Note 22 — Chapter I · UKHAIḌIR

In the spring of 1910, I asked M. Viollet, who was then on his way to Mesopotamia, to clear away the ruins from the middle of the south wall and ascertain whether there were any sign of a miḥrâb. Upon his return he informed me that he had discovered the niche at the point which I had indicated and that he felt no hesitation as to its being in fact the miḥrâb. When I was at Ukhaiḍir in 1911, I uncovered the niche still further and photographed it carefully. Two of these photographs I sent to Dr. Wetzel for publication in the German work, and they are there reproduced, Ocheïdir, Figs. 22 and 23. Professor Brünnow has suggested that since prayer niches with flanking colonnettes were known to the Nabataeans, the Mohammadan niche, with its non-Arabic name, was certainly derived from pre-Mohammadan usage. (’Zur neuesten Entwicklung der Meschetta-Frage,’ Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, August 1912, p. 129.) This view is not likely to find acceptance. It is expressly stated that the miḥrâb was a feature of the mosque which was borrowed from the Christian cult and that it was not adopted until the beginning of the second century of Islâm. (See Lammens, Ziâd ibn Abîhi, Rivista degli Studi Orientali, vol. iv, 1911, p. 246 (94), note 1, and Becker, ‘Zur Geschichte des islamischen Kultus,’ Der Islam, vol. iii, 1912, p. 392.) I continue, therefore, to regard the niche at Ukhaiḍir as a clear proof that the building was originally intended for a mosque.