MARY THE COPT

Arabic Māriyatu ʾl-Qibt̤īyah ( مارية القبطية‎ ). A concubine of Muḥammad’s, and the mother of his son Ibrāhīm, who died in infancy. She was a Christian slave girl presented to Muḥammad by the Roman governor of Egypt. [ MUHAMMAD .] MASAḤ ( مسح‎ ). The act of touching the boots or the turban for purification, by drawing the three central fingers over the boot or turban at once, whereby they become ceremonially clean. ( Mishkāt , book ii. ch. vii.; book iii. ch. x.) AL -MAS̤ĀNĪ ( المثانى‎ ). From Mas̤na , “two-and-two.” A title given to the Qurʾān on account of its numerous repetitions. AL -MASĪḤ ( المسيح‎ ). An evident corruption of the Heb. ‏מָשִׁיחַ‎ , which answers to the Χριστὸς of the New Testament, and our English Christ. It occurs seven times in the Qurʾān as the surname of Jesus. Al-Baiẓāwī the commentator says, “It is originally a Hebrew word, signifying ‘the ble ed one,’ although some have (erroneously, as he thinks) held it to come from Masaḥ , ‘to anoint,’ either because Jesus healed people with his touch, or because he had been anointed by Gabriel as a prophet.” [ JESUS .] AL -MASĪḤU ʾD-DAJJĀL ( المسيح الدجال‎ ). “The lying Christ.” The Antichrist which Muḥammad said would appear before the Day of Resurrection. He is generally called ad-Dajjāl, but in the Traditions he is called al-Masīḥu ʾd-Dajjāl , and very many have been the speculations as to why he is called al-Masīḥ . The compiler of the Qāmūs says there have been at least fifty reasons a igned for his being called al-Masīḥ . Some say it is because he will have his eyes touched ( masaḥ ) and be rendered blind; others, that the word was originally masīk͟h , a “monster.” (See Ḥujaju ʾl-Kalimah , p. 401.) Sale, in the preface to his translation of the Qurʾān, says Muslim writers state that the Jews will give him the name of al-Masīḥ , because they will mistake him for the true Me iah, who has come to restore the kingdom of Israel to them. Regarding this personage, Abū Hurairah relates that Muḥammad said:— “The Resurrection will not be until the Grecians shall attack ʾAmāq and Dābiq. Then an army will come out from al-Madīnah against them, the best of men on that day; and when the lines of battle shall be drawn up, the Grecians will say, ‘Vacate a place between us and those who made captives a tribe of ours’ (and their design will be to separate the Musalmāns). And the Musalmāns will say, ‘By God! we will not clear a place between you and our brother Musalmāns.’ And the Musalmāns will fight the Grecians and a third of the Musalmāns will be defeated; and God will not accept their repentance. And a third of the Musalmāns will be slain, and they will be the best of martyrs before God. And a third of them will conquer the countries of Greece; after which they will be thrown into commotions, and Constantinople will be taken. And whilst the Musalmāns shall be dividing the plunder, having hung up their swords upon the olive tree, all on a sudden the Devil will call out, ‘Verily, Dajjāl has attacked your wives and children in your absence.’ Then, on hearing this, the Musalmāns will come out of the city; and this information of devils will be false, but when they enter Syria, Dajjāl will come out, and whilst the Musalmāns shall be preparing their implements of war, and dre ing their ranks, all on a sudden prayers will begin, and Jesus Son of Mary will come down, and act as Imām to them. And when Dajjāl, this enemy of God, shall see Jesus, he will fear to be near, di olving away like salt in water. And if Jesus lets him alone, verily he will melt and perish, and God will kill him by the hand of Jesus, who will show to the people the blood of Dajjāl upon his lance.” ( Mishkāt , book xxiii. ch. ii.) In other traditions, Muḥammad is related to have said that ad-Dajjāl will be a young man with long hair and blind in the one eye, and on his forehead will be the three letters K F R, signifying kāfir or infidel. He will first appear midway between Syria and ʿIrāq, and will do many wonders and perform many miracles, and will eventually be slain by Jesus. MASJID ( مسجد‎ ). Lit . “The place of prostration.” The mosque, or place of public prayer. Mosques are generally built of stone or brick, in the form of a square, in the centre of which is an open court-yard, surrounded with cloisters for students. In the centre of the wall facing Makkah is the miḥrāb or niche, which marks the direction of the Kaʿbah at Makkah, and to the right of this niche is the mimbar or pulpit, from which the k͟hut̤bah, or Friday oration, is recited . In the centre of the open court-yard there is usually a large tank, in which the worshippers perform their ablutions ( waẓuʾ ), and adjoining the mosque are latrines, in which the legal washings ( g͟husl ) can be performed. Along the front within the doorway is a low barrier, a few inches high, which denotes the sacred part of the mosque. The mosques in India and Central Asia are generally constructed on the following plan:— IMG:3048615538088815629_p329-1.png:Plan of mosque. The mosques in Turkey, Syria, and Egypt are often covered buildings, not