No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Extract
No self-respecting Cairene dragoman omits to point out to his clients among the curiosities of the mosque of Amr at Fostat two columns near the South door, which are endowed, according to popular superstition, with the miraculous power of discriminating between true Moslems and Unbelievers. Placed at such a short distance apart (some ten inches) that the passage between them can with difficulty be negotiated by a man of average build, the columns none the less allow a true Moslem, however stout, to pass between them, while an Unbeliever, however slim, finds passage impossible. In other words, the space is supernaturally widened if necessary to accommodate the former and contracted to exclude the latter class.
The columns actually used for this purpose at Cairo do not seem long to have been associated with the superstition. Visitors to the mosque in the sixties do not mention it, though they refer to the companion marvel of the column miraculously transported from Mecca. The superstition itself, however, is of great antiquity and relatively well documented. The purpose of the rite, a spiritual test, distinguishes it sharply from the many similar ‘passing through’ rituals universally current and generally considered ‘lucky’ acts practised with a view to the healing of disease, etc. Its symbolism, as we shall see, suggests a Christian origin.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1921
References
page 68 note 2 Murray, , Egypt (1900), 380–1Google Scholar; Sladen, , Orient. Cairo, 183Google Scholar, and Queer Things about Egypt, 198; Goldziher, , Culte des Saints … Musulmans in Rev. Hist. Relig. ii. (1880), 345.Google Scholar
page 68 note 3 See, e. g., Petermann, , Reisen, ii. 384.Google Scholar
page 68 note 4 See my article in B.S.A. xxi. (1914–16), 64 ff.
page 69 note 1 Acts i. 11.
page 69 note 2 Ed. Wright, p. 19. The original text runs:—ilia ecclesia est desuper patula et sine tecto: et ibi stant duae columnae intus in Ecclesia contra parietem Aquilonis, et contra parietem meridionalis plagae. Illae sunt ibi in memoriam et in signum duorum virorum qui dixerunt: Viri Galilaei, quid statis adspicientes in coelum? Et ille homo, qui ibi potest inter parietem et columnas repere, liber est a peccatis suis (Willibaldus, , Vita seu Hodoeporicon, p. 376Google Scholar, in Mabillon, , Acta SS. Ord. Bened., Saec. III. pt. ii. pp. 365 ff.Google Scholar: also in Camisii Thesaurus, ed. Basnage, , ii. 111–12Google Scholar, quoted by Tobler, , Siloahq. u. Oelberg, 94–5.Google Scholar
page 69 note 3 Matth. vii. 13–14 (‘Enter ye in at the strait gate … strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life’), and xix. 24 (‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God’). Cf. Mark, x. 25; Luke, xviii. 25.
page 70 note 1 Gen. xxviii. 17.
page 70 note 2 Ps. cxviii. 20: Burckhardt notes the presence of this text over a door in the village of Shmerrin, (Travels in Syria, 105).Google Scholar
page 70 note 3 Similarly, on the way from Mecca to Arafat there are two pillars of whitewashed stones called el Aalameyn, about 80–100 paces apart: pilgrims must pass between them on their way to and—still more—from Arafat (Burckhardt, , Travels in Arabia, i. 113Google Scholar).
page 70 note 4 Ps. xxiv. 3–4. My authority is Palmer, E. H., Desert of the Exodus, 105Google Scholar, quoting Clayton's, R.Journey to Mt. Sinai by the Prefetto of Egypt (1722).Google Scholar According to Ebers, G. (Durch Gosen zum Sinai, 313 f.)Google Scholar a second paper was also given to them at the convent to be given up at the second gate.
