Note 19 — IV THE HOLY LAND OF ARABIA—MEDINA

These arguments may be stated briefly as follows:

1. A tumult followed the announcement of the prophet’s death, and Omar threatened destruction to any one who asserted it. Is it probable that a quiet interment took place?

2. Immediately after Mohammed’s death a dispute about the succession arose, in the ardor of which, according to the Shiahs, the house of Ali and Fatima, near the present tomb, were threatened by fire.

3. The early Moslems would not be apt to reverence the grave of the prophet, as do those of later date, when tradition has exalted him above the common humanity. The early Moslems were indifferent as to the exact spot.

4. The shape of the prophet’s tomb was not known in early times, nor is it given in the traditions, so that we find convex graves in some lands and flat in others.

5. The accounts of the learned among the Moslems are discrepant as to the burial of Mohammed.

6. Shiah schismatics had charge of the sepulchre for centuries, and because of its proximity to the graves of Abubekr and Omar, it was in their interest to remove the body.

7. Even the present position of the grave, with relation to other graves, is in dispute, because the tomb-chamber (Hujrah) is closely guarded by eunuchs, who do not allow any one to enter.

8. The tale of the blinding light which surrounds the prophet’s tomb seems a plausible story to conceal a defect.

9. Mohammed el Halebi, the Sheikh-el Ulema of Damascus, assured Burton that he was permitted to pass the door leading into the tomb-chamber, and that he saw no trace of a sepulchre.

10. Moslem historians admit that an attempt was made in A.H. 412 to steal the bodies of Mohammed and the two companions by the third Fatimite Caliph of Egypt; they relate marvels connected with the failure of the attempt, and assert that a trench was dug deep all around the graves and filled with molten lead to prevent the theft of the body.

11. In A. H. 654 the mosque was destroyed by a volcanic eruption, according to the Moslem historians, but the tomb-chamber escaped all damage! Again in A. H. 887 it was struck by lightning. “On this occasion,” says El Samanhudi (quoted by Burckhardt) “the interior of the Hujrah (tomb-chamber) was cleared and three deep graves were found in the inside full of rubbish, but the author of this history, who himself entered it, saw no trace of tombs.” The same author declared that the coffin containing the dust of Mohammed was cased with silver.

12. Lastly the Shiah and Sunni accounts of the prophet’s death and burial are contradictory as to the exact place of burial.