[5] Yahya.  On the capture of Damascus by the Muhammadans, the
    churches were equally divided between the Christians and their
    conquerors.  The great Cathedral of St. John was similarly divided,
    and for eighty years the two religions worshipped under the same
    roof.—­Arnold, The Preaching of Islam, p. 50.

[6] A vulgar corruption of Jame’ Masjid, the Cathedral Mosque.

[7] On the taboos attached to the sanctuary, see Burton, Pilgrimage,
    i. 379 f.

[8] At-Ta’if, meaning ‘circumambulation’.  When Adam settled at Mecca,
    finding the country barren, he prayed to Allah to supply him with a
    piece of fertile land.  Immediately a mountain appeared, which, having
    circumambulated the Ka’aba, settled itself down eastward of Mecca. 
    Hence it was called Kita min Sham, ‘a piece of Syria,’ whence it
    came. (Burton, ii. 336.) ’Its fertile lands produce the fruits of
    Syria in the midst of the Arabian desert’ ( Gibbon, Decline and Fall,
    vi. 255).

[9] At Mecca are ’evident signs, with the standing place of Abraham; and
    he who enters it is safe’ (Koran, iii. 90).  On the north side of
    the Ka’aba, just by its door, is a slight hollow in the ground, lined
    with marble.  The spot is called Mi’jan, and it is supposed to be the
    place where Abraham and Ishmael kneaded the chalk which they used in
    building the Ka’aba:  the stone, with the mark of Abraham’s feet, is
    shown.—­Burckhardt, quoted by Hughes, Dictionary of Islam, p. 337;
    Burton, ii. 311; Sale, Preliminary Discourse, p. 84.

[10] The Asiatics, generally, have faith in certain properties of chemical
    productions to alter the nature of the common to the precious metals. 
    I have often witnessed the anxious exertions of Natives in India, who
    try all sorts of experiments in alchemy, expecting to succeed; but I
    have never known any other issue from the many laborious efforts of
    individuals than waste of time and property in these absurd schemes.
    [Author.]

[11] One of the best-known versions of this famous tale is found in The
    Decameron of Boccaccio, Day 5, novel 9.  It goes back to Buddhist
    times, and is told of Hatim Tai, the model of Oriental
    liberality.  For numerous parallels, see A.C.  Lee, The Decameron of
    Boccaccio, its Sources and Analogues, 1909, pp. 170 ff.

[12] Labada, ‘a rain coat, wrapper’.

[13] This is probably some local tradition, of which no record appears in
    travellers’ accounts of the Ka’aba.

[14] On the north-west side of the Ka’aba is a water-spout, called
    Mi’zabu’r-Rahmah, ‘the spout of Mercy’.  It is made of gold, and was
    sent from Constantinople in A.D. 1573.  It carries the rain-water from
    the roof, and discharges it on the grave of Ishmael.—­Hughes,
    Dictionary of Islam, pp. 257, 337.