Travels In Arabia

J >> John Lewis Burckhardt >> Travels In Arabia

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[p.363] incur any expense in honouring the remains of their celebrated
countrymen. The whole place is a confused accumulation of heaps of
earth, wide pits, rubbish, without a single regular tomb-stone. The
pilgrim is made to visit a number of graves, and, while standing before
them, to repeat prayers for the dead. Many persons make it their
exclusive profession to watch the whole day near each of the principal
tombs, with a handkerchief spread out, in expectation of the pilgrims
who come to visit them; and this is the exclusive privilege of certain
Ferrashyns and their families, who have divided the tombs among
themselves, where each takes his post, or sends his servant in his
stead.

The most conspicuous personages that lie buried here are Ibrahim, the
son of Mohammed, who died in his youth; Fatme, his daughter, according
to the opinion of many, who say that she was buried here and not in the
mosque; several of the wives of Mohammed; some of his daughters; his
foster-mother; Fatme, the daughter of Asad, and mother of Aly; Abbas ibn
Abd el Motalleb; Othman ibn Affan, one of the immediate successors of
Mohammed, who collected the scattered leaves of the Koran into one
volume; the Martyrs, or Shohada, as they are called, who were slain here
by the army of the heretics under Yezyd ibn Mawya, whose commander,
Moslim, in A.H. 60, (others say 62,) came from Syria and sacked the
town, the inhabitants of which had acknowledged the rebel Abdallah ibn
Hantala as their chief; Hassan ibn Aly, whose trunk only lies buried
here, his head having been sent to Cairo, where it is preserved in the
fine mosque called El Hassamya; the Imam Malek ibn Anes, the founder of
the sect of the Malekites. Indeed so rich is Medina in the remains of
great saints that they have almost lost their individual importance,
while the relics of one of the persons just mentioned would be
sufficient to render celebrated any other Moslim town. As a formula of
the invocation addressed here to the manes of the saint, I shall
transcribe that which is said with uplifted hands, after having
performed a short prayer of two rikats, over the tomb of Othman ibn
Affan: "Peace be with thee, O Othman! Peace be with thee, O friend of
the chosen! Peace be with

[p.364] thee, O collector of the Koran! Mayest thou deserve the
contentment of God! May God ordain Paradise as thy dwelling, thy
resting-place, thy habitation, and thy abode! I deposit on this spot,
and near thee, O Othman, the profession everlasting, from this day to
the day of judgment, that there is no God but God, and that Mohammed is
his servant and his prophet."

The inhabitants of Medina bury all their dead on this ground, in the
same homely tombs as those of the saints. Branches of palm-trees are
stuck upon the graves, and changed once a year, at the feast of
Ramadhan, when the family visits the grave of its relations, where it
sometimes remains for several days.

VISIT TO DJEBEL OHOD.--One of the principal Zyara or places of sacred
visitation of Medina, is Ohod, with the tomb of Hamze, the uncle of
Mohammed. The mountain of Ohod forms part of the great chain, branching
out from it into the eastern plain, so as to stand almost insulated. It
is three quarters of an hour's walk from the town. In the fourth year of
the Hedjra, when Mohammed had fixed his residence at Medina, the
idolatrous Koreysh, headed by Abou Sofyan, invaded these parts, and took
post at this mountain. Mohammed issued from the town, and there fought,
with great disparity of force, the most arduous battle in which he was
ever engaged. His uncle Hamze was killed, together with seventy-five of
his followers: he himself was wounded, but he killed with his own lance
one of the bravest men of the opposite party, and gained at last a
complete victory. The tomb of Hamze and of the seventy-five martyrs, as
they are called, form the object of the visit to Djebel Ohod.

I started on foot, with my cicerone, by the Syrian gate, in the company
of several other visiters; for it was thought unsafe to go there alone,
from fear of Bedouin robbers. The visit is generally performed on
Thursdays. We passed the place where the Syrian Hadj encamp, and where
several wells and half-ruined tanks, cased with stone, supply the
pilgrims with water during their three days' stay at this place, in
their way to and from Mekka. A little further on is a pretty kiosk, with
a dome, now likewise half-ruined, called El Goreyn, where

[p.365] the chief of that caravan usually takes up his temporary abode.
The road further on is completely level; date-trees stand here and
there, and several spots are seen which the people only cultivate when
the rains are copious. About one mile from the town stands a ruined
edifice of stones and bricks, where a short prayer is recited in
remembrance of Mohammed having here put on his coat of mail, when he
went to engage the enemy. Farther on is a large stone, upon which it is
said that Mohammed leaned for a few minutes on his way to Ohod; the
visiter is enjoined to press his back against this stone, and to recite
the Fateha, or opening chapter of the Koran.