page 70 note 5 Evagat. ed. Hassler, , ii. 455.Google Scholar
page 70 note 6 Similar cases of supernatural intervention for religious reasons are given by Petachia, , Tour du Monde, in Nouv. Jour. Asiat., viii. (1831), 296–300Google Scholar (tomb of Ezechiel surrounded by a wall without a gate and with only a hole, through which Jews crawl: on the Feast of Tabernacles, however, it enlarges so that a man on a camel may pass through), and by Mandeville, ed. Wright, 199 (Mahommed's entry into a small, low hermit's chapel in the desert of Arabia caused the low entrance to become ‘so great, and so large, and so high, as though it had been of a great minster, or the gate of a palace’).
page 70 note 7 Near the tombs of Hillel and Shammai at Meron there was a stone basin found full of water by pious persons but empty by the impious, though the basin had no outlet (Petachia, loc. cit. 392, quoted by Carmoly, , Itinéraires, 311Google Scholar). The pious could pass under the suspended coffin of Daniel at Susa but not the impious (Petachia, loc. cit. 366).
page 71 note 1 In the interval between the two accounts the church had been rebuilt by the Crusaders and destroyed by Saladin, (Tobler, , Siloahq. 97).Google Scholar
page 71 note 2 ‘Putant autem illi superstitiosi orientales, quod ille, qui id facere potest, sit magis fortunatus, et quod sit signum cujusdam magni boni’ (Evagat. ed. Hassler, , ii. 134Google Scholar).
page 71 note 3 Her cell and tomb are traceable back to A.D. 600 (Antoninus of Piacenza) according to Tobler, , Siloahq. 126.Google Scholar
page 71 note 4 Anon. Allatii, p. 87, de locis Hierosol. (in Allatius, L., Συμμικτά), c. 1185Google Scholar (Tobler, , Siloahq. 130, puts the Anon. c. 1400)Google Scholar, and Perdicas in Allatius, L., Συμμικτά, Col. Agr. 1653, 72, c. 1250.Google Scholar
page 71 note 5 Evagat. ed. Hassler, , i. 398Google Scholar: cf. Grethenius, in Khitrovo, , Itin. Russes, 180.Google Scholar
page 71 note 6 Rabahet Bent Hassan el Masri (Tobler, , Siloahq. 126).Google Scholar
page 71 note 7 Niebuhr, , Voy. en Arabie, ii. 181 (Old Basra).Google Scholar His kubbe fell twice and he appeared and said he wished no kubbe but a tower, his tomb to be against the wall to prevent circumambulation. Pelagia's tomb was sometimes confounded with S. Mary of Egypt (el Masri), Pelagia's history being similar to the Magdalene's (Tobler, , Siloahq. 133).Google Scholar It became difficult of access for Christians about 1500, according to Tobler, , Siloahq. 131Google Scholar, when a mosque was built over it. Medjir-ed-Din (p. 132) at this date says it was much visited by pilgrims, but he does not mention the tomb.
page 72 note 1 Voyage de la Terre Sainte 1651–2, Paris, 1657, p. 75.
page 72 note 2 Nau, M., Voy. Nouv. de la Terre Sainte, Paris, 1679, p. 193 f.Google Scholar
page 72 note 3 Voyage (1683), ii. 258 ff.
page 72 note 4 Kelly, , Syria and the Holy Land, 367Google Scholar, quoting Monro, Vere, Summer Ramble in Syria, 1835, 216–17.Google Scholar A similar story is cited from d'Estourmel, journal, ii. 93, 1832, by Tobler, (Golgatha, 1851, 337)Google Scholar in whose time the tradition seems to have been forgotten.
page 72 note 5 Theodericus, , De Locis Sanctis (c. 1172), ed. Tobler, , 56.Google Scholar
page 73 note 1 A.D. 1495, quoted by Tobler, , Siloahq. 124.Google Scholar Cf. the long and explicit description of the building given by de Aversa, Frater Philippus, for which see Zeit. D. Pal. Ver., i. 211.Google Scholar
page 73 note 2 Lubomirski, , Jerus. 272.Google Scholar
page 73 note 3 Gen. xxviii. 17.
page 73 note 4 vii. 38 (Sale's ed. p. 108).