unlike Christian churches. The first mosque erected by Muḥammad was at Qubāʾ, near al-Madīnah. It was without cupola, niche, or minaret, these being added by al-Walīd about eighty years afterwards, nor were there arches supported by pillars, nor cloisters. An ordinary mosque in an Afghan village is still of this description. The Muslim as he enters the mosque stops at the barrier and takes off his shoes, carries them in his left hand, sole to sole, and puts his right foot first as he pa es into the square devoted to prayer. If he have not previously performed the ablution, he repairs at once to the tank or well to perform the nece ary duty, and before he commences his prayers he places his shoes and his sword and pistol, if he be thus armed, a little before the spot where his head will touch the ground as he prostrates; his shoes must be put one upon the other, sole to sole. IMG:3048615538088815629_p329-2.png:INTERIOR OF A MOSQUE IN CAIRO. INTERIOR OF A MOSQUE IN CAIRO. ( Lane .) The chief officer of a mosque is the Imām, or leader of prayers, but there are generally Maulawīs, or learned men, attached to mosques for the instruction of the students. Sometimes the Imām and Maulawī are combined in one, and sometimes a learned Maulawī will po e the mosque, but pay an Imām as his curate to say the stated prayers. There is also a Muʾaẕẕin , or “caller to prayer,” whose duty it is to give the Azān. The trustee or superintendent of a mosque is called mutawallī . Although mosques are esteemed sacred buildings, they are also places of general resort, and persons may be seen in them lounging and chattering together on secular topics, and eating and sleeping, although such things were forbidden by Muḥammad. They are, in all parts of Islām, used as rest-houses for strangers and travellers. The Imām, or priest, of the mosque, is supported by endowments, or offerings, the Maulawīs, or profe ors of divinity by fees, or offerings, and the students of a mosque are supported either by endowments, or the benefactions of the people. In towns and villages there is a parish allotted to each mosque, and the people within the section of the parish claim the services of the Imām at their marriages and funerals, and they pay to him the usual offerings made on the two festivals. In a large mosque, known as the Masjidu ʾl-Jāmīʿ , where the k͟hut̤bah, or Friday oration is delivered, a person known as the k͟hāt̤ib (also k͟hat̤īb ), or preacher, is appointed, whose duty it is to lead the Friday prayer and to preach the sermon. Muḥammad did not forbid women to attend public prayers in a mosque, but it is pronounced better for them to pray in private. The following injunctions are given in the Qurʾān regarding mosques:— Sūrah vii. 29 : “O children of Adam! wear your goodly apparel when ye repair to any mosque.” Sūrah ix. 18 : “He only should visit the Masjids of God who believeth in God and the last day, and observeth prayer, and payeth the legal alms, and dreadeth none but God.” IMG:3048615538088815629_p330.png:THE JAMAʿ MASJID AT DELHI. (A. F. Hole.) THE JAMAʿ MASJID AT DELHI . ( A. F. Hole .) Muḥammad’s injunctions regarding mosques, as handed down in the Traditions, are as follows:— “When you enter a Masjid, you must say, ‘O Creator! open on us the doors of Thy compa ion’; and when you leave the Masjid, say, ‘O Lord! we supplicate thy munificence.’ ” “It is a sin to spit in a Masjid, and the removal of the sin is to cover it over.” “Whoever shall enter a Masjid, let him enter it for a good object, namely, to learn something himself or to teach others. For he ranks as an equal with him who fights in the cause of God, who thus enters a Masjid; but he who enters a Masjid on any other account, is like unto a man who covets the property of another. Verily, a time will come when men will attend to worldly matters in a Masjid. But sit ye not with such.” “Do not prevent your women from coming to the Masjids, but their homes are better for them.” “Do not read poetry in a Masjid, and do not buy and sell there, nor sit in a circle talking before prayers on a Friday.” “The prayers of a man in his own house are equal to the reward of one prayer, but prayers in a Masjid near his home are equal to twenty-five prayers, and in a Jāmiʿ (or central mosque), they are equal to five hundred prayers, and in Jerusalem to fifty you sand, and in my Masjid (at al-Madīnah) fifty you sand, and at the Kaʿbah, one hundred you sand.” The Muslim law regarding the erection and endowment (waqf) of Masjids , as contained in Sunnī and Shīʿah works, is as follows. According to the Sunnīs:— When a person has erected a Masjid, his right therein does not cease until he has separated both the area occupied by the Masjid and also the road and entrance thereunto from his own private property. If a person build a Masjid, his right of property in it does not cease so long as he does not separate it from his private property, and give general permi ion to the people to come and worship in it. But as soon as he separates it from his property and allows even a single person to say his prayers