Al-Aqsa Mosque

“ The Meccan Mosque became a model to the world of Al-Islam, and the nations that embraced the new faith copied the consecrated building, as religiously as Christendom produced imitations of the Holy Sepulchre. [FN#7] The Mosque of Omar at Jerusalem, of Amru at Babylon on the Nile, and of Taylun at Cairo were erected, with some trifling improvements, such as arched cloisters and inscribed cornices, upon the plan of the Ka'abah. From Egypt and Palestine the ichnography spread far and wide. ”

“ The modern Mosques must be visited to see Egyptian architecture in its decline and fall. That of Sittna Zaynab (our Lady Zaynab) , founded by Murad Bey, the Mamluk, and interrupted by the French invasion, shows, even in its completion, some lingering traces of taste. But nothing can be more offensive than the building which every tourist flogs donkey in his hurry to see-old Mohammed Ali's "Folly" in the citadel. Its Greek architect has toiled to caricature a Mosque to emulate the glories of our English "Oriental Pavilion." ”

“ Inside there are no flower-plots, no tall trees, in fact none of the refinements which lightens the gloom of a Christian burial-place: the buildings are simple, they might even be called mean. Almost all are the common Arab Mosque, cleanly whitewashed, and looking quite new. The ancient monuments were levelled to the ground by Saad the Wahhabi and his puritan followers, who waged pitiless warfare against what must have appeared to them magnificent mausolea, deeming as they did a loose heap of stones sufficient for a grave. ”

“ The outside walls of the Mosques are those of the houses which surround it on all sides. These houses belonged originally to the Mosque; the greater part are now the property of individuals. They are let out to the richest Hadjys, at very high prices, as much as 500 piastres being given during the pilgrimage for a good apartment with windows opening into the Mosque. ”

“ The sixth Mosque was built, almost as it now stands, by Kaid-Bey, nineteenth Sultan of the Circassian Mamluk kings of Egypt, in A.H. 888: it is now therefore more than four centuries old. Al-Mustasim's Mosque had been struck by lightning during a storm; thirteen men were killed at prayers, and the destroying element spared nothing but the interior of the Hujrah. [FN#52] The railing and dome were restored; niches and a pulpit were sent from Cairo, and the gates and minarets were distributed as they are now. ”

“ In Al-Islam, the employment of such persons about the Mosque is a "Bida'ah" or custom unknown in the time of the Prophet. It is said to have arisen from the following three considerations: 1. These people are concentrated in their professions; 2. They must see and touch strange women at the shrines; and 3. The shrines are "Harim," or sacred, having adyta which are kept secret from the prying eyes of men, and, therefore, should be served by eunuchs. It is strange that the Roman Catholic church, as well as the Moslem Mosque, should have admitted such an abomination. ”

“ We will now enter the Mosque Al-Azhar. At the dwarf wooden railing we take off our slippers, hold them in the left hand, sole to sole, that no dirt may fall from them, and cross the threshold with the right foot, ejaculating Bismillah, &c. Next we repair to the Mayza'ah, or large tank, for ablution, without which it is unlawful to appear in the House of Allah. We then seek some proper place for devotion, place our slippers on some other object in front of us to warn the lounger, and perform a two-bow prayer in honour of the Mosque. ”

“ Whether Mohammed actually reached our al-Ḥawṣa’ on his march to Tebûk or to Dûmat al-Ǧandal, it is impossible to prove; but this Ḥawṣa’ is situated on the important junction of the routes from Syria to al-Medîna and from Egypt to Irak, and it is possible that the mosque was erected there and dedicated to the Prophet. The mosque of Du al-Ǧîfe is perhaps identical with the ruins near Moṛejrat al-Faṭer, where ends the valley which one traverses on the way to the wells of al-Ḥawṣa’. ”

“ They strip the place of its suburb Al-Manakhah, in order to show the enceinte, omit the fort, and the gardens north and south of the city, enlarge the Mosque twenty-fold for dignity, and make it occupy the whole centre of the city, instead of a small corner in the south-east quarter. They place, for symmetry, towers only at the angles of the walls, instead of all along the curtain, and gather up and press into the same field all the venerable and interesting features of the country, those behind the artist's back, and at his sides, as well as what appears in front. ”