In approaching the mountain, we passed a torrent, coming from E. or S.E.
with water to the depth of two feet, the remains of the rain that had
fallen five days ago. It swells sometimes so high as to become
impassable, and inundates the whole surrounding country. To the east of
this torrent, the ground leading towards the mountain is barren, stony,
with a slight ascent, on the slope of which stands a mosque, surrounded
by about a dozen ruined houses, once the pleasure villas of wealthy
towns-people; near them is a cistern, filled by the torrent-water. The
mosque is a square solid-built edifice of small dimensions. Its dome was
thrown down by the Wahabys, but they spared the tomb. The mosque
encloses the tomb of Hamze, and those of his principal men who were
slain in the battle; namely, Mesab ibn Omeyr, Djafar ibn Shemmas, and
Abdallah ibn Djahsh. The tombs are in a small open yard, and, like those
of the Bekya, mere heaps of earth, with a few loose stones placed around
them. Beside them is a small portico, which serves as a mosque: a short
prayer is said here, and the pilgrims then advance to the tombs, where
they recite the chapter of Yasein (from the Koran), or the short chapter
of El Khalas forty times; after which Hamze and his friends are invoked
to intercede with the Almighty, and obtain for the pilgrim and all his
family, faith, health, wealth, and the utter destruction of all their
enemies. Money is given, as usual, at every corner, to the guardians of
the mosque, of the tombs, to the Mueddin, Imam, &c. &c.

A little further on, towards the mountain, which is only at a gun-shot
distance, a small cupola marks the place where Mohammed was

[p.366] struck in battle by a stone, which knocked out four of his front
teeth, and felled him to the ground. [This story is related here,
though the historians of the Prophet do not agree on the subject.] His
party thought he was killed; but the angel Gabriel immediately appeared,
and exclaimed that he was still alive. At a short distance from this
cupola, which like all the rest has been demolished, are the tombs of
twelve other partisans of the Prophet, who were killed in the battle.
They form together several mounds of rubbish and stones, in which their
respective tombs can no longer be distinguished. Prayers are again
recited, with that passage of the Koran which says, in speaking of the
slain: "Do not think that those who were killed in war with the infidels
are dead; no, they are living, and their reward is with their Lord:" a
sentence still used to encourage, even in our days, the Turkish soldiers
in their battles with Europeans.

The mountain of Ohod consists of different coloured granite; on its
sides I likewise found flint, but no lava. The entire mountain is almost
four miles in length, from west to east. Having been the scene of the
famous battle, which so much contributed to strengthen the party of
Mohammed and his new religion, it is not surprising that Djebel Ohod
should be the object of peculiar veneration. The people of Medina
believe that on the day of resurrection it will be transported into
Paradise; and that when mankind shall appear before the Almighty for
judgment, they will be assembled upon it, as the most favoured station.
The mountain of Ayra, mentioned above as situated to the S.W. of the
town, (about the same distance from it as Ohod is, on the other side,)
will on that day experience a much less enviable fate. Having denied
water to the Prophet, who once lost his way in its valleys, and became
thirsty, it will be punished for inhospitality, by being cast at once
into hell.

The people of Medina frequently visit Ohod, pitching their tents in the
ruined houses, where they remain a few days, especially convalescents,
who during their illness had made a vow to slaughter a sheep in honour
of Hamze, if they recovered. Once a year, (in July, I

[p.367] believe,) the inhabitants flock thither in crowds, and remain
for three days, as if it were during the feast days of the saint.
Regular markets are then kept there: and this visit forms one of the
principal public amusements of the town.

KOBA.--In this neighbouring village all the pilgrims visit the spot where
Mohammed first alighted on coming from Mekka: it lies to the south of
the town, distant about three quarters of an hour. The road to it passes
through a plain, overgrown with date-trees, and covered in many spots
with white sand. At half an hour from the town begin gardens, which
spread over a space of four or five miles in circuit, and form, perhaps,
the most fertile and agreeable spot in the Northern Hedjaz. All kinds of
fruit-trees (with the exception of apple and pear, none of which I
believe grow in Arabia,) are seen in the gardens, which are all enclosed
by walls, and irrigated by numerous wells. It is from hence that Medina
is supplied with fruits: lemon and orange trees, pomegranates, bananas,
vines, peach, apricot, and fig trees, are planted amidst the date and
nebek trees, and form as thick groves as in Syria and Egypt, while their
shade renders Koba a delightful residence. The kheroa (Ricinus, or Palma
Christi,) is likewise very common here. The village is frequently
visited by the people of Medina; parties are continually made to spend
the day, and many sick people are carried to enjoy the benefits of a
cooler atmosphere.

