or, as others say, forty thousand Miskals of gold.  He also despatched forty Coptic and forty Greek artists to carve the marble pillars and the casings of the walls, and to superintend the gilding and the mosaic work.  One of these Christians was beheaded for sculpturing a hog on the Kiblah wall; and another, in an attempt to defile the roof, fell to the ground, and his brains were dashed out.  The remainder Islamized, but this did not prevent the older Arabs murmuring that their Mosque had been turned into a Kanisah, a Christian idol-house.

The Hujrah, or chamber, where, by Mohammed’s permission, Azrail, the Angel of Death, separated his

[p.366]soul from his body, whilst his head was lying in the lap of Ayishah, his favourite wife, was now for the first time taken into the Mosque.  The raw-brick enceinte[FN#46] which surrounded the three graves was exchanged for one of carved stone, enclosed by an outer precinct with a narrow passage between.[FN#47] These double walls were either without a door, or had only a small blocked-up wicket on the Northern side, and from that day (A.H. 90), no one, says Al-Samanhudi, has been able to approach the sepulchre.[FN#48] A minaret was erected at each corner of the Mosque.[FN#49] The building was enlarged to 200 cubits by 167, and was finished in A.H. 91.  When Al-Walid, the Caliph, visited it in state, he inquired of his lieutenant why greater magnificence had not been displayed in the erection; upon which Omar, the governor, informed him,

[p.367]to his astonishment, that the walls alone had cost forty-five thousand ducats.[FN#50]

The fourth Mosque was erected in A.H. 191, by Al-Mahdi, third prince of the Benu Abbas or Baghdad Caliphs-celebrated in history only for spending enormous sums upon a pilgrimage.  He enlarged the building by adding ten handsome pillars of carved marble, with gilt capitals, on the Northern side.  In A.H. 202, Al-Ma’amun made further additions to this Mosque.  It was from Al-Mahdi’s Masjid that Al-Hakim bi’Amri ’llah, the third Fatimite Caliph of Egypt, and the deity of the Druze sect, determined to steal the bodies of the Prophet and his two companions.  About A.H. 412, he sent emissaries to Al-Madinah:  the attempt, however, failed, and the would-be violators of the tomb lost their lives.  It is generally supposed that Al-Hakim’s object was to transfer the Visitation to his own capital; but in one so manifestly insane it is difficult to discover the spring of action.  Two Christians, habited like Maghrabi pilgrims, in A.H. 550, dug a mine from a neighbouring house into the temple.  They were discovered, beheaded, and burned to ashes.  In relating these events the Moslem historians mix up many foolish preternaturalisms with credible matter.  At last, to prevent a recurrence of such sacrilegious attempts, Al-Malik al-Adil Nur al-Din of the Baharite Mamluk Sultans, or, according to others, Sultan Nur al-Din Shahid Mahmud bin Zangi, who, warned by a vision of the Apostle, had started for Al-Madinah only in time to discover the two Christians, surrounded the holy place with a deep trench filled with molten lead.  By this means Abu Bakr and Omar, who had run considerable risks of their own, have ever since been enabled to occupy their last homes undisturbed.