page 73 note 5 Tobler, , Jerusalem, i. 544Google Scholar; cf. Theodericus, , De Locis Sanctis, 43, 123.Google Scholar
page 73 note 6 Tobler, , Siloahq, 127 f.Google Scholar
page 74 note 1 Chateaubriand, , Itin. ii. 376.Google Scholar
page 74 note 2 Mémoires, ii. 210 f. retailing information gathered from monks employed in repairing the windows of the mosque.
page 74 note 3 For the same collocation of ideas note that in judging the markings of Arab horses a star on the shank is held to presage that the animal's owner will be of doubtful orthodoxy as a Musulman, and that his wife will be unfaithful (Kelly, , Syria and the Holy Land, 446).Google Scholar
page 74 note 4 Predestination includes a wide range of ideas, among which are (1) virtue, (2) freedom from mortal sin, (3) state of grace, (4) belief (for Moslems), the central idea being fitness for heaven.
page 74 note 5 Conder, , City of Jerusalem, 232Google Scholar; Burton, Lady, Inner Life of Syria, 379Google Scholar; Bost, J. A., Souvenirs d'Orient (1874)Google Scholar; Pierotti, , Légendes racontées, 33 f.Google Scholar (he says they are verdantique in colour and taper); Lubormirski, , Jerus. (1878), 277.Google ScholarVoguë, De, Syrie, Palestine, Mont Athos, 1876, 202 f.Google Scholar gives an amusing description of the ceremony. Tobler, in his Jerusalem (1853)Google Scholar does not mention the superstition; it will be remembered that access to the Haram was still in his time almost impossible.
page 75 note 1 Petermann, H., Reisen, ii. 354 (Leipzig, 1865).Google Scholar
page 75 note 2 Nicolaïdes, Carnoy et, Trads. de l'Asie Mineure, 206.Google Scholar For analogies see above, p. 70, n. 6.
page 75 note 3 Similarly, the legend of S. Hubert spread from Rome to Belgium because many relics had been carried there, see my forthcoming Transferences. Secular counterparts of the dispersion of stories of the saints are found in two legends related by Gould, Baring (Curious Myths, 2nd series, 206 ff., 314 ff.).Google Scholar The first is the legend of Melusine, the fairy ancestress of the Lusignans of Poitou, the second tells how an ancestor of the Belgian Godefroi de Bouillon met Beatrice, a mysterious woman, near a fountain, and eventually married her. That is, two Persian-coloured tales of fairy ancestors were told in Poitou and Belgium of noble houses which became conspicuously famous in the Crusades. Troubadours were the main agents in the circulation of such stories, but another important factor was the settlement of Crusaders in their newly-conquered lands in the East. The first generation of settlers, whether mixed in race or not, were naturally bilingual and thus ideal transmuters of Arabic originals into French, reacting first on pilgrims but ultimately on the Europe these represented and their own European homes.
page 75 note 4 Sebillot, , Folklore de France, iv. 157Google Scholar, quoting Colson, O., Wallonia, iii. 15.Google Scholar Sebillot's very thorough work gives no parallel in the French area. S. Gertrude's is a Benedictine abbey church founded by S. Gertrude in 645.
page 76 note 1 P. 198; cf. his Oriental Cairo, p. 183.
page 76 note 2 Vaujany, , Alexandrie, 205.Google Scholar For another column of predestination, this time at Bethlehem, see Tobler, , Bethlehem, 90.Google Scholar
page 76 note 3 Poiré, , La Tunisie Française, Paris, 1892, 187–8.Google Scholar
page 76 note 4 From Kemal Bey Klissoura, and his brother, Fadil Bey.
page 77 note 1 From Mr. J. M. Dawkins.
page 77 note 2 Ed. Tobler, xxii. p. 24; Kelly, , Syria, 366.Google Scholar
page 77 note 3 Niebuhr, , Voy. en Arabie, ii. 216.Google Scholar
page 77 note 4 Evans, in J.H.S., xxi. 203.Google Scholar