When we reached the outer gateway of the Bábé Salám, which leads into the vestibule, it was to bow humbly and then to prostrate ourselves twice on the threshold, kissing its sacred dust. After this we rose, saying aloud, with closed eyes and outstretched hands:

We then passed into the vestibule, and, no sooner did our eyes behold from the inner gateway the surface of the Harem than we stretched out our hands once more to the sky and closed our eyes in prayer, saying:

Then, advancing the left foot, we said:

Next, when we walked through the inner gateway, and went down the double flight of steps leading to the colonnades, whence the Ka’bah twinkled on us its dusky, square face, we bowed reverently to the House of God and forthwith recited the prayer, which being interpreted, runs:

Then I paused awhile, and my eyes took in the impressive scene.

The open Harem, surrounded on a higher level by the colonnades that are surmounted by the crescented domes, was packed with pilgrims from every quarter of Islám. In the middle is the Ka’bah, hemmed in on three sides of its solid cubic walls by the semi-circular row of columns already described. Now, facing the gold Spout, on the outer side of the pillared enclosure, stands the station of the Hanifites. There, in front of the pulpit, were grouped in the space between the paved ways and in every attitude of worship the followers of reason. Some were standing erect, their hands folded on their breasts, others were kneeling on their prayer rugs, and many were bowed to the lump of clay. Opposite to them were praying the Hanbalites before the pavilion-shaped pulpit that forms the extreme limit of the enclosure on the side nearest to the Black Stone. Priests and peasants, merchants and princes, all had come from far and near to render unto God their hearts and minds in accordance with the law of the Prophet. Those living people clothed in the garments of the dead, there they were, in the very centre whence had sprung the Faith that flashed forth its rays over the East, there they were, and why? To do homage to Him whom Muhammad had made manifest and had delighted to honour thirteen hundred and twenty years ago. It must be conceded, even by the sceptical and the scoffer, that the voice of the “illiterate” Prophet has still the power to work wonders. Hark, his followers are shouting their allegiance to his watchword. Up go their voices to the burning sky overhead: “There is no god but God! Muhammad is the Messenger of God!”

Few could remain silent on hearing the cry of Faith within the columned square of the Harem. It rang out like a trumpet-call, filling the heart with an emotion never felt before. Sincere and true, it drowned the rambling eloquence of the priest haranguing the Malekites out there to the west. It gathered in volume as it passed from lip to lip until the very pillars of the Harem seemed to shake. And then from time to time was sung the Talbih, which might be called the song of the winding-sheet, so frequently was it repeated by the pilgrims in íhrám:

It swelled ever higher, my guide and I joining in the chorus of praise and thanksgiving, since it was our bounden duty so to do on setting foot inside the sacred precincts. Having fulfilled the law of the Prophet or of tradition in that particular, we were about to direct our steps to the Ka’bah through the old gate of Beni-Sheybeh, which is similar in shape to a triumphal arch, when my guide, standing suddenly stock-still, turned on me a countenance of such antic self-reproach that I was more than half afraid he had made up his mind to wring from me a present ere he would pursue his avocation. Perhaps my determination to resist his blandishments expressed itself in my face, for he lost no time in correcting the impression he had made, saying: “Yá-Moulai, I ask pardon of al Moakkibát, I prostrate myself before the two guardian angels who, in order to cope with the difficulty of recording in their respective books the good and the evil actions of every Muslim, are changed from day to day, and I entreat the ones who are on duty now not only to overlook the negligence whereof I accuse myself, but also to allow me to retrieve, to the furtherance of our eternal welfare, the blunder which I have committed. Know then, that to him who reads a certain prayer near the Salám Gate, after descending the steps thereof and passing the colonnades, shall be granted the free gift of one hundred thousand good deeds, together with this additional benefit, that an equal number of his sins shall be blotted out. Come, yá-Moulai, let us lose no time in laying down the burden of our misdeeds.” So saying, he conducted me to the proper place, and made me repeat after him the following prayer:

Then we said three times, “God is Great!” and then, “I seek shelter in Thee from the snares of the devils of man and jinn, and from the evils that may betide the Arab and Ajem!” We afterwards put the right foot foremost on the floor of the Harem, and thence returned with steady steps to the arch of Beni-Sheybeh, which is hard by the Station of Abraham, and there we raised our hands again and cried: “O Lord, grant me admittance into Thy place of righteousness, and likewise a safe return therefrom, and send down to us by Thy saving power a mighty king that we may say: ‘Then came Right and destroyed Wrong. Verily, Wrong is destroyable.’”

