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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[OCTOBER, 1903
statues is the inside ; in the wall a dark sacred stone ;* and around the temple an unpretentious circuit marked out for the purpose of circumambulation, such was the renowned Kanba. A single fount belonging to Mecca, the Zemzem, rises inside the enclosure of the temple, and is of course hallowed by its propinquity to the sanctum and its utility to the city.
Mooca and its Importance. The credit of directing the trade of West and Central Arahia into the sterile rocky vale, scantily supplied with water, is due to the practical ingenuity of a branch of the Kenana called the Koreish, who had settled down in the environs of the Kaaba. Although the adoration of the deity in the Meccan temple had been crystallized, an in all other fades, into an inane formula, the Koreish took care to celebrate with much éclat and solemnity the festival of the temple which fell annually during the month Dhu'l Hija. They provided for the reception, sojourn, and safety of the pilgrims, and embraced within the enclosure of the festivities the holy hamlets of Mina and Muzdalaifa, and a haram of sacred piece of ground. No other religions solemnization, indeed, of Central Arabis could compete with that held at Mecca. The yearly inundations of many thousand pilgrims were shrewdly utilized as so many avenues of commercial gain. The desert Arabs were afforded opportunity on these occasions to purchase their stock of necessaries to last a year. And the wealth which flowed into Mecca availed ita citizens to monopolize the caravan traffic of the west coast.
The rise of the Koreishite power promoted a sense of united counsel and combined enterprise foreign to most Arabs. The various clans and families, dwelling each in its own suburb, did not indeed go the length of submitting their private differences to a common tribunal, but for the regulating of public affairs a central anthority was created consisting of the representatives of the leading families. The mala met and deliberated in the council. house, not far from the Kaaba, known as the Dar-en-Nadwa, which was erected by their reputed ancestor Kosai. The matters which came on for disposal before the wasembly referred to questions affecting war and domestic policy, the rearing of the martial standard, and adoption of matrimonial alliances. Yet. doubtless, the annual despatch of Caravans, of which at least two (one in winter, one in summer) were of paramount importance, was also committed to the joint deliberations of the mala. For the mercantile trips were nearly always of the nature of joint-ventures, in which the different families, each proportionately to its means and prosperity, had something at stake. Perchance the neighbours, too, participated, like those of Tajf situate eastward in the mountains. Through this commercial institution Meccs had outstripped all other tribal settlements, and could be accounted the only city worthy of the name in Central Arabia.
The Prophet's Birth and Childhood. Muhammad," the religious and political reformer of Arabin, came of the Meccan family of Bent Hashim, numbered neither amongst the greatest nor the most illustrious of the city. The year of his birth lies in obscurity. Tradition places it in 571 A, 1. His father, Abd Allah bin Abd el Muttalib, died before the child saw the light. Amina, the mother, survived
. On the stone-cult in ancient Arabia, so Doughty, Travel in Arabia Deserta, p. 180. • Beladhari, p. 52. • The expresion "double oity," sera 48, 30, indicates the close connection between the two cities. TI.., the highly praised.
. [The most influential families in Mubammad's time in Mooon were the Makham and the Abd-Shame Nöldelce, Das Leben Muhammad's. 9. - TR.)
. According to the tradition he was born in the year in which Abraha, a Christian prince of Yemen, invaded Mocca, the expedition, however, came to Denght, a fearful epidemie having broken out in his army, Muhammad's mother is said to bare ontrusted the child, according to the ctitom of the Koreshites, to Beduin woman for a few years, in order to nurse him in the malutary air of the desert, but even this seemingly anthentie Giroumstance is called in question by Bpringer with cogent argumenta, praotiae, -Nölduke, op. cit. p. 11. See also for exhaustive details, Muir, op. cit. oi, T..]
