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MOHAMMADAN TRADITIONS.

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the Christian year, 1444." This author says, "In the last times there shall be a general flight unto the Baitu-l-Mukaddas,* (the temple of Jerusalem,) and the ark, and the gracious presence (Shechinah) of God, shall be lifted up on high in this temple;" and then he goes on to say, "here shall be the general gathering of all men, the general resurrection: unto the holy abode shall God come in the darkness of thick clouds amidst his angels; and all creatures shall burst through their graves without difficulty, and all the inhabitants of Paradise shall come down again with pomp on the day of judgment unto this temple," and here "shall the seraphim blow the trumpet on the wall of the temple, and proclaim those great and terrific words-'O flesh torn from the bones! O bones gnawed and cut! come forth unto your reckoning, and let your breath breathe forth again, and receive the recompense of your deeds.'"

"Unto this temple, affirmed the prophet, there shall be flight after flight of all good people." Again, "also, said the prophet of God unto Abu-Ubaidah Al-Jirah, hope of all hope shall rest upon this temple, when the time of temptation and tumult shall appear." And though mixed up with the usual absurdities and traditions of Mohammadanism, the millennial days are dimly shadowed forth in this work, for at page 296 we read—“ Now, for Al Mahadí (the True Guide) who shall live in later times, the prophet said, 'in the latter times great misfortunes and trials shall fall upon my people from their Sultáns, such as never was heard of before, until the wide earth shall be too narrow for them. The earth shall be also full of injustice and oppression. Then will God send down a man to fill the earth with justice and equity, as it was before filled with injustice and wrong. Then shall the dweller in the heavens, and the dweller upon earth be well content neither shall the earth be deprived of one drop of the copious showers which I will pour down upon it, nor the heaven of those streams I cause to flow. This man shall live with them seven, or eight, or nine years. His life or death shall be fixed and determined by the good which God wills to be effected for the people of the earth."" Again, "Mahadí shall be

* Jerusalem is called El Kuds (the Holy) by the Arabs; and by most of the Arabian writers Beit or Baitu El Mukaddas.

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PROPHECY OF MAHADI.

born in Medína, of the family of Muhammad, and of the same name."

"Now, for the expedition to the Baitu-l-Mukaddas, Muhammad-Ibn-Hanífa-Abbás said, Truly the black standards of the Prophet shall march forward; and from Khorasan another black and white array shall advance; in which array there shall be seen a man called Shaíh-Ibn-Sáleh, prince of the sons of Akama. He shall put to flight all the commands of Sufián, until he attack the Holy City, in order to smooth the way for the assumption of the sovereignty thereof by Mahadí. Mahadí shall come thither from Syria. Also between the commencement of the march and the final accomplishment of the proposed object, shall elapse seventythree months. Others say that Shuaib shall suddenly and secretly march upon the Holy City, in order to prepare an abiding place for Mahadí, when he shall hear of the march to Syria. The number of the army shall be twelve thousand. Again, by the hands of Mahadì shall the ark of Shechinah (Divine Presence) be brought forward and exposed to view, from the desert of Tiberias, and shall be carried and placed before him in the Holy City; which when the Jews behold, they shall all become Moselims, except a few. Then Mahadi shall die. Again, truth and justice shall be perverted; men shall be avaricious, the world shall act perversely; not an instant shall pass unmarked by some evil deed or word on the part of created beings; and none shall show and follow the right way, but Jesus, son of Maria. It is also a common and well-founded tradition, that never shall the Holy City want: never shall there cease to be found therein a man to do the good deeds of the House of David, and never shall there be wanting a chief of the company of David's comrades to enter the Holy City."

And again, when relating the future glory of Syria, and the first building of Damascus, as well as the tradition of the reappearance of the Messiah, he says-"This is the tower (but God knows) upon which Jesus son of Maria will alight; for Muhammad is reported to have said, I saw Jesus son of Maria come forth from near the white minaret, east of the mosque, placing his hands upon the wings of two angels firmly bound to him. Upon him was the divine glory, (the Shechinah). He was marked by the red tinge of baptism. This is the mark of original sin. Jesus (it is also said) shall come forth from the

CLARKE'S TOPOGRAPHY.

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White Tower by the eastern gate, and shall enter the mosque. Then shall the word come forth for Jesus to fight with Antichrist at the corner of the city, as long as it shall please God."*

Having now completed the circuit of the ancient walls, and shown that they in all likelihood excluded Calvary, or Goath, let us consider what are the objections urged against the line of circumvallation, laid down in the accompanying map. Dr. Clarke states, "it is probable that the whole of Mount Sion has been excluded; and that the mountain covered by ruined edifices, whose base is perforated by ancient sepulchres, and separated from Mount Moriah by the deep trench or Tyropæon, extending as far as the fountain Siloa, towards the eastern valley, is in fact, that eminence which was once surrounded by the 'bulwarks, towers, and regal buildings' of the house of David." This is the Mount of Evil Council, which I have marked as the Mount of Offence, its name at the time Sandys and Pococke visited Jerusalem. The reasons assigned for this position by the learned antiquary are, first, that without it the circumference of the ancient city, a circuit of twenty-seven stadia, or three miles and three furlongs, as stated by Eusebius, would be too small; secondly, that he found certain sepulchres in the northern side of this hill, which he believed to be the sepulchres of the sons of David, mentioned in Nehemiah; and thirdly, that on several of these sepulchres, he discovered certain Greek inscriptions, some of which with a cross before them ran thus, "+THCAгIAC CIWN ΑΓΙAC