“ It is erected around the spot where the she-camel, Al-Kaswa, knelt down by the order of Heaven. At that time the land was a palm grove and a Mirbad, or place where dates are dried. Mohammed, ordered to erect a place of worship there, sent for the youths to whom it belonged, and certain Ansar, or Auxiliaries, their guardians; the ground was offered to him in free gift, but he insisted upon purchasing it, paying more than its value. Having caused the soil to be levelled and the trees to be felled, he laid the foundation of the first Mosque. ”

“ Omar, the second successor, surrounded the Hujrah, or Ayishah's chamber, in which the Prophet was buried, with a mud wall; and in A.H. 17, he enlarged the Mosque to 140 cubits by 120, taking in ground on all sides except the Eastern, where stood the abodes of the "Mothers of the Moslems. [FN#38] " Outside the Northern wall he erected a Suffah, called Al-Batha-a raised bench of wood, earth, or stone, upon which the people might recreate themselves with conversation and quoting poetry, for the Mosque was now becoming [a] place of peculiar reverence to men. ”

“ The Masjid Benu Zafar (some write the word Tifr) is also called Masjid al-Baghlah�of the She-mule,�because, according to Al-Matari, on the ridge of stone to the south of this Mosque are the marks where the Prophet leaned his arm, and where the she-mule, Duldul, sent by the Mukaukas as a present with Mariyah the Coptic girl and Yafur the donkey, placed its hoofs. At the Mosque was shown a slab upon which the Prophet sat hearing recitations from the Koran; and historians declare that by following his example many women have been blessed with offspring. ”

“ Even the Riwak or porches surrounding the area in the Mosque are revivals of older forms. "The range of square buildings which enclose the temple of Serapis are not, properly speaking, parts of the fane, but apartments of the priests, places for victims, and sacred utensils, and chapels dedicated to subordinate deities, introduced by a more complicated and corrupt worship, and probably unknown to the founders of the original edifice." The cloisters in the Mosque became cells, used as lecture rooms, and stores for books bequeathed to the college. ”

“ There are about four hundred Mosques, some having six minarets, and adorned with beautiful granite columns, brought from Heliopolis and Memphis. About twenty deserve notice as works of art. The largest mosque is El Azhar, at the center of the city, regarded as a University for all Islam. The next in size is that of Sultan Hasan, in the Roumeyleh square, the finest structure in modern Egypt, and extremely light and elegant. It is built in the form of a parallelogram, and has a deep frieze running round all the wall, adorned with Gothic and Arabesque sculpture. ”

“ Modern sciences are unknown, and all other branches of learning are entirely neglected.
One of the chief centres of Moslem religious life is the Great Mosque. This is one of the finest of Mohammedan [208] churches. It stands in the centre of the city and covers about seven acres, or almost twice as much space as the Capitol at Washington. In the great court paved with marble is a fountain, said to mark the half-way station on the route from Constantinople to Mecca. It is there that the worshippers bathe parts of their bodies before going to their prayers. ”

“ Returning to the open air and standing upon the great terrace, we see on what vast foundations the famous 'Royal Cloister' of Herod was supported. The mosque el-Aksa is a large pile of buildings abutting on the south wall of the Haram. The principal axis of the edifice runs north and south, instead of east and west according to the general law of the Latin Church ”

“ But the Mosque — that blossom of Oriental architecture, with its crowning domes, like the inverted bells of the lotus, and its reed-like minarets, its fountains and marble courts — can only perish with the faith it typifies. I, for one, rejoice that, so long as the religion of Islam exists (and yet, may its time be short!) , no Christian model can shape its houses of worship. The minaret must still lift its airy tower for the muezzin; the dome must rise like a gilded heaven above the prayers of the Faithful, with its starry lamps and emblazoned phrases ”