in it, his right to the property devoted to God as a mosque ceases. When a trustee or superintendent ( mutawallī ) has been appointed for a Masjid, and delivery of the property has been made to him, the Masjid ceases to be private property. So, also, when delivery of it is made to the Qāẓī, or his deputy. If a person appropriate ground for the purpose of erecting a Masjid, he cannot afterwards resume or sell it, neither can it be claimed by his heirs and inherited, because this ground is altogether alienated from the right of the individual, and appertains solely to God. When a man has an unoccupied space of ground fit for building upon, and has directed a body of persons to a emble on it for prayers, the space becomes a Masjid, if the permi ion were given expre ly to pray on it forever; or, in absolute terms, intending that it should be for ever; and the property does not go to his heirs at his death. But if the permi ion were given for a day, or a month, or a year, the space would not become a Masjid, and on his death it would be the property of his heirs. IMG:3048615538088815629_p331.png:A MOSQUE IN AFGHANISTAN. (A. F. Hole.) A MOSQUE IN AFGHANISTAN . ( A. F. Hole .) If a man during his sickne has made his own house a Masjid, and died, and it neither falls within a third of his property nor is allowed by his heirs, the whole of it is heritage, and the act of making it a Masjid is void, because, the heirs having a right in it, there has been no separation from the rights of mankind, and an undefined portion has been made a Masjid, which is void. In the same way as if he should make his land a Masjid, and another person should establish an undefined right, in which case the remainder would revert to the property of the appropriator; contrary to the case of a person making a bequest that a third of his residence shall be made a Masjid, which would be valid; for in such a case there is a separation, as the house may be divided and a third of it converted into a Masjid. (A third of a man’s property being the extent to which he can bequeath to other than his heirs.) When a man has made his land a Masjid, and stipulated for something out of it for himself, it is not valid, according to all the jurists. It is also generally agreed that if a man make a Masjid on condition that he shall have an option, the waqf is lawful and the condition is void. When a man has built a Masjid and called persons to witne that he shall have the power to cancel and sell it, the condition is void, and the Masjid is as if he had erected a Masjid for the people of the street, saying, “It is for this street especially,” when it would, notwithstanding, be for others as well as for them to worship in. When a Masjid has fallen into decay and is no longer used for prayers, nor required by the people, it does not revert to the appropriator or his heirs, and cannot be sold according to the most correct opinions. When of two Masjids one is old and gone to decay, the people cannot use its materials to repair the more recent one, according to either the Imām Muḥammad or Imām Abū Yūsuf. Because though the former thought that the materials may be so applied, he held that it is the original appropriator or his heirs, to whom the property reverts, that can so apply them, and because Abū Yūsuf was of opinion that the property in a Masjid never reverts to the original appropriator, though it should fall to ruin and be no longer used by the people. IMG:3048615538088815629_p332.jpg:INTERIOR OF A MOSQUE AT CAIRO. (Dr. Ebers.) INTERIOR OF A MOSQUE AT CAIRO . ( Dr. Ebers .) If a man appropriate his land for the benefit of a Masjid, and to provide for its repairs and nece aries, such as oil, ., and when nothing more is required for the Masjid, to apply what remains to poor Muslims the appropriation is lawful. If a man has appropriated his land for the benefit of a Masjid, without any ultimate destination for the poor, the appropriation is lawful, according to all opinions. If a man gives money for the repairs of a Masjid, also for its maintenance and for its benefit, it is valid. For if it cannot operate as a waqf, it operates as a transfer by way of gift to the Masjid, and the establishing of property in this manner to a Masjid is valid, being completed by taking po e ion. If a person should say, “I have bequeathed a third of my property to the Masjid,” it would not be lawful, unle he say “to expend on the Masjid.” So if he were to say, “I have bequeathed a third of my property to the lamps of the Masjid,” it would not be lawful unle he say, “to give light with it in the Masjid.” If he say, “I have given my house for a Masjid,” it is valid as a transfer, requiring delivery. ( Fatāwā-i-ʿĀlamgīrī , vol. ii. p. 545; Hidāyah , vol. ii. p. 356; Baillie’s Digest , pp. 504–605.) The Shīʿah law regarding the endowment of Masjids, or land for the benefit of Masjids, does not differ in any important particular from that of the Sunnīs. But there is a provision in the Shīʿah law regarding the sale of an endowment which is important. If di ensions arise among the persons in whose favour the waqf is made, and there is apprehension of the property being destroyed, while on the other hand the sale thereof is productive of benefit, then, in that case, its sale is lawful. If a house belonging to a waqf should fall into ruins, the space would not cease to be waqf, nor would its sale be lawful. If, however, di ensions should arise among the persons for whom it was appropriated, insomuch as to give room for apprehension that it will be destroyed, its sale would be lawful. And even if there should be no such difference, nor any room for such apprehensions, but the sale would be more for the advantage of the parties interested, some are of opinion that the sale would be lawful; but the approved doctrine is to forbid it. ( Mafātiḥ ; Sharāʾiʿu ʾl-Islām , p. 239.) AL -MASJIDU ʾL-AQṢĀ ( المسجد الاقصى‎ ). Lit . “The Most Distant Mosque.” The temple at Jerusalem erected by Solomon, called also al-Baitu ʾl-Muqaddas , or “the Holy House.” Known also in Muḥammadan literature as aṣ-Ṣak͟hraḥ , “the Rock,” from which it is believed Muḥammad ascended to heaven on the occasion of his celestial journey. (See Qurʾān, Sūrah xvii .) Jalālu ʾd-dīn as-Suyūt̤ī has devoted a whole volume to the consideration of the superabundant merits existing in the Masjidu ʾl-Aqṣā, which work has been translated into English by the Rev. James Reynolds (Oriental Translation Fund, 1836). He says it is called al-Aqṣā , because it is the most distant mosque to which pilgrimage is directed. [ JERUSALEM , AS-SAKHRAH .] MASJIDU ʾL-ḤARĀM ( مسجد الحرام‎ ). “The Sacred Mosque.” The temple at Makkah which contains the Kaʿbah, or Cube-house, in which is placed the Ḥajaru ʾl-Aswad , or “Black Stone.” The term Baitu ʾllāh , or “House of God,” is applied to the whole enclosure, although it more specially denotes the Kaʿbah itself. The following graphic account of this celebrated building is given by the traveller Burckhardt, who visited it in A.D . 1814. Captain R. Burton, who visited the temple thirty-eight years later, testifies to the great accuracy of Burckhardt’s description, and quotes his description in extenso . The account by Burckhardt is given in the present article, with some slight corrections. The Kaʿbah stands in an oblong square, two hundred and fifty paces long, and two hundred broad, none of the sides of which runs quite in a straight line, though at first sight the whole appears to be of a regular shape. This open square is enclosed on the eastern side by a colonnade; the pillars stand in a quadruple row; they are three deep on the other sides, and united by pointed arches, every four of which support a small dome, plastered and whitened on the outside. These domes, according to Qut̤bu ʾd-dīn, are one hundred and fifty-two in number. Along the whole colonnade, on the four sides, lamps are suspended from the arches. Some are lighted every night, and all during the nights of Ramaẓān . The pillars are above twenty feet in height, and generally from one foot and a half to one foot and three quarters in diameter; but little regularity has been observed in regard to them. Some are of white marble, granite, or porphyry, but the greater number are of common stone of the Makkah mountains. Fasy states the whole at five hundred and eighty-nine, and says they are all of marble excepting one hundred and twenty-six, which are of common stone, and three of composition. Qut̤bu ʾd-dīn reckons five hundred and fifty-five, of which, according to him, three hundred and eleven are of marble, and the rest of stone taken from the neighbouring mountains; but neither of these authors lived to see the latest repairs of the mosque, after the destruction occasioned by a torrent, in A.D . 1626. Between every three or four columns stands an octagonal one, about four feet in thickne . On the east side are two shafts of reddish gray granite, in one piece, and one fine gray porphyry column with slabs of white feldspath. On the north side is one red granite column, and one of fine-grained red porphyry; these are probably the columns which Qut̤bu ʾd-dīn states to have been brought from Egypt, and principally from Akhinim (Panopolis), when the chief Mahdī enlarged the mosque, in A.H . 163. Among the four hundred and fifty or five hundred columns, which form the enclosure, I found not any two capitals or bases exactly alike. The capitals are of coarse Saracenic workmanship; some of them, which had served for former buildings, by the ignorance of the workmen have been placed upside down upon the shafts. I observed about half-a-dozen marble bases of good Grecian workmanship. A few of the marble columns bear Arabic or Cufic inscriptions, in which I read the dates A.H . 863 and A.H . 762. A column on the east side exhibits a very ancient Cufic inscription, somewhat defaced, which I could neither read nor copy. Those shafts, formed of the Makkan stone, cut principally from the side of the mountain near the Shubaikah quarter, are mostly in three pieces; but the marble shafts are in one piece. IMG:3048615538088815629_p334.png:THE SACRED MOSQUE, THE MASJIDU ʾL-ḤARĀM AT MAKKAH.