Though their prophet disclaimed the power of performing miracles, the Muslims attribute to him many; and several miracles are still, they say, constantly or occasionally performed for his sake, as marks of the Divine favour and honour. The pilgrims who have visited El-Medeeneh relate that there is seen every night, a ray or column of faint light rising from the cupola over the grave of the Prophet to a considerable height, apparently to the clouds, or, as some say, to Paradise; but that the observer loses sight of it when he approaches very near the tomb.[360] This is one of the most remarkable of the miracles which are related as being still witnessed. On my asking one of the most grave and sensible of all my Muslim friends here, who had been on a pilgrimage, and visited El-Medeeneh, whether this assertion were true, he averred that it was; that he had seen it every night of his stay in that city; and he remarked that it was a most striking and impressive proof of God’s favour and honour for “our lord Mohammad.” I did not presume to question the truth of what he asserted himself to have seen; nor to suggest that the great number of lights kept burning every night in the mosque might produce this effect; but to judge whether this might be the case, I asked my friend to describe to me the construction of the apartment of the tomb, its cupola, etc. He replied that he did not enter it, nor the Kaabah at Mekkeh, partly from his being in a state of excessive nervous excitement (from his veneration for those holy buildings, but particularly for the former, which almost affected him with a kind of hysteric fit), and partly because, being of the sect of the Hanafees, he held it improper, after he should have stepped upon such sacred ground, ever again to run the risk of defiling his feet by walking barefooted: consequently, he would have been obliged always to wear leather socks, or mezz, within his outer shoes; which, he said, he could not afford to do. The pilgrims also assert that, in approaching El-Medeeneh, from the distance of three days’ journey, or more, they always see a flickering lightning in the direction of the sacred city, which they believe to proceed from the Prophet’s tomb. They say that however they turn, they always see this lightning in the direction of El-Medeeneh. There is something strikingly poetical in this and in the former statement.