Mecca

“ Mohammed is reported to have said of Mecca, “What a splendid city thou art, if I had not been driven out of thee by my tribe I would dwell in no other place but in thee. It is not man but God who has made Mecca sacred. My people will be always safe in this world and the next as long as they respect Mecca.” (Mishkat book XL., ch. xv.)
The sacred boundaries of Mecca and Medina not only shut out all unbelievers, but they make special demands of “purity and holiness” (in the Moslem sense) on the part of the true believers. ”

“ The yearly departure of the caravan for Mecca is a remarkable sight. Every true Mohammedan hopes to some day make a pilgrimage to Mecca—the sacred city of his prophet. Each year those who are able set out upon their journey. ”

“ There was a general exclamation of joyful greeting to the great saints, for this far-away shrine, standing isolated on the edge of the great plain, is the Mecca of all the Gulf of Lyons. What impresses one most is the harmonious grandeur of the vast sweep of land and sea, arched over by the limitless dome of sky, which, more perfectly here than anywhere else, appears to embrace the entire terrestrial horizon. ”

“ What happens in Mecca becomes matter for more than amusement when we realize that hundreds of thousands of men under our own flag feel exactly the same sentiments toward that city that other millions of our fellow-citizens feel toward Rome. ”

“ Proud of the gifts he bears to Mecca's shrine;
For all their wants his watchful care provides,
His pow'r protects them, and his counsel guides.
Lo! where the chosen guards, in awe profound,
With closing ranks their Sultan's gifts surround,
Where tapestried wonders, to the sight unroll'd,
Mix their rich splendour with the beaming gold,
To music's sounds where denser squadrons move,
And tow'ring lances form a leafless grove,—
Bright with the lustre of the solar rays,
The Crescent standard all its pride displays. ”

“ It is said that in a few cases a European, who had lived so long in the East as to have a perfect mastery of Arabic, has disguised himself as a dervish, and mingling with the crowd of pilgrims, has been able to reach Mecca, and come back in safety. But if the disguise were penetrated, and the intruder discovered, he would not return to tell the tale. All we can do, therefore, is to look towards Mecca from a great distance. We can only stand here by the roadside, and in imagination follow the dromedaries as they move away to the East, and disappear below the horizon. ”

“ But there were many new converts at Mecca since the expulsion of the Moslems. Those unable to fly from Mecca in the teeth of the oppressions of the wrathful Koreish (Sura IV., 77, 79, 100) were increasing. They appealed for deliverance and aid, while the Moslem pilgrims were near Mecca at Hodeibia, six years after the Hegira, and an allusion is made to the great number of the Meccan converts, living at Mecca during that time in Sura XLVIII, 25. ”

“ Of these is Iona.
The Arabs speak of Mecca as a holy place before the time of the prophet, saying that Adam himself lies buried here: and, before Adam, that the Sons of Allah, who are called Angels, worshipped; and that when Allah Himself stood upon perfected Earth it was on this spot. And here, they add, when there is no man left upon earth, an angel shall gather up the dust of this world, and say to Allah, "There is nothing left of the whole earth but Mecca: and now Mecca is but the few grains of sand that I hold in the hollow of my palm, O Allah." ”

“ But tell thou me, Rrisa, if I were to appear at Mecca in my Nissr Arrib ela Sema—my Eagle of the Sky—would not thy people give me great honors?"
"My head is at your feet, M'almé, and I am yours to do with as you will, even to the death, but I implore you, by the beard of the Prophet, do not do this thing!"
"And why not, Rrisa?"
"You and I, Master, are akhawat. [1] Therefore I can speak true words. You must not go to Mecca. No man of the Nasara may go there—and live."
[Footnote 1: Akhawat signifies in Arabic the tie of sworn brotherhood between an Arab and one of different blood.] ”

“ Shere Ali turned to Hatch again and said in a quiet voice which had some note of rather pathetic appeal: "Will you tell me what you thought of Mecca? I should like to know."
The vision of the three men descending the Lowari Pass was present to him as he listened. And he listened, wondering what strange, real power that sacred place possessed to draw men cheerfully on so long and hazardous a pilgrimage. But the secret was not yet to be revealed to him. Hatch talked well. ”

“ Devotees who were able to satisfy their consciences by performing the ritual of the Lesser Pilgrimage only, went about it thus: they came to Mecca, generally during the sacred month of Rejeb, feverishly kissed the blessed Black Stone—the most divinely hallowed rock in a country that reverenced every one of her millions of stones—imbedded in the eastern corner of the Kaba, sedately walked seven times around the saintly edifice, and then marched in a more hasty manner seven times to and fro between two spots near by, over a route which Hagar was supposed to have trod. ”

“ Everyone occupies a space equal to the distance which separates Mecca from Medina. The reprobates, in the very heart of hell, weep so that their countenances have furrows like canals, and when their tears are exhausted, blood commences to flow from their eyes. ”

“ When the women are at the stone, then it is esteemed a very rude and abominable thing to go near them, respecting the time and place.
[p.365] �I shall now give you a more particular description of Mecca and the temple there.
�First, as to Mecca. It is a town situated in a barren place (about one day�s journey from the Red Sea) in a valley, or rather in the midst of many little hills. It is a place of no force, wanting both walls and gates. ”

