribed to the niggardly minds of the towns-people, who are little
disposed to