Whether assumed in summer or in winter, the ihram is equally
inconvenient and prejudicial to health, particularly among the northern
Mohammedans, who, accustomed to thick woollen clothes, are at this
period obliged to leave them off for many days; yet the religious zeal
of some who visit the Hedjaz is so ardent, that if they arrive even
several months previous to the Hadj, they vow on taking the ihram, in
approaching Mekka, not to throw it off till after the completion of
their pilgrimage to Arafat; and thus they remain for months covered,
night and day, only with this thin cloak; [The Arabian historians relate
that Haroun Errashid and his wife Zobeyda once performed the pilgrimage
on foot, from Baghdad to Mekka, clothed only with the ihram; that at
every station of the caravan there was a castle, with apartments
splendidly furnished; and that the whole road was covered daily with
carpets, on which they walked.] for the law forbids any other covering
even at night; but with this few hadjys strictly comply.

When the ancient Arabs performed their pilgrimage to the idols at Mekka,
they also took the ihram; but that pilgrimage was fixed to a certain
period of the year, probably autumn; for although the Arabs computed by
lunar months, they inserted one month every

[p.90] three years; and thus the month of the pilgrimage did not vary in
its season, as at present. The intercalation of a month, established two
hundred years before Islam, was prohibited by the Koran, which ordained
that the same pilgrimage should be continued, in honour of the living
God, which had before been performed in honour of idols, but that it
should be fixed to a lunar month; thus its period became irregular, and
in the space of thirty-three years was gradually changed from the depth
of winter to the height of summer.