THE ELOQUENCE OF HÁSAN-IBN-ʾALY.
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thee, O Muʾâwiyah! will I begin, for such as these others cannot insult me. But thou dost insult me, by thy hatred, and enmity, and opposition to my maternal grandfather the Prophet of God." Then he turned to the people, and said: "God is my witness before you, that he whom these men have insulted was without doubt my father. And he was the first who believed in God, and prayed at the two Kiblahs.[1] Whilst thou, O Muʾâwiyah! wert an infidel
- ↑ According to Abuʾl-Fedâ, the second year of the Hijrah was ushered in by a change in the Kiblah, or the part to which Muhammadans are to turn their faces in prayer. At first the Prophet and his followers observed no particular rite in turning their faces towards any certain place when they prayed. But when he fled to el-Medînah, he directed them to turn towards the temple of Jerusalem (probably to ingratiate himself with the Jews); this continued to be their Kiblah for seventeen or eighteen months. Afterwards, either finding the Jews too intractable, or despairing of otherwise gaining the pagan Arabs, who could not forget their respect to the temple of Mekkah,[sub 1] he ordered that prayers should for the future be towards that place. It would consequently be proof of having been one of the earliest converts to el-Islám to have prayed towards both Kiblahs.
- ↑ The genuine antiquity of the Kaʾabah ascends beyond the Christian era. In describing the coast of the Red Sea, the Greek historian Diodorus has remarked, between the Thamudites and the Sabeans, a famous temple, whose superior sanctity was revered by all the Arabians. The linen or silken veil, which is annually renewed by the Turkish emperor, was first offered by a pious king of the Homerites, who reigned 700 years before the time of Muhammad. Muslims believe that Adam, after his expulsion from Paradise, implored of God that he
