everything except Al-Madinah and Meccah: these gaps are filled up by
the translator with the erroneous descriptions of other authors, not
eye-witnesses.
[FN#2] Here, it is believed, was fought the battle of Buas, celebrated
in the pagan days of Al-Madinah (A.D. 615). Our dictionaries translate
“Ghadir” by “pool” or “stagnant water.” Here it is applied to places where water
stands for a short time after rain.
[FN#3] Travels in Arabia, vol. 2, p, 217. The Swiss traveller was
prevented by sickness from visiting it. The “Jazb al-Kulub” affords the
following account of a celebrated eruption, beginning on the Salkh
(last day) of Jamadi al-Awwal, and ending on the evening of the third
of Jamadi al-Akhir, A.H. 654. Terrible earthquakes, accompanied by a
thundering noise, shook the town; from fourteen to eighteen were
observed each night. On the third of Jamadi al-Akhir, after the Isha
prayers, a fire burst out in the direction of Al-Hijaz (eastward); it
resembled a vast city with a turretted and battlemental fort, in which
men appeared drawing the flame about, as it were, whilst it roared,
burned, and melted like a sea everything that came in its way.
Presently red and bluish streams, bursting from it, ran close to
Al-Madinah; and, at the same time, the city was fanned by a cooling
zephyr from the same direction. Al-Kistlani, an eye-witness, asserts
that “the brilliant light of the volcano made the face of the country as
bright as day; and the interior of the Harim was as if the sun shone
upon it, so that men worked and required nought of the sun and moon
(the latter of which was also eclipsed?).” Several saw the light at
Meccah, at Tayma (in Nijd, six days’ journey from Al-Madinah), and at
Busra, of Syria, reminding men of the Prophet’s saying, “A fire shall burst
forth from the direction of Al-Hijaz; its light shall make visible the
necks of the camels at Busra.” Historians relate that the length of the
stream was four parasangs (from fourteen to sixteen miles), its breadth