Makkah

“ The only exceptions to this magnanimous amnesty were made in the cases of eleven men and six women whose conduct had been inexcusable. He ordered them to be put to death, wherever found. The sentence was immediately carried out, and a few of the condemned were executed, including Huwarith, who brutally ill-treated Fatimah, the Prophet's daughter and Ali's wife, when she went away from Makkah.
In order to establish the new state of affairs firmly, Mohammad proceeded to appoint immediately the two most important functions of Makkah: the custodian of the Ka'bah and that of the Zamzam well. ”

“ Renew therefore the alliance and reconcile the parties." Abu-Sufyân then clapped his right hand against the left saying, "I have renewed the alliance and reconciled the parties."
He then left and came to Makkah. The Prophet had said, "Abu-Sufyân is coming. He returns satisfied without having effected any result." When he returned to the people of Makkah he told them what had happened and they said, "By Allah we know none more foolish than thou. Thou dost bring us neither war that we may be warned, nor peace that we may feel safe." ”

“ MECCA (Arab. Makkah) , [1] the chief town of the Hejaz in Arabia, and the great holy city of Islām. It is situated two camel marches (the resting-place being Bahra or Hadda) , or about 45 m. almost due E., from Jidda on the Red Sea. Thus on a rough estimate Mecca lies in 21° 25′ N., 39° 50′ E. It is said in the Koran (Sur. xiv. 40) that Mecca lies in a sterile valley, and the old geographers observe that the whole Haram or sacred territory round the city is almost without cultivation or date palms, while fruit trees, springs, wells, gardens and green valleys are found immediately beyond. ”

“ Mohammad caused the guilty parties to be brought before him and, after blaming them severely, he added: 'I will compensate your victim's relatives myself, but cease all reprisals. Too much blood hath been shed already. On the day when He created the Heavens and the Earth, Allah declared the territory of Makkah to be holy; its sacred character hath remained for all before me and shall remain for all after me. Not only shall the lives of human beings be sacred here, but it is likewise forbidden to hunt game, fell trees and cut grass.'—'In this prohibition, O Prophet! ”

“ Had he remained in Makkah, granting even his final triumph, Islam would have remained there with him. The Arabs of all Arabia, fearing the power with which Islam endowed the Quraish alone, would have formed a coalition to prevent it spreading out of the Sacred City. Whereas, after having begun, despite all malice, to plant the roots of his religion firmly in his native town, it was easy for the Prophet to return there when he had won over the rest of the Arabs to his cause. ”

“ Muḥammad ibn-aṣ-Ṣabbâḥ from ʿUbaidallâh ibn-ʿAbdallâh ibn-ʿUtbah:—On the occasion of the conquest of Makkah, the Prophet made the following statement, "Slay no wounded person, pursue no fugitive, execute no prisoner; and whosoever closes his door is safe." ”

“ Before Ḳuṣai brought Ḳuraish together, and before they entered Makkah, they used for drinking purposes reservoirs, rain-water tanks on mountain tops, a well called al-Yusairah dug by Luʾai ibn-Ghâlib outside the Ḥaram and another well called ar-Rawa dug by Murrah ibn-Kaʿb and which lay just beyond ʿArafah. ”

“ All these portents caused fear in the hearts of those who witnessed them; but, despite the predictions of Al Moudzenab, the Parsee sorcerer, who had been warned in a dream that a great upheaval in the destiny of the universe would be caused by an event to take place in Arabia, the occurrence was unperceived: the birth of a child of the Quraish tribe at Makkah, a tiny town lost in the midst of the wilderness, unknown to the gorgeous monarchs of East and West alike, or else despised by them. ”

“ Nothwithstanding, they were much gratified to find that the Prophet refused to give up to the idolaters several Moslem women who had fled from Makkah, such as: Ummi-i-Kulsum bint Ogbah, Sabiyah bint Al-Haris, etc., a Revelation having taught him that women were not to be included in the treaty: "O Believers! when believing women, fleeing from idolatry, come over to you as refugees, then make trial of them ... and if ye have ascertained them to be Believers, let them not go back to the unbelievers; they are not lawful for them, nor are the unbelievers lawful for these women. ”

