head and the feet of his faithful follower[FN#10]; and in process of
time a dome covered the spot. Ibrahim, the Prophet’s infant second

[p.33] son, was laid by Osman’s side, after which Al-Bakia became a
celebrated cemetery.

The Burial-place of the Saints is an irregular oblong surrounded by
walls which are connected with the suburb at their south-west angle.
The Darb al-Janazah separates it from the enceinte of the town, and the
eastern Desert Road beginning from the Bab al-Jumah bounds it on the
North. Around it palm plantations seem to flourish. It is small,
considering the extensive use made of it: all that die at Al-Madinah,
strangers as well as natives, except only heretics and schismatics,
expect to be interred in it. It must be choked with corpses, which it
could never contain did not the Moslem style of burial greatly favour
rapid decomposition; and it has all the inconveniences of “intramural
sepulture.” The gate is small and ignoble; a mere doorway in the wall.
Inside there are no flower-plots, no tall trees, in fact none of the
refinements which lightens the gloom of a Christian burial-place: the
buildings are simple, they might even be called mean. Almost all are
the common Arab Mosque, cleanly whitewashed, and looking quite new. The
ancient monuments were levelled to the ground by Sa’ad the Wahhabi and
his puritan followers, who waged pitiless warfare against what must
have appeared to them magnificent mausolea, deeming as they did a loose
heap of stones sufficient for a grave. In Burckhardt’s time the whole
place was a “confused accumulation of heaps of earth, wide pits, and
rubbish, without a singular regular tomb-stone.” The present erections
owe their existence, I was told, to the liberality of the Sultans Abd
al-Hamid and Mahmud.