“ The great enclosure outside the platform is not paved; it is covered with grass and planted with olives and cypresses. Only the platform is fairly level, and its flagging in parts is covered with Crusading masons’-marks. There is, as above noticed, only one mosque in the enclosure—the great building on the south wall. The whole area is called Haram esh Sherîf, “High Sanctuary,” and Masjid el Haram, “Praying-place of Sanctuary;” also sometimes Masjid el Aksa, “the far-off praying-place,” in allusion to its distance from Mecca and to the Prophet’s long night journey. ”

“ The mosaics of the Dome of the Rock differ, however, in this respect, that they are entirely confined to arabesques, and never represent human (or animal) figures, such as appear in the Greek mosaics at Bethlehem and elsewhere: this shows that they were intended for a Moslem, and not for a Christian building. The Arabs had no native style of architecture. Muḥammad and Omar built rude wooden structures, and it is recorded of El Welîd—son of ’Abd el Melek—that he employed skilled workmen from Persia and Byzantium to build his great mosque at Damascus. ”

“ The long, slender handle, which is made up of the modern peasant-markets, stretches away two miles southward. The nearer bowl is the site of the ancient city. Above its monotonous succession of solidly massed houses are seen high, cylindrical roofs which cover the most important bazaars; in the very center stands the famous Omayyade Mosque with its splendid dome and spacious court and three lofty towers, while a multitude of other graceful minarets—it is said that they are exactly as many as the days of the year—rise above the most mysterious and fascinating of Moslem capitals. ”

“ The religious architecture of Islam, as far as its symbolism is concerned, is a thing that will never be understood by the Christian. A mosque to most people is simply a public monument, a thing of domes and minarets and many columns. The winter bird of passage at Cairo thinks it a great inconvenience that he should be made to put on a pair of babouches over his shoes in order to enter, forgetting that it is a Holy Place and that one of the tenets of the Mussulman religion forbids walking rough-shod over the rugs and carpets of a place of worship. ”

“ On this plain, close to the banks of the river, was a whole city of booths of various styles of architecture—those for the tea merchants being in the shape of pagodas. Some of the booths are of considerable size, being, in fact, storehouses for a large amount of valuable merchandise. One of the most conspicuous buildings in this quarter is a mosque, whose tall, pointed spire, surmounted by a glittering crescent, towers above all others. This mosque is said to be the most northern Mohammedan temple, with the exception of the humble little structure at Moscow. ”

“ There is a height, breadth, and solemn dignity in its aspect, which earnestly impresses one. The exterior is much less striking, but yet admirably balanced and harmonized. The lofty situation of the mosque commands one of the most interesting views that can well be conceived of. The city, with its countless minarets and domed mosques, its public buildings and tree-adorned squares, its section of mud-colored houses and terraced roofs, lies in the form of a crescent at the visitor's feet, while the plains of Lower Egypt stretch far away in all directions. ”

“ All this, and much else, is but the inevitable outcome of a worship that gathers round a stone. It is a petrified worship, hard and dead as its sacred rock. Nothing could be more pathetic than a window in El Aksa almost darkened with little rags of clothing hung there by poor folk who come to pray for their sick friends. If Syrian Christianity is corrupt, it is at least not so pitiless as Syrian Mohammedanism. The very aspect and situation of the rival shrines is symbolic.{156} The mosque does not really love men, whether it really believes in God or not. ”

“ Even to-day the door facing the east which Christians entered to worship Jesus remains. When the Mohammedans took possession of the building a new door was made on the south side facing the holy city of Mecca. Mosques are regarded as holy and no animal is allowed to step in, especially dogs. If a Mohammedan knew that dogs sometimes enter Christian churches they would despise Christians the more. Jews and Christians are not allowed to enter a mosque. They can only stand before the door and listen solemnly. ”

“ The interior courts are paved with stone, with fountains in the centre, and many of them are covered with domes resting on massive pillars. The largest has a roof of nine domes, supported by four grand pillars, which inclose a fountain. The mosques, into which no Christian is allowed to enter, are in general inferior to those of Cairo, but their outer courts are always paved with marble, adorned with fountains, and surrounded by light and elegant corridors. The grand mosque is an imposing edifice, and is said to occupy the site of a former Christian church. ”