Note 293 — TALE OF KING OMAR BIN AL-NU'UMAN AND HIS SONS SHARRKAN AND ZAU AL-MAKAN, AND WHAT BEFEL THEM OF THINGS SELD-SEEN AND PEREGRINE.[138] (continued 3)

When the "Day of Arafat" (9th of Zú'l-Hijjah) falls upon a Friday. For this Hajj al-Akbar see my Pilgrimage iii. 226. It is often confounded by writers (even by the learned M. Caussin de Perceval) with the common Pilgrimage as opposed to the Umrah, or "Lesser Pilgrimage" (ibid. iii. 342, etc.). The latter means etymologically cohabiting with a woman in her father's house as opposed to 'Ars or leading her to the husband's home: it is applied to visiting Meccah and going through all the pilgrim-rites but not at the Pilgrimage-season. Hence its title "Hajj al-Asghar" the "Lesser Hajj." But "Umrah" is also applied to a certain ceremony between the hills Safá (a large hard rock) and Marwah (stone full of flints), which accompanies the Hajj and which I have described (ibid. iii. 344). At Meccah I also heard of two places called Al-Umrah, the Greater in the Wady Fátimah and the Lesser half way nearer the city (ibid. iii. 344).