In the midst of these groves stands the Mesdjed of Koba, with about
thirty or forty houses. It is a mean building, and much decayed. In the
interior of it several holy spots are visited, at each of which a short
prayer of two rikats is performed, and some additional invocations
recited in honour of the place. We first see here the Mobrak el Naka,
the very spot on the floor of the mosque where the she-camel which
Mohammed rode, in his flight from Mekka, crouched down, and would not
rise again, thus advising her master to stop here, which he did for a
few days, previous to his entering Medina. It was to consecrate this
spot, that the mosque was founded by Mohammed himself with loose stones,
which were changed into a regular building the year after, by Benou
Ammer ibn Owf; but the present building is of modern construction.
Further on is shown the spot

[p.368] upon which Mohammed once stood, after his prayers, and
distinctly saw from thence Mekka, and all that the Koreysh were doing
there; and, thirdly, the spot where the Koranic passage relating to the
inhabitants of Koba was revealed to Mohammed: "A temple, from its first
day founded in piety; there thou best standest up to prayers. There men
live who like to be purified: and God loves the clean." In this passage
an allusion is discovered to the extraordinary personal cleanliness of
those who inhabited Koba, more especially in certain acts of ablution.

I saw no inscriptions in this mosque, except those of hadjys who had
written their names on the white-washed walls; a practice in which
Eastern travellers indulge as frequently as European tourists, adding
often to the names some verses of favourite poets, or sentences of the
Koran. The mosque forms a narrow colonnade round a small open courtyard,
in which the Mobrak el Naka stands, with a small cupola over it, rising
to the height of about six feet. On issuing from the mosque, we were
assailed by a crowd of beggars. At a short distance from it, among the
cluster of houses, stands a small chapel, called Mesdjed Aly, in honour
of Aly, the cousin of Mohammed. Close to it, in a garden, a deep well is
shown, called Ayn Ezzerka, with a small chapel, built at its mouth. This
was a favourite spot with Mohammed, who used often to sit among the
trees with his disciples, enjoying the pleasure of seeing the water
issuing in a limpid stream; an object which at the present day
powerfully attracts the natives of the East, and, with the addition of a
shady tree, is perhaps the only feature of landscape which they admire.
When he once was sitting here, the Prophet's seal-ring dropped into the
well, and could never be again found; and the supposition that the ring
is still there, renders the well famous. The water is tepid at its
source, with a slight sulphureous taste, which it loses in its course.
It is collected together with that of several other springs into the
canal which supplies Medina, and which is kept constantly flowing by the
supply of various channels of well-water. Omar el Khatab first carried
the spring to Medina; but the present canal was built at the expense of
the Sultan Soleyman, son of Selim I., about A.H. 973: it is a very solid
subterranean work.

[p.369] This canal, and that of Mekka, are the greatest architectural
curiosities in the Hedjaz. Near to the mosque of Koba stands a building
erected by Sultan Morad, for dervishes. A little beyond the village, on
the road towards the town, stands a small chapel, called Mesdjed Djoma,
in remembrance of the spot where the people of Medina met Mohammed upon
his arrival.

EL KEBLETYN.--Towards the N.W. of the town, about one hour distant, a
place is visited bearing this name. It is said to consist of two rude
pillars (for I did not see it myself,) and was the spot where Mohammed
first changed the Kebly, or the direction in which prayers are said, in
the seventeenth month after the Hedjra, or his flight to Medina.
Together with the Jewish Bedouins, his own adherents had till then
Jerusalem as their Kebly; but Mohammed now turned it towards the Kaaba,
to which that fine passage of the Koran alludes: "Say, to God belong the
east and the west; he directs whomsoever he pleases in the road of
piety:"--a sentence written to convince the Moslims, that wherever they
turned, in their prayers, God stood before them. Near this spot stands a
small ruined chapel.

The above are the only places visited by pilgrims. The country round
Koba, and towards the S.E. of the town, presents many spots of nearly
equal beauty with Koba, which in summer are places of recreation to the
people of Medina; but I believe there are no villages any where to be
seen, only insulated houses, or small groupes of buildings, scattered
amongst the date-trees.

[p.370]ON THE INHABITANTS OF MEDINA.

