The second stands third from the Pulpit, and third from the Hujrah.  It is called the Pillar of Ayishah, also the Ustuwanat al-Kurah, or the Column of Lots, because the Apostle, according to the testimony of his favourite wife, declared that if men knew the value of the place, they would cast lots to pray there:  in some books it is known as the Pillar of the Muhajirin or Fugitives, and others mention it as Al-Mukhallak-the Perfumed.

Twenty cubits distant from Ayishah’s Pillar, and the

[p.336] second from the Hujrah, and the fourth from the Pulpit, is the Pillar of Repentance, or of Abu Lubabah.  It derives its name from the following circumstance.  Abu Lubabah was a native of Al-Madinah, one of the Auxiliaries and a companion of Mohammed, originally it is said a Jew, according to others of the Beni Amr bin Auf of the Aus tribe.  Being sent for by his kinsmen or his allies, the Benu Kurayzah, at that time capitulating to Mohammed, he was consulted by the distracted men, women, and children, who threw themselves at his feet, and begged of him to intercede for them with the offended Apostle.  Abu Lubabah swore he would do so:  at the same time, he drew his hand across his throat, as much as to say, “Defend yourselves to the last, for