“ The pilgrimage to Mecca is the universal object of Malay ambition. They practice relic worship, keep the fast of Ramadhan, wear rosaries of beads, observe the hours of prayer with their foreheads on the earth, provide for the "religious welfare" of their villages, circumcise their children, offer buffaloes in sacrifice at the religious ceremonies connected with births and marriages, build mosques everywhere, regard Mecca as the holy city, and the Koran, as expounded by Arab teachers, as the rule of faith and practice. ”

“ One of the mosques to which unbelievers are not admitted, is the Mosque of Flowers, where a carpet of superb embroidery of gold and silks is annually worked with infinite reverence, and is sent to Mecca as a covering for the Tomb of the Prophet. Though commonly called "The Holy Carpet," this Kiswet e' Nebbee is really a curtain. It is a hanging of rich silk, on which sacred sentences in Arabic are embroidered in gold, and it is designed as a lining for the Káaba, which is the temple of Mecca, the Holy of Holies of the Mahommedan world. ”

“ With all these enviable advantages—the praying-carpet, the praying-stone, the holy rosary, and the happy accuracy as regards Mecca—the Aradan telegraph-jee is a Mussulman who ought to feel tolerably certain of a rose-garden, a gurgling rivulet, and any number of black-eyed houris to contribute to his happiness in the paradise he hopes to enter beyond the tomb. ”

“ Although throngs of Mussulman pilgrims yearly visit the holy city of Mecca, but few Europeans have left the impress of their footsteps upon its soil. [75]
What millions of human beings, nothing intimidated by deserts, mountains, and all sorts of hardships, have paid their devotions to this shrine! The great have visited it with pomp, and all its train of luxury and display; the grasping spirit of trade, has summoned merchants from all parts of the East. ”

“ I think I am at Memphis, Babylon, or Mecca. In the stead of a king so just and so pious, a little monk, fat, rosy, barefooted, with a shorn head, and half covered with a dirty mantle, bent by hypocrisy more than by age, lost in debauchery whilst proud of his affected poverty, and still more of the real wealth he has amassed—this man holds the reins of this staggering empire. In vice and cruelty he rivals a Dionysius, an Agathocles, or a Phalaris. This monk, named Roberto, was an Hungarian cordelier, and preceptor of Prince Andrew, whom he entirely sways. ”

“ Travelers in the desert, use sand as a substitute for water. The worshiper must have a seal of Mecca which is made of clay and is about the size of a half-dollar. On it are the words, "There is no God but God." Facing Mecca, he puts the seal on the ground and standing erect he raises both hands to his head, kneels to the ground, puts his brow on the seal, then kisses it. Rising to his feet he puts both index fingers in his ears; and also makes numerous other gestures. They have one prayer which is always repeated. They have five stated seasons daily for prayer ”

“ Isis nursing Horus gave way to the Virgin and the Child. But the cycles spin away down “the ringing grooves of change.” From Egypt has passed away that decreed Christianity. Now from the minaret the muezzin cries, and in palm-shaded villages I hear the loud hymns of earnest pilgrims starting on the journey to Mecca. ”

“ In the estimation of Mahommedans, Mecca is first in sanctity: next is Jerusalem; and next is Damascus, which they call the Prophet’s Heel: the plain adjoining this city is the rendezvous for the great northern caravan of pilgrims for Mecca, and in the gains which the citizens draw from this source, together with the fresh and ardent zeal which the pilgrims bring with them and diffuse around, we may find the cause of the proverbial fanaticism of this city. ”

“ To the greater part of the world represented by this international exhibition of Islâm, as a modern Mussulman writer calls it, our modern world, with all its problems, its emotions, its learning and science, hardly exists. On the other hand, the average modern man does not understand much more of the mental life of the two hundred millions to whom the barren Mecca has become the great centre. In former days, other centres were much more important, although Mecca has always been the goal of pilgrimage and the cherished abode of many learned men. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Indeed, a great many of the pilgrims—the people from Central Asia, for instance—don't speak Arabic at all. But I felt sure that if I went down the Red Sea alone on a pilgrim steamer, landed alone at Jeddah, and went up with a crowd of others to Mecca, living with them, sleeping with them, day after day, sooner or later I should make some fatal slip and never reach Mecca at all. If Burton made one mistake, how many should I? So I put the journey off year after year. But this autumn I heard that the Sultan of the Maldive Islands intended to make the pilgrimage. ”

“ Every one who takes up the book in the proper religious frame of mind, like most of the Moslems, reads pieces directed against long-obsolete absurd customs of Mecca just as devoutly as the weightiest moral precepts,—perhaps even more devoutly, because he does not understand them so well. ”

“ Gross ignorance coupled with equal conceit seems to be the universal characteristic of the people of Mecca. Modern science is laughed at and everything turns, on the Ptolemaic system, around the little world of the Koran. Jinn are exorcised; witches and the evil-eye are avoided by amulets; in short all the superstitious practices of the Moslem world are cultivated in this centre of world-wide pilgrimage. Astrology still usurps the place of astronomy and it is considered blasphemy to profess to know the hour of an eclipse or the day of the new moon before it is revealed from heaven. ”

“ PLAYING AMONG THE RUINS OF THE TOMB OF TAMERLANE
Their pilgrimage to Mecca, which we are apt to regard merely as something picturesque, is in reality one of the most mysterious of human processions. From Northern Africa, from Syria, from Turkey and Armenia, from Turkestan, from the Chinese marches (there are even Chinese Mohammedans, the Duncani) , from India, from the depths of Arabia and Persia—to Mecca. Through Russia alone there travel annually considerably more Moslems to Mecca than there do Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem ”

“ 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. ”