LIKE the Mekkans, the people of Medina are for the greater part
strangers, whom the Prophet's tomb, and the gains which it insures to
its neighbours, have drawn to this place. But few original Arabs,
descendants of those families who lived at Medina when Mohammed came
from Mekka, now remain in the town; on the contrary, we find in it
colonies from almost every quarter of the Muselman empire, east and
west. I was informed, that of the original Arab residents, to whom the
Mohammedan writers apply the name of El Ansar, and who at Mohammed's
entrance were principally composed of the tribes of Ows and Khezredj,
only about ten families remain who can prove their descent by pedigrees,
or well-ascertained traditions: they are poor people, and live as
peasants in the suburbs and gardens. The number of Sherifs descended of
Hassan, the grandson of Mohammed, is considerable; but most of them are
not originally from this place, their ancestors having come hither from
Mekka, during the wars waged by the Sherifs for the possession of that
town. They almost all belong to the class of olemas, very few military
sherifs, like those of Mekka, being found here. Among them is a small
tribe of Beni Hosseyn, descended from Hosseyn, the brother of Hassan.
They are said to have been formerly very powerful at Medina, and had
appropriated to themselves the chief part of the income of the mosque:
in the thirteenth century, (according to Samhoudy,) they were the
privileged

[p.371] guardians of the Prophet's tomb; but at present they are reduced
to about a dozen families, who still rank among the grandees of the town
and its most wealthy inhabitants. They occupy a quarter by themselves,
and obtain very large profits, particularly from the Persian pilgrims
who pass here. They are universally stated to be heretics, of the
Persian sect of Aly, and to perform secretly the rites of that creed,
although they publicly profess the doctrines of the Sunnys. This report
is too general, and confirmed by too many people of respectability, to
be doubted: but the Beni Hosseyn have powerful influence in the town, in
appearance strictly comply with the orthodox principles, and are
therefore not molested.

It is publicly said that the remnants of the Ansars, and great numbers
of the peasant Arabs who cultivate the gardens and fields in the
neighbourhood of the town, are addicted to the same heresy. The latter,
called Nowakhele, (a name implying that they live among date-trees,) are
numerous, and very warlike. They had offered determined resistance to
the Wahabys, and in civil contests have proved always superior to the
town's-people. They are said to be descendants of the partisans of
Yezid, the son of Mawya, who took and sacked the town sixty years after
the Hedjra. They marry only among themselves; and exhibit on all
occasions a great esprit de corps. Many of them publicly profess the
creed of Aly when in their date-groves, but are Sunnys whenever they
come to town. Some of them are established in the suburbs, and they have
monopolised the occupation of butchers. In quarrels I have heard
individuals among them publicly called sectaries and rowafedh, without
their ever denying it. In the Eastern Desert, at three or four days'
journey from Medina, lives a whole Bedouin tribe, called Beni Aly, who
are all of this Persian creed; and it is matter of astonishment to find
the two most holy spots of the orthodox Muselman religion surrounded,
one by the sectaries of Zeyd, and the other by those of Aly, without an
attempt having been made to dislodge them.

Among the ancient families of Medina are likewise reckoned a few
descendants of the Abassides, now reduced to great poverty: they

[p.372] go by the name of Khalifye, implying that they are descended
from the Khalifes.

Most of the inhabitants are of foreign origin, and present as motley a
race as those of Mekka. No year passes without some new settlers being
added to their number; and no pilgrim caravan crosses the town without
leaving here a few of its travellers, who stop at first with the
intention of remaining for a year or two only, but generally continue to
reside here permanently. Descendants of people from northern Turkey are
very numerous; but the greater part trace their origin to settlers of
the southern countries of Arabia, Yemen and Hadramaut, and from Syria,
and Egypt, and many also from Barbary. My cicerone was called Sheikh
Sad-eddyn el Kurdy, because his grandfather was a Kurd who had settled
here: the proprietor of the house in which I lived was Seyd Omar, a
Sherif of the Yafay tribe of Yemen, whose ancestors had come hither
several hundred years since. Indians are likewise found, but in less
number than at Mekka. As there, they are druggists, and petty
shopkeepers; but I believe that no Indian wholesale dealers in their
native products are to be found at Medina. They adhere to their national
dress and manners, forming a small colony, and rarely intermarry or mix
with the other inhabitants.

The individuals of different nations settled here have in their second
and third generations all become Arabs as to features and character; but
are, nevertheless, distinguishable from the Mekkans; they are not nearly
so brown as the latter, thus forming an intermediate link between the
Hedjaz people and the northern Syrians. Their features are somewhat
broader, their beards thicker, and their body stouter, than those of the
Mekkans; but the Arab face, the expression, and cast of features are in
both places the same.