See the History of the Temple of Jerusalem, translated from the Arabic MS. of the Imam Jalal-Addin Al Siuti, by the Rev. James Reynolds, B.A. published under the auspices of the Oriental translation fund of Great Britain and Ireland; one of the most extraordinary works that has appeared for many years, and well worthy the attentive perusal of the learned. Since the first edition of this "Narrative" was published, my attention has been called to this work, by the learned Hammer Purgstall, who showed in his review of it in the "Oesterreichische Jarhbücher der Litterature," that it is in many respects an erroneous translation; and with great justness observes, that its editor ought to have been aware of the existence of a translation of a great part of it, "ex codice manuscripto Niebuhriano Bibliothecæ Regiæ Hauniensis," by Paulus Lemming. A Latin translation with Arabic extracts, published by Schultz, Hauniæ in 1817.

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OPINIONS OF MR. BUCKINGHAM.

of the holy Sion." And besides, that the valley Gehinnom of Sandys, which I have marked Hinnom, as agreed upon by D'Anville and others, is "in fact the valley of Millo called Tyropoon by Josephus, which separated Mount Sion from Mount Moriah, and extended as far as the fountain Siloa, where it joined the valley of Jehoshaphat." Dr. Clarke goes further, and places the site of the crucifixion on Mount Sion! and the sepulchre where our Lord was laid among those of the royal tombs of the sons of David. Nay, he appears to have actually found out the individual crypt!!!

As it is better to place all the objections together, that the reader may be able to test their validity, I shall here introduce those adduced by Mr. Buckingham. He agrees with Clarke, as to the site of Sion being that of the Hill of Evil Council; but he goes still further, and makes Hinnom, the Tyropoon, and Gihon all the same!! He states that the place which is marked as the hill Gihon, to the west of Sion in the map, must have been a low place, because Solomon, in accordance with David's vow to Bathsheba, is taken down to be anointed there; forgetting that it was from the adjoining hill of Sion that he was taken; and surely a person may be said to go down from a higher to a lower elevation. Another objection urged by Mr. Buckingham, is one which turns out to be the very strongest proof of the position I have mentioned. He quotes Joshua, (chap. xviii. v. 16,) where it is said "the border came down to the end of the mountain that lieth before the valley of the son of Hinnom, and which is the valley of the giants on the north, and descended to the valley of Hinnom, to the side of Jebusi on the south ;" and he then goes on to say "Jebusi, or the oldest Jerusalem, was on the north of Sion, occupying only the two hills of Acra and Moriah; and being commanded by the citadel which David erected there." Now Mr. Buckingham furnishes an answer to this objection himself, a few pages further on in his book, where he quotes Josephus as showing that the oldest city was Salem, the residence of Melchisedec, and this I have shown already only occupied Acra ;-Moriah, as far as we know, never having been considered as part of the city, till long after, when it was included for the temple. In the same place he also quotes Chateaubriand, as saying that "the descendants of Jebus, a son of Canaan, erected a fortress on Mount Sion, to which the gave the

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name of Jebus their father. The Jebusites still retained pos. session of the upper town or citadel of Jebus, and kept it till they were driven out by David eight hundred and thirty-four years after." Here there is an evident contradiction. In reference to Jebusi being "on the north of Sion, and occupying only Acra and Moriah;" a little further on, he again says, "when David first laid siege to Jerusalem, it is said he took the lower city by force, but the citadel still held out, 'nevertheless, David took the strong-hold of Sion: the same is the city of David.'"-(2 Sam. v. 7.) Now it is perfectly clear that if the border lay to the south of Jebusi, it lay to the south of Sion, for that Mount was undoubtedly included within the city of Jebus, as we see from the above passages.

Another objection brought forward by Mr. Buckingham against the identity of the hill marked Sion, is that he could not find in it the sepulchres of David and the Kings of Israel.* This negative proof I do not think requires refutation; and, until its author has had an opportunity of testing the validity of that shown by the Mohammadans as the tomb of David on the summit of the present Sion, the question remains as it was before, and Mr. B. and Dr. Clarke must share the disappointment of Antiochus and Herod, who, Josephus informs us, searched diligently, but could not find them, though they opened several of what appear to me to have been the tombs cut in the rocks on the side of the valley of Hinnom, opposite and but a short distance from the foot of Mount Sion, as I have placed it on the map. But, forsooth, because the traveller could not see a sepulchre, he could not find a mountain, but did he excavate; or may it not be at present hid beneath the surface, or be among some of the other crypts in the south-eastern side of the hill?

Mr. Buckingham has added a map to his description, but, independent of its total want of similarity to the modern city, it places Mount Moriah completely distinct from, and to the south of the mosque of Omar, whereon the temple stood! Acra is placed to the west of the city walls, and Mount Sion he has represented at least a mile from the site of the Temple, and the Holy Sepulchre he has placed in the very centre of the city, and

* Buckingham's Travels in Palestine, p. 277.

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