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Updated: May 18, 2025
Continuing from this place, in a northern direction, parallel with the mosque, we enter the long street called Mesaa. The small by-streets to the right, in approaching the Mesaa, form the quarter of El Szafa, which takes its name from the holy place Szafa, already de-scribed.
The destruction In the Mesaa, and annexed to the mosque, stands a handsome building, erected in A.H. 882, by Kaid Bey, Sultan of Egypt, in which he established a large public school, with seventy-two different apartments; he also furnished it with a valuable library.
Here the merchant sits, under the shade of a slight awning of mats fastened to long poles; this custom prevails throughout the Hedjaz. All the houses of the Mesaa are rented by Turkish pilgrims.
Near this place, too, is a public fountain, the work of the Othman Emperor Soleyman Ibn Selym: it is supplied from the Mekka aqueduct, and is crowded the whole day by hadjys, who come to fill their water-skins. Eastward of the Mesaa, near its extremity at the Merowa, branches off a street called Soueyga, or the Little Market, which runs almost parallel with the east side of the mosque.
We now turn into the Mesaa, the straightest and longest street in Mekka, and one of the best built. It receives its name from the ceremony of the Say, which is performed in it, and which I have already described: from this circumstance, and its being full of shops, it is the most noisy and most frequented part of the town.
The Mesaa is the place of punishment: there capital offenders are put to death. During my stay, a man was beheaded, by sentence of the Kadhy, for having robbed a Turkish pilgrim of about two hun-dred pounds sterling; this was the only instance of the kind which came to my knowledge, though thieves are said to abound in Mekka, while the Hadj continues.
The historian Kotobeddyn, who, one hundred years afterwards, was librarian here, complains that only three hundred volumes remained in his time, the rest having been stolen by his unprincipled predecessors. On the northern extremity of the Mesaa is the place called Merowa, the termination of the Say, as already described; this, as it now stands, was built in A.H. 801.
In turning eastward from the Garara, and passing the quarter called Rekoube, which, in point of building, nearly equals the Garara, although it is not reckoned so genteel a residence, we arrive at the great street called Modaa, which is a continuation of the Mesaa, and then retrace our steps through the latter to the vicinity of El Szafa, that we may survey the eastern quarters of the town.
On the arrival of a party of hadjys from Djidda, which happens almost every morning, for four or five months of the year, their baggage is usually deposited in this street, after which they pay their visit to the mosque, About the time of my stay at Mekka, the Mesaa resembled a Constantinopolitan bazar.
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