Now, the first ceremony of the Tewaff—that is, of the compassing of the Ka’bah—must be performed in front of the Hajerul-Asvad or Black Stone—a sacred relic which requires a short description before we proceed on our way round the Ka’bah: and as an introduction to this description we must relate the story of the creation of Adam, as told by the Muhammadans. They tell us that God, having resolved to fashion a creature in his own likeness, sent the angels, Gabriel, Michael, and Israfil, one after another, to fetch for that purpose seven handfuls of earth from seven depths and of seven colours. The earth, however, foreseeing the revolt of man from the will of his Creator, persuaded the angels to return without performing God’s command, so sure was she of drawing down on herself the divine wrath should the inanimate clay be made to breathe. The angel Azraïl was then despatched by God on the same errand, and he, closing his heart against the earth’s appeal, executed his commission remorselessly, on which account the Lord appointed him to be the angel of death, charging him thenceforward to separate the souls from the bodies. The earth which Azraïl had taken was carried to a place between Mecca and Tayef, where it was first kneaded by the angels, and then moulded by God into a human form. It was afterwards left to dry for the space of forty years, the angels visiting it frequently. Among these angels was Edris—who from being of those that are nearest to God became the devil—and he, not contented with looking on the work of the Creator, which he knew to have been designed to be his superior, vowed he would never acknowledge it as such, and he kicked it till it rang. Then God breathed His own spirit into the clay, so that it was made man, and God called his name Adam, and placed him in Paradise, and formed Eve out of his left side.

Now, when Adam fell and was cast out of Paradise there fell with him a certain Stone, which has since become the most cherished possession in the Muhammadan world. The legend runs that it was restored to Paradise at the Deluge, after which it was brought back to the earth by Gabriel and given to Abraham, who set it in the south-eastern corner of the Ka’bah, which he is said to have built. There it remained till the Karmatians—that sect, founded in the year 278 of the Hegira by a native of Khúzistán called Karmata, which overturned the fundamental points of Islám—bore it away in triumph to their capital, having first polluted its sacred precincts by burying there three thousand dead bodies, by tearing the golden Spout from its place, and by dividing among themselves the veil of the temple itself. The citizens of Mecca sought to redeem the Stone by offering no less than five thousand pieces of gold for it; but the ransom was scornfully rejected by the impious sectaries, who hoped by keeping it in their possession to draw the pilgrims from the Holy City to their own capital. Some twenty-two years later, however, having failed to achieve the purpose they had at heart, they sent back the Stone of their own free will, covering their discomfiture by declaring it to be a counterfeit. The dismay of the Meccans was allayed when they discovered that the stone would swim on water, that being the peculiar quality of the stone they had lost, and so they were satisfied that the true one had been returned to them.

At first the Stone was whiter than milk, but it grew to be black, either by the touch of a certain class of woman, by the sins of mankind, or by the kisses of the pilgrims. All believers, whatever may be the cause to which they attribute the change of colour, agree that the defilement is purely superficial, the inside of the Stone being still as white as the driven snow. Let us hope that the same thing can be said of the hearts of the Faithful, whose lips are supposed to have wrought on this lodestone of theirs a transformation so miraculous. The silver box wherein it lies is about twenty inches square, and is raised a little more than five feet from the ground. A round window having a diameter of some nine inches is kept open on purpose to enable the pilgrims to kiss or to touch the treasure within, which is known as “the right hand of God on earth.” This year the act of osculation was not performed by more than ten pilgrims out of every hundred that attempted it, the crowd being utterly undisciplined in its zeal. It must be confessed that I owed my good fortune to main strength, for I shoved my way through the excited mob and examined the Stone curiously while kissing it. In colour it is a shining black; in shape, hollow like a saucer, presumably the result of the pressure of devoted lips. A pilgrim, if he fail in touching the Stone, must make a reverential salám before it, and then pass on. Special prayers are also said. My guide, before leaving, recited for my edification certain lines from the “Fotúhúl Haremeyn,” which in rhythmic prose would run something like this:

In front of this Stone, the first rite is performed: it is called Niyyat or Determination. The various forms and ceremonies at this stage of the pilgrim’s initiation vary with the sect to which he belongs, but six points are common to all Muhammadans. First, Niyyat, including the declaration of passive obedience to God’s will, the belief in His day of judgment, and the formal repentance of all sins committed; second, the frequent recitation of the watchword of the Faith which is called Takbir; third, the reading of Esteghfar, a short chapter of repentance and of tacit submission to God’s ordinance; fourth, certain formulæ in praise of Allah and the Prophet, which are known by the name of Tahleel; fifth, the intoning of Hamde, which is the chapter of praise; and lastly, the lively repetition of Ghúl-hú-Allah, which runs: “In the name of the most merciful God. Say, God is one God; the eternal God: He begetteth not, neither is He begotten: and there is not any one like unto Him.” The pilgrim, on making his “Determination,” must raise his hands to his cheeks, putting the thumbs under the lobes of his ears, and stretch up his shoulders, allowing his chest to droop inward, and say in a voice toned to a reverent spirit: “O Allah, Thou art omnipotent, Thou art glorified. I purpose, in Thy excellent name, to make seven complete circuits round Thy blessed house.” Having repeated this after the motewaff or guide, I cried out: “In the name of God, God is great!” Then the stream of Hájís caught me to its bosom, and I was tossed about as in a whirlpool. Fortunately Seyyid ’Alí stuck close to my side, and there, in the eddying torrent of human beings that gave forth a sound as of a swelling sea, we raised our voices, my motewaff and I, one after the other, and cried: “O Allah, I do perform this rite out of the fulness of my belief in Thee, in acknowledgment of Thy book, and in faithfulness to Thy covenant, according to the example of Thy prophet Muhammad—may he be blessed and glorified!” And all the while we struggled as hard as we could to get within touch of the Hajerul-Asvad, which, as we knew well from the pressure of the throng, was the lodestone that drew the sheeted pilgrims to the south-eastern corner of the house. Now we were driven forward, and then we were hurled back; indeed, the bare-footed Faithful, seeing their hopes alternately rise and fall, grew grimly resolute to kiss the Black Stone, cost them what it might. The yearning to do so, which had filled their hearts with piety in the seclusion of their homes, gave place at close quarters to a determination so fierce and so uncontrollable as might have offered to a cool-headed spectator a living picture of Pandemonium. Every now and then a pilgrim would succeed in snatching a hasty kiss, after which he would be flung aside, and another, less fortunate than himself, would have to be contented with touching the Stone with his hand and kissing that; but by far the greater number had no other choice than to pass on with a salaam expressive of good intentions. Some said their prayers with the tongue of their hearts, and with tears in their eyes; others said them aloud, the sweat streaming down their cheeks. “O Lord, I bring my heart and soul to Thee, I acknowledge Thy Book faithfully, I give evidence that there is not any one equal to Thee, and I promise to obey Thy Commandments.”

Opposite to the place called al-Moltezem, between the Black Stone and the gate of the Ka’bah, we paused and said: “O Allah, Thou who art omnipotent, I beseech Thee to pardon my sins in violating Thy commands.” A few steps forward brought us face to face with the gate itself, whose threshold is raised so high above the ground that the pilgrims must mount by means of steps moving on wheels which are kept alongside a wall of the Zem-Zem well when not in use. There we stopped again, saying:

We proceeded thence to the north-eastern angle called the Rokné-Araghi, where we halted in order to ask another blessing, and cried out in a tone of deepest contrition: “O Allah, I take refuge with Thee from evil, from doubt, from disobedience, from disunion, from immorality, from hypocrisy, and from all evil thoughts concerning one’s family and one’s estate.” And when we went in front of the Mizab, gold Spout, a few paces farther on, it was to say: “O Allah, grant me refuge under the canopy of Thy heaven on the day whereon there is no shelter save Thy shelter. O Allah, make me to drink of the same cup as Muhammad, on whom be blessings and glory!” Then we proceeded on our way till we reached the Rokné-Shami or the north-western angle, and there we said: “O Allah, may it please Thee to accept this pilgrimage, making it a praiseworthy perseverance and a laudable deed. O Compassionate, O Beloved, O Lord, O Merciful, and Omnipotent!” Next, on reaching the south-western angle or Rokné-Yemani, we fell again to praying, in accordance with the law: “O, Allah, our Lord and Ruler, grant us prosperity in this world and happiness in the next, and deliver us from the punishments of fire. O Allah, I seek shelter in Thee from infidelity and from poverty and from the sorrows of life and from the pangs of death; I also take refuge in Thee from ignominy in this world and in the world to come.” The last prayer we said was at the starting point, facing the Black Stone. Finding it impossible to approach within arm’s reach, we lifted up our hands from afar, and then bowed, saying: “O Lord of this sacred relic, I flee to Thee and to ‘Thy right hand on earth’ from all want and also from all infidelity.”

In this, the first circuit or “shaut,” we used the step called “harvaleh,” walking briskly and shrugging the shoulders up and down, and we adopted the same gait on the second and third “ashwat” (plural form of “shaut”). But, in performing the remaining four circuits, a more grave and stately tread was assumed according to the custom. This ordinary eastern walk is called “teamol” and combines dignity of demeanour with leisure of pace; it is a contemplative fashion of walking, what the French would call recueilli, and is admirably suited to a pilgrim’s devotional stroll round the House of God. On the other hand, the reformer who should wish to introduce the go-ahead civilisation of the West could not begin better than by levying a prohibitive tax on the “teamol.” Sale records the tradition that this sevenfold compassing of the Ka’bah was ordered by Muhammad, “that his followers might show themselves strong and active, to cut off the hopes of the infidels, who gave out that the immoderate heats of Medina had rendered them weak.” A second tradition is that the circular motion represents the orbicular motion of the heavenly bodies; a third, that it is meant to symbolise the Egyptian wheels, those hieroglyphics of the instability of human fortune; and a fourth, that it arose from a custom among the Pagan Arabs, who, if they wished to humble themselves, were wont to walk seven times round the person or persons whom they delighted to exalt. Anyhow, the compassing of the Ka’bah, be its origin what it may, is held by the Muhammadans to be an act of self-sacrifice from man to God. I was much struck by the fact that the victims of cholera and of other diseases were borne round the sacred precincts in rude wooden coffins by their friends, who cried out in tones of lamentation, “Yá-Allah! Yá-Allah!” It was an impressive funeral procession, and is said to relieve the pressure of the grave, and to insure to the corpse a safe and a speedy entrance into Paradise. The Tewaff is brought to a close by a reverential visit to the tomb of Abraham, which faces the door of the House. It is an open pavilion resting on four pillars, and crowned with a crescented cupola.

There my guide and I, taking up our position on the thither side of the tomb which was thus placed between ourselves and the House of God, prostrated ourselves twice, saying our morning prayers the while; and then, sitting on our hips, we raised our hands to the sky and said with closed eyes:

Then, bowing our foreheads to the ground, we said aloud:

The rewards of a correct performance of the Tewaff and of the necessary prayers—preferably at sundown, the best time for meditation—are of a sort to render the rite extremely popular among the pilgrims. At every step they take, in making the seven circuits, no fewer than seventy thousand sins will be blotted out of their bad books, and an equal number of virtues be added to the companion volumes containing their good actions. Nor is this all, for they will be made, at the same rate, the intercessors of seventy thousand sinners; they will build up to themselves the same number of palaces in heaven, and will earn the fulfilment of seven hundred thousand of their desires in this world, and of seventy thousand in the world to come. And that, no doubt, is why we took precious care that our steps, even when walking briskly, as we were obliged to do for the first three circuits, should be, if smart, extremely short ones.