Al-Islam, knowing his sterling qualities, and the aid he would lend to the establishment of the faith. [FN#44] This foolish fanaticism has lost many an innocent life, for the Arabs on these occasions seize their sabres, and cut down every Persian they meet.  Still, bigoted Shi’ahs persist in practising and applauding it, and the man who can boast at Shiraz of having defiled Abu Bakr’s, Omar’s, or Osman’s tomb becomes at once a lion and a hero.  I suspect that on some occasions when the people of Al-Madinah are anxious for an “avanie,” they get up some charge of the kind against the Persians.  So the Meccans have sometimes found these people guilty of defiling the house of Allah-at which Infidel act a Shi’ah would shudder as much as a Sunni.  This style of sacrilege is, we read, of ancient date in Arabia.  Nafil, the Hijazi, polluted the Kilis (Christian church) erected by Abrahah of Sanaa to outshine the Ka’abah, and draw off worshippers from Meccah.  The outrage caused the celebrated “affair of the Elephant.”  (See D’Herbelot, Bibl.  Or., v.  “Abrahah.”) [FN#45] Burckhardt, with his usual accuracy, asserts that a new curtain is sent when the old one is decayed, or when a new Sultan ascends the throne, and those authors err who, like Maundrell, declare the curtain to be removed every year.  The Damascus Caravan conveys, together with its Mahmil or emblem of royalty, the new Kiswah (or “garment”) when required for the tomb.  It is put on by the eunuchs, who enter the baldaquin by its Northern gate at night time, and there is a superstitious story amongst the people that they guard their eyes with veils against the supernatural splendours which pour from the tomb.  The Kiswah is a black, purple, or green brocade, embroidered with white or with silver letters.  A piece in my possession, the gift of Omar Effendi, is a handsome silk and cotton Damascus brocade, with white letters worked in it-manifestly the produce of manual labour, not the poor dull work of machinery.  It contains the formula of the Moslem faith in the cursive style of the Suls character, seventy-two varieties of which are enumerated by calligraphists.  Nothing can be more elegant or appropriate than its appearance.  The old curtain is usually distributed amongst the officers of the Mosque, and sold in bits to pilgrims; in some distant Moslem countries, the possessor of such a relic would be considered a saint.  When treating of the history of the Mosque, some remarks will be offered about the origin of the curtain. [FN#46] The place of the Prophet’s head is, I was told, marked by a fine Koran hung up to the curtain This volume is probably a successor to the relic formerly kept there, the Cufic Koran belonging to Osman, the fourth Caliph, which Burckhardt supposes to have perished in the conflagration which destroyed the Mosque. [FN#47] The eunuchs of the tomb have the privilege of admitting strangers.  In this passage are preserved the treasures of the place; they are a “Bayt Mal al-Muslimin,” or public treasury of the Moslems;