[p.214] the dress to be changed three times a year. In his day it was red brocade on the 10th Muharram; fine linen on the 1st Rajab; and white brocade on the 1st Shawwal. At last he was informed that the veil applied on the 10th of Muharram was too closely followed by the red brocade in the next month, and that it required renewing on the 1st of Shawwal. This he ordered to be done. Al-Mutawakkil (ninth century), when informed that the dress was spoiled by pilgrims, at first ordered two to be given and the brocade shirt to be let down as far as the pavement: at last he sent a new veil every two months. During the Caliphat of the Abbasides this investiture came to signify sovereignty in Al-Hijaz, which passed alternately from Baghdad to Egypt and Al-Yaman. In Al-Idrisi’s time (twel[f]th century A.D.) the Kiswah was composed of black silk, and renewed every year by the Caliph of Baghdad. Ibn Jubayr writes that it was green and gold. The Kiswah remained with Egypt when Sultan Kalaun[FN#33] (thirteenth century A.D.) conveyed the rents of two villages, “Baysus” and “Sindbus,[FN#34]” to the expense of providing an outer black and an inner red curtain for the Ka’abah, with hangings for the Prophet’s tomb at Al-Madinah. When the Holy Land fell under the power of Osmanli, Sultan Salim ordered the Kiswah to be black; and his son Sultan Sulayman the Magnificent (sixteenth [p.215] century A.D.), devoted considerable sums to the purpose. The Kiswah was afterwards renewed at the accession of each Sultan. And the Wahhabis, during the first year of their conquest, covered the Ka’abah with a red Kiswah of the same stuff as the fine Arabian Aba or cloak, and made at Al-Hasa.