The Medinans in their dress resemble more the Turkish than their
southern neighbours: very few of them wear the beden, or the national
Arab cloak without sleeves; but even the poorer people dress in long
gowns, with a cloth djobbe, or upper cloak, or, instead of it, an abba,
of the same brown and white stripe as is common in Syria and all over
the Desert. Red Tunis bonnets and Turkish shoes are

[p.373] more used here than at Mekka, where the lower classes wear white
bonnets, and sandals. People in easy circumstances dress well, wearing
good cloth cloaks, fine gowns, and, in winter, good pelisses, brought
from Constantinople by way of Cairo; which I found a very common article
of dress in January and February, a season when it is much colder here
than Europeans would expect it to be in Arabian deserts. Generally
speaking, we may say that the Medinans dress better than the Mekkans,
though with much less cleanliness: but no national costume is observed
here; and, particularly in the cold of winter, the lower classes cover
themselves with whatever articles of dress they can obtain at low prices
in the public auctions; so that it is not uncommon to see a man fitted
out in the dress of three or four different countries-like an Arab as
high as his waist, and like a Turkish soldier over his breast and
shoulders. The richer people make a great display of dress, and vie with
each other in finery. I saw more new suits of clothes here, even when
the yearly feasts were terminated, than I had seen before in any other
part of the East. As at Mekka, the Sherifs wear no green, but simple
white muslin turbans, excepting those from the northern part of Turkey,
who have recently settled here, and who continue to wear the badge of
their noble extraction.

Prior to the Wahaby conquest, when the inhabitants were often exposed to
bloody affrays among themselves, they always went armed with the
djombye, or crooked Arabian knife: at present few of these are seen; but
every body, from the highest to the lowest, carries in his hand a long
heavy stick. The rich have their sticks headed with silver; others fix
iron spikes to them; and thus make a formidable weapon, which the Arabs
handle with much dexterity. The women dress like those of Mekka; blue
gowns being worn by the lower classes, and silk mellayes by the higher.

The Bedouins settled in and near the suburbs, use exactly the same
costume as those of the Syrian Desert: a shirt, abba, a kessye on the
head, a leathern girdle in which the knife is stuck, and sandals on the
feet. Even those who have become settlers, form a distinct race, and do
not intermix with the rest of the town's-people. They preserve their
national dress, language, and customs, and live in their

[p.374] houses as they would under tents in the Desert. Of all Eastern
nations, the Arabian Bedouins perhaps are those who abandon their
national habits with most reluctance. In Syria, in Egypt, and in the
Hedjaz, settlements are seen, the members of which have become
cultivators for several centuries back; yet they have adopted only few
of the habits of peasants, and still pride themselves on their Bedouin
origin and manners.

The Medinans have not the same means of gaining a living, as the
Mekkans. Although this town is never free from foreign pilgrims, there
is never that immense influx of hadjys which renders Mekka so populous
for several months in the year, and which makes it a market for all
parts of the East. The hadjys who come to Medina are seldom merchants,
or at least do not go there for mercantile pursuits, and therefore leave
on the coast their heavy baggage. Even the Syrian merchants who pass
with the great caravan seldom engage in trade, unless it be for some
camel-loads of tobacco and dried fruits. The Medina trade is therefore
merely for home consumption, and to supply the neighbouring Bedouins
with articles of dress and provisions. These are received by way of
Yembo, and come almost exclusively from Egypt. No great merchants are
settled in Medina: the trade is merely retail; and those who possess
capital, generally invest it in goods, as usual throughout Syria and
Egypt, there not being any public institution like banks, or trading
societies, or national funds, from which the capitalist might derive
interest for his money. The Turkish law rigorously forbids the taking of
interest; and even if it were otherwise, there is not any government nor
any class of men to which the people would intrust considerable sums.
The investment of capital in landed property is also liable to great
risk. [By a decree of Mohammed Aly in 1813, the purchase of land in Egypt
is rendered impracticable; for it orders all the Moltezims (or landed
proprietors who shared in the possession of villages and grounds, and
who formed a class living on their rents in the country towns,) to
receive their yearly revenue from the Pasha's treasury, where they
suffered every kind of humiliation and injustice; and the whole of the
soil was declared to be the property of government, or in other words of
Mohammed Aly himself, who leaves the cultivation of it to the fellahs on
his own terms. It happened lately that the Fellahs, who farmed five
thousand acres belonging to the village of Damkour near Cairo, were
deprived of their leases on the land being declared public property,
because the Pasha wished to sow clover for his cavalry upon the soil
that the Fellahs had possessed. Landed property in Syria also subjects
the owner to great inconveniences: he is oppressed by every governor of
a district, and by every soldier who passes; he suffers in his receipts
from the extortions of the Pashas, which generally fall more heavily
upon the cultivator than upon the monied man: and if he do not
constantly watch his peasants, he is most probably cheated out of all
his profits.] The usual