The Lands of the Saracen: Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and SpainTaylor, Bayard
History
The Lands of the Saracen: Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain
Taylor, Bayard
Middle East -- Description and travel; Spain -- Description and travel
Numbers of True Believers were drinking and washing themselves at the
picturesque fountain, and just as we rose to depart, the voice of a
boy-muezzin, on one of the tallest minarets, sent down a musical call to
prayer. Immediately the boys left off their sports and started on a run
for the great mosque, and the grave, gray-bearded Turks got up from the
mats, shoved on their slippers, and marched after them. We followed,
getting a glimpse of the illuminated interior of the building, as we
passed; but the oda-bashi conducted us still further, to a smaller though
more beautiful mosque, surrounded with a garden-court. It was a truly
magical picture. We entered the gate, and passed on by a marble pavement,
under trees and arbors of vines that almost shut out the moonlight, to a
paved space, in the centre whereof was a beautiful fountain, in the purest
Saracenic style. Its heavy, projecting cornices and tall pyramidal roof
rested on a circle of elegant arches, surrounding a marble structure,
whence the water gushed forth in a dozen sparkling streams. On three sides
it was inclosed by the moonlit trees and arbors; on the fourth by the
outer corridor of the mosque, the door of entrance being exactly opposite.
Large numbers of persons were washing their hands and feet at the
fountain, after which they entered and knelt on the floor. We stood
unobserved in the corridor, and looked in on the splendidly illuminated
interior and the crowd at prayer, all bending their bodies to the earth at
regular intervals and murmuring the name of Allah. They resembled a
plain, of reeds bending before the gusts of wind which precede a storm.
When all had entered and were united in solemn prayer, we returned,
passing the grand mosque. I stole up to the door, lifted the heavy carpet
that hung before it, and looked in. There was a Mevlevi Dervish standing
in the entrance, but his eyes were lifted in heavenly abstraction, and he
did not see me. The interior was brilliantly lit by white and colored
lamps, suspended from the walls and the great central dome. It was an
imposing structure, simple in form, yet grand from its dimensions. The
floor was covered with kneeling figures, and a deep voice, coming from the
other end of the mosque, was uttering pious phrases in a kind of chant. I
satisfied my curiosity quickly, and we then returned to the khan.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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