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Updated: June 3, 2025
Wady Fatme is also distinguished for its numerous henna-trees, with the odoriferous flowers of which, reduced to powder, the people of the East dye the palms of the hands, the soles of the feet, or the nails of both. The henna of this valley is sold at Mekka to the hadjys in small red leathern bags; and many of them carry some of it home, as a present to their female relations.
After remaining twenty-one days, the enemy departed, carrying with them the great jewel of Mekka, the black stone of the Kaaba.
These regulations caused the Wahabys to be disliked here much more than they were at Mekka, where the inhabitants had no fields to be taxed; and where the tax which the Wahabys had imposed was dispensed with, or rather given up to the Sherif, the ancient governor of the town, as I have already remarked.
We first see here the Mobrak el Naka, the very spot on the floor of the mosque where the she-camel which Mohammed rode, in his flight from Mekka, crouched down, and would not rise again, thus advising her master to stop here, which he did for a few days, previous to his entering Medina.
I arrived at Mekka about mid-day, when my companions went in search of their acquaintance among the soldiers, and left me to shift for myself, without knowing a single individual in the town, and without being recommended to any body but the Kadhy, whom, as I have already said, I wished to avoid.
The Indians labour under great difficulties in learning Arabic; I never heard any of them, however long resident in the Hedjaz, speak it with a tolerable accent: in this respect they are inferior to the Turks, whose pronunciation of Arabic so often affords subject of ridicule to the Arabian mob. The children of Indians, born at Mekka, of course speak Arabic as their native language.
At present the privilege of the sacred territory seems almost forgotten; and it has been crossed in every direction by infidel Christians employed in the army of Mohammed Aly or Tousoun Pasha, who, though they have not entered Mekka, have visited Mount Arafat.
In the first periods of Islam, however, when it was rebuilt in A.H. 64, by Ibn Zebeyr, chief of Mekka, the nephew of Aysha, it had two doors even with the ground-floor of the mosque. Upon its threshold are placed every night various small lighted wax candles, and perfuming-pans, filled with musk, aloe-wood, &c.
I transported my baggage to those lodgings, where I was called upon by the Mezowar to visit the mosque and the holy tomb of Mohammed; it being a law here, as at Mekka, that a traveller arriving in the town must fulfil this duty, before he undertakes the most trifling business. The ceremonies are here much easier and shorter than at Mekka, as will be presently seen.
In 1814, many hadjys had arrived at Mekka, three or four months previous to the prescribed time of the pilgrimage. To pass the Ramadhan in this holy city, is a great inducement with such as can afford the expense, to hasten their arrival, and prolong their residence in it.
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