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The mountain of Ohod forms part of the great chain, branching out from it into the eastern plain, so as to stand almost insulated. It is three quarters of an hour's walk from the town. In the fourth year of the Hedjra, when Mohammed had fixed his residence at Medina, the idolatrous Koreysh, headed by Abou Sofyan, invaded these parts, and took post at this mountain.
Twenty years after the last-mentioned date, El Hadjadj Ibn Yousef el Thakafy, then governor of Mekka, disliking the enlarged size of the Kaaba, reduced it to the proportions it had in the time of the Koreysh, cutting off six pikes from its length; he also restored the wall called Hedjer, which Ibn Zebeyr had included within the building.
Indeed, it was a maxim with all schools of theology of all ages that descent from the Koreysh was the first title to the Caliphate; but we may reasonably suppose that within the limits of his own dominions, and even to the mass of the vulgar beyond them, the Ottoman Emperor's sublime proceedings met with approval.
The national party, then, had been reinforced, at the expense of the religious, among the Koreysh, who were still at the head of all the affairs of State. Their leader was Mawiyeh Ibn Ommiyeh, a man of distinguished ability and of that charm of manner which high-born Arabs know so well how to use to their political ends.
To all alike, friends as well as foes, he must in the first instance have appeared as an usurper, for before him no man not of the house of Koreysh, and so a kinsman of their Prophet, had ever claimed to be his spiritual heir.
In his hands are deposited the sums bestowed as presents to the building, and which he distributes in conjunction with the Kadhy: under his directions, This officer happens at present to be one of the heads of the three only families descended from the ancient Koreysh who remain resident at Mekka.
MANY Arabic terms which have become obsolete in other places, and are found only in the good authors, many expressions even of the Koran, no longer used elsewhere, are heard at Mekka in the common conversation of the people, who retain, at least in part, the original language of the Koreysh.
It is probable that he would not withhold his allegiance from a Caliph of the legitimate house of Koreysh. But this, too, is beyond the subject of the present chapter. With the Wahhabites, then, our census of Islam closes.
He was of the Koreysh and of the blood of the Prophet, and so was distinct from the other princes of the world.
Since we are imagining many things we may imagine this one too, that our Caliph of the Koreysh, chosen by the faithful and installed at Mecca, should invite the Ulema of every land to a council at the time of the pilgrimage, and there, appointing a new Mujtahed, should propound to them certain modifications of the Sheriat, as things necessary to the welfare of Islam, and deducible from tradition.
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