“ A deputation of Jews from the tribe of the Banu Nazir, and a few malcontents of the Wayls journeyed to Makkah to offer the Quraish an alliance. The Ghatafans, a tribe hailing from the north of the Hijaz, and the "Habash," or Arab Confederates, joined them. Thus was organised a vast conspiracy, threatening Al-Madinah on all sides.
This time, when the Prophet got to hear of the importance of this expedition, he had no difficulty in persuading the Believers that the only way to save themselves was by entrenchment in the town and there awaiting the advent of the enemy. ”

“ Any pilgrimage, be the religion giving rise to it what it may, causes inexpressible emotion by the sight of so many faces beaming with faith; and the most sceptical among the onlookers finds it difficult to escape the contagion of this outbreak of fervour. But, among the majority of the spectators, inadmissible practices soon overcome sympathetic feelings and change them into aversion. At Makkah, doubtless, as in all religious centres without exception, pilgrims are ruthlessly exploited ”

“ This made Jidhʿ say: "Every time ye go to a place, ye al-Azd, some of you detach [58] themselves from the rest. Ye are on the point of becoming the tail among the Arabs." That is why those who settled in Makkah were called Khuzâʿah. [59] Then came Thaʿlabah ibn-ʿAmr Muzaiḳîya with his son and followers to Yathrib whose people were Jews. They settled outside the city where they grew and increased in number and became so strong as to drive the Jews from Yathrib. Thus they came to live inside the city and the Jews outside of it. ”

“ They believed in one Supreme Being; and also in three goddesses of equal power and wisdom, to be worshipped as well: they likewise worshipped idols.
At Mecca, the capital of Arabia, there was a small temple, called the Cāābba, in which there was a stone, said to have fallen white from heaven, in the time when man was innocent, and to have gradually lost its pure colour as man became sinful; it was now quite black. This stone was held in such veneration, that people from all parts of Arabia came to the Cāābba, to worship, bringing gifts; and thus Mecca grew to be a rich and flourishing city. ”

“ It is scarcely necessary to say that a Shiah, as well as a Sunni, would look upon such an action with lively horror. The people of Meccah, however, like the Madani, have turned the circumstance to their own advantage, and make an occasional avanie. Thus, nine or ten years ago, on the testimony of a boy who swore that he saw the inside of the Kaabah defiled by a Persian, they rose up, cruelly beat the schismatics, and carried them off to their peculiar quarter the Shamiyah, forbidding their ingress to the Kaabah. ”

“ Ahmed Al-Makkari, the author or compiler of the present work, derived his surname from a village near Telemsan called Makkarah, where his family had been established since the conquest of Africa by the Arabs. He was born at Telemsan some time in the latter half of the sixteenth century, and educated by his uncle, who held the office of Mufti in that city; but having quitted his native country in 1618 on a pilgrimage to Mekka, he married and settled in Cairo. ”

“ The victory of Mahommedanism made a vast change in the position of Mecca. The merchant aristocracy became satraps or pensioners of a great empire; but the seat of dominion was removed beyond the desert, and though Mecca and the Hejāz strove for a time to maintain political as well as religious predominance, the struggle was vain, and terminated on the death of Ibn Zubair, the Meccan pretendant to the caliphate, when the city was taken by Hajjāj (A.D. 692) . The sanctuary and feast of Mecca received, however, a new prestige from the victory of Islām. ”

“ Embroidered on it were certain verselets of the Koran, the formula of the Moslem faith, and the names of the Prophets Companions. [FN#34] Burckhardt says Bysous and Sandabeir. [FN#35] From the Family of Amran (chap. 3) . Bekkah is a place of crowding; hence applied to Meccah generally. Some writers, however, limit it to the part of the city round the Harim. [FN#36] It is larger than the suls. Admirers of Eastern calligraphy may see a Bismillah, beautifully written in Tumar, on the wall of Sultan Muayyads Mosque at Cairo. ”

“ Unfortunately, Ibn Haukal, like most other Moslem travellers and geographers, says no more about Meccah. [FN#16] To distinguish it from the Jiyad (above the cemetery Al-Maala) over which Khalid entered Meccah. Some topographers call the Jiyad upon which the fort is built the lesser, and apply greater to Jiyad Amir, the hill north of Meccah. [FN#17] The Meccans, however, do not fail to boast of its strength; and has stood some sieges. [FN#18] In the Mandal, or palm-divination, a black slave is considered the best subject. European travellers have frequently remarked their nervous sensibility. ”

“ Aden, Cutch, and Baghdad have fine breeds, whereas those of India and South-Eastern Africa are poor and weak. The best and the highest-priced come from the Maghrib, and second to them ranks the Egyptian race. At Meccah careful feeding and kind usage transform the dull slave into an active and symmetrical friend of man: he knows his owners kind voice, and if one of the two fast, it is generally the biped. The asses of the Holy City are tall and plump, with sleek coats, generally ash or grey-coloured, the eyes of deer, heads gracefully carried, an ambling gait, and extremely sure-footed. ”

“ Without going deep into theory, it may be said that the Ka�abah and the Hajar are the only two idols which have survived the 360 composing the heavenly host of the Arab pantheon. Thus the Hindu poet exclaims:�
"Behold the marvels of my idol-temple, O Moslem! That when its idols are destroy�d, it becomes Allah�s House."
Wilford (As. Soc. vols. iii. and iv.) makes the Hindus declare that the Black Stone at Mokshesha, or Moksha-sthana (Meccah) was an incarnation of Moksheshwara, an incarnation of Shiwa, who with his consort visited Al-Hijaz. ”

“ This was well calculated to attract the attention of the Meccans and to gain the goodwill of the Arabs. Muhammad could not then make the pilgrimage to Mecca, for as yet there was a hostile feeling between the inhabitants of the two cities; but on the tenth day of the month Zu'l-Hajja, at the very time when the Arabs at Mecca were engaged in sacrificing victims, Muhammad went forth from his house at Madína, and assembling his followers instituted the Íd-uz-Zuhá or Baqr-'Íd. ”

“ None but the Prophet and his son-in-law Ali ever entered it, when ceremonially impure, without being guilty of deadly sin. The Mohammedan of the present day is especially informed that on no account must he here tell lies, or even perjure himself. Thus the Rauzah must be respected as much as the interior of the Bayt Allah at Meccah. [FN#19] This is a stone desk on four pillars, where the Muballighs (or clerks) recite the Ikamah, the call to divine service. It was presented to the Mosque by Kaid-Bey, the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt. ”

“ Of course modern superstition is not idle about the waters of Zemzem. The copious supply of the well is considered at Meccah miraculous; in distant countries it facilitates the pron [o] unciation of Arabic to the student; and everywhere the nauseous draught is highly meritorious in a religious point of view.
We then advanced towards the eastern angle of the Kaabah, in which is inserted the Black Stone; and, standing about ten yards from it, repeated with upraised hands, There is no god but Allah alone, Whose Covenant is Truth, and Whose Servant is Victorious. ”

“ I sojourned at Meccah but a short time, and, as usual with travellers, did not see the best specimens of the population. The citizens appeared to me more civilised and more vicious than those of Al-Madinah. They often leave
�Home, where small experience grows,�
and�qui multum peregrinatur, raro sanctificatur�become a worldly-wise, God-forgetting, and Mammonish sort of folk. Tuf w� asaa, w� aamil al-saba��Circumambulate and run (i.e. between Safa and Marwah) and commit the Seven (deadly sins) ��is a satire popularly levelled against them. ”

“ The inhabitants of Mekka have but two kinds of employment,—trade, and the service of the Beitullah, or Temple; but the former has the preference, and there are very few olemas, or persons employed in the mosque, who are not engaged in some commercial affairs, though they are too proud to pursue them openly. The reader has probably remarked, in the foregoing description of Mekka, how few artisans inhabit its streets; such as masons, carpenters, tailors, shoemakers, smiths, &c., and these are far inferior, in skill, to the same class in Egypt. ”

“ That the Arab mind always aimed, and still aims, at the physically great is sufficiently evident. Nothing affords the Meccans greater pride than the vast size of their temple. Nothing is more humiliating to the people of Al-Madinah than the comparative smallness of their Mosque. Still, with a few exceptions, Arab greatness is the vulgar great, not the grand. [FN#5] That is to say, imitations of the human form. All the doctors of Al-Islam, however, differ on this head: some absolutely forbidding any delineation of what has life, under pain of being cast into hell ”