Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah — Volume 2Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Islamic
Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah — Volume 2
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Arabian Peninsula -- Description and travel
[p.371] 20 foot distant from each other; above the middle part of which
iron bars are fastened, reaching from one to the other, and several
lamps made of glass are hanged to each of the said bars, with
brasswires in the form of a triangle, to give light in the night
season, for they pay their devotions at the Beat-Allah as much by night
as by day, during the Hagges stay at Mecca. These glasses are
half-filled with water, and a third part with oil, on which a round
wire of brass buoyed up with three little corks; in the midst of this
wire is made a place to put in the wick or cotton, which burns till the
oil is spent. Every day they are washed clean, and replenished with
fresh water, oil, and cotton.
On each of the four squares of the Beat is a little room built, and over
every one of them is a little chamber with windows all round it, in
which chambers the Emaums (together with the Mezzins) perform Sallah,
in the audience of all the people which are below. These four chambers
are built one at each square of the Beat, by reason that there are four
sorts of Mahometans. The first are called Hanifee; most of them are
Turks. The second Schafee[FN#28]; whose manners and ways the Arabians
follow. The third Hanbelee; of which there are but few. The fourth
Malakee; of which there are those that live westward of Egypt, even to
the Emperor of Moroccos country. These all agree in fundamentals, only
there is some small difference between them in the ceremonial part.
About twelve paces from the Beat is (as they say) the sepulchre of
Abraham,[FN#29] who by Gods immediate command, they tell you, built this
Beat-Allah; which
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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