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 Bab el Ma'la, or gate of the upper quarter, whence the road continues up the valley towards Mina and Arafa as well as towards Zeima and the Nejd. Beyond the gate, in a place called the Hajun, is the chief cemetery, commonly called el Ma'la, and said to be the resting-place of many of the companions of Mahomet. Here a cross-road, running over the hill to join the main Medina road from the western gate, turns off to the west by the pass of Kada, the point from which the troops of the Prophet stormed the city (A.H. 8).[7] Here too the body of Ibn Zubair was hung on a cross by Hajjaj. The lower or southern gate, at the Masfala quarter, opened on the Yemen road, where the rain-water from Mecca flows off into an open valley. Beyond, there are mountains on both sides; on that to the east, commanding the town, is the great castle, a fortress of considerable strength. The third or western gate, Bab el-Omra (formerly also Bab el-Zahir, from a village of that name), lay almost opposite the great mosque, and opened on a road leading westwards round the southern spurs of the Red Mountain. This is the way to Wadi Fatima and Medina, the Jidda road branching off from it to the left. Considerable suburbs now lie outside the quarter named after this gate; in the middle ages a pleasant country road led for some miles through partly cultivated land with good wells, as far as the boundary of the sacred territory and gathering place of the pilgrims at Tanim, near the mosque of Ayesha. This is the spot on the Medina road now called the Omra, from a ceremonial connected with it which will be mentioned below.