William Robertson Smith

“ Now, on the contrary, the pilgrim is expected to follow as closely as may be the movements of the prophet at his “farewell pilgrimage” in the year 10 of the Hegira (A.D. 632) . He therefore leaves Mecca in pilgrim garb on the 8th of Dhuʽl Ḥijja, called the day of tarwīya (an obscure and pre-Islamic name) , and, strictly speaking, should spend the night at Mina. It is now, however, customary to go right on and encamp at once at Arafa. The night should be spent in devotion, but the coffee booths do a lively trade, and songs are as common as prayers. ”

“ Pilgrimage with the ancient Arabs was the fulfilment of a vow, which appears to have generally terminated—at least on the part of the well-to-do—in a sacrificial feast. A vow of pilgrimage might be directed to other sanctuaries than Mecca—the technical word for it (ihlāl) is applied, for example, to the pilgrimage to Manāt (Bakri, p. 519) . He who was under such a vow was bound by ceremonial observances of abstinence from certain acts (e.g. hunting) and sensual pleasures, and in particular was forbidden to shear or comb his hair till the fulfilment of the vow. ”

“ A genuine old Arab market was held, for the wild Bedouins of the Yemen mountains came in thousands to barter their cattle and fruits for clothing, and deemed that to absent themselves would bring drought and cattle plague in their homes. Though ignorant of the legal ritual and prayers, they performed the ṭawāf with enthusiasm, throwing themselves against the Kaʽba and clinging to its curtains as a child clings to its mother. ”

“ The hills east and west of Mecca, which are partly built over and rise several hundred feet above the valley, so enclose the city that the ancient walls only barred the valley at three points, where three gates led into the town. In the time of Ibn Jubair the gates still stood though the walls were ruined, but now the gates have only left their names to quarters of the town. At the northern or upper end was the Bāb el Māʽlā, or gate of the upper quarter, whence the road continues up the valley towards Minā and Arafa as well as towards Zeima and the Nejd. ”

“ The fixed population of Mecca in 1878 was estimated by Assistant-Surgeon ʽAbd el-Razzāq at 50,000 to 60,000; there is a large floating population—and that not merely at the proper season of pilgrimage, the pilgrims of one season often beginning to arrive before those of the former season have all dispersed. At the height of the season the town is much overcrowded, and the entire want of a drainage system is severely felt. Fortunately good water is tolerably plentiful ”

“ The fanaticism of the Meccan is an affair of the purse; the mongrel population (for the town is by no means purely Arab) has exchanged the virtues of the Bedouin for the worst corruptions of Eastern town life, without casting off the ferocity of the desert, and it is hardly possible to find a worse certificate of character than the three parallel gashes on each cheek, called Tashrīṭ, which are the customary mark of birth in the holy city. ”

“ The unspeakable vices of Mecca are a scandal to all Islām, and a constant source of wonder to pious pilgrims. [13] The slave trade has connexions with the pilgrimage which are not thoroughly clear; but under cover of the pilgrimage a great deal of importation and exportation of slaves goes on. ”

“ The mosque is enclosed by houses with windows opening on the arcades and commanding a view of the Kaʽba. Immediately beyond these, on the side facing Jebel Abu Kobais, a broad street runs south-east and north-west across the valley. This is the Masʽā (sacred course) between the eminences of Safā and Merwa, and has been from very early times one of the most lively bazaars and the centre of Meccan life. The other chief bazaars are also near the mosque in smaller streets. The general aspect of the town is picturesque; the streets are fairly spacious, though ill-kept and filthy ”

“ Medieval writers celebrate the copious supplies, especially of fine fruits, brought to the city from Tāif and other fertile parts of Arabia. These fruits are still famous; rice and other foreign products are brought by sea to Jidda; mutton, milk and butter are plentifully supplied from the desert. [12] The industries all centre in the pilgrimage ”

“ The mosque is at the same time the university hall, where between two pilgrim seasons lectures are delivered on Mahommedan law, doctrine and connected branches of science. A poorly provided public library is open to the use of students. The madrassehs or buildings around the mosque, originally intended as lodgings for students and professors, have long been let out to rich pilgrims. ”

“ But the ancient “fairs of heathenism” were given up, and the traffic of the pilgrim season, sanctioned by the Prophet in Sur. ii. 194, was concentrated at Minā and Mecca, where most of the pilgrims still have something to buy or sell, so that Minā, after the sacrifice of the feast day, presents the aspect of a huge international fancy fair. [6] In the middle ages this trade was much more important than it is now. Ibn Jubair (ed. Wright, p. 118 seq.) ”

“ To this influence the Hejāz owes what little of law and order it enjoys. During the last quarter of the 19th century Turkish influence became preponderant in western Arabia, and the railway from Syria to the Hejāz tended to consolidate the sultan’s supremacy. After the sherīfs, the principal family of Mecca is the house of Shaibah, which holds the hereditary custodianship of the Kaʽba. ”

“ The statistics of the pilgrimage cannot be given with certainty and vary much from year to year. The quarantine office keeps a record of arrivals by sea at Jidda (66,000 for 1904) ; but to these must be added those travelling by land from Cairo, Damascus and Irāk, the pilgrims who reach Medina from Yanbu and go on to Mecca, and those from all parts of the peninsula. Burckhardt in 1814 estimated the crowd at Arafa at 70,000, Burton in 1853 at 50,000, ʽAbd el-Razzāk in 1858 at 60,000. ”

“ Both these and the court of the great mosque lie beneath the general level of the city, the site having been gradually raised by accumulated rubbish. The town in fact has little air of antiquity; genuine Arab buildings do not last long, especially in a valley periodically ravaged by tremendous floods when the tropical rains burst on the surrounding hills. The history of Mecca is full of the record of these inundations, unsuccessfully combated by the great dam drawn across the valley by the caliph Omar (Kutbeddin, p. 76) , and later works of Mahdī. ”

“ Of European descriptions of Mecca from personal observation the best is Burckhardt’s Travels in Arabia (cited above from the 8vo ed., 1829) . The Travels of Aly Bey (Badia, London, 1816) describe a visit in 1807; Burton’s Pilgrimage (3rd ed., 1879) often supplements Burckhardt; Von Maltzan’s Wallfahrt nach Mekka (1865) is lively but very slight. ʽAbd el-Razzāq’s report to the government of India on the pilgrimage of 1858 is specially directed to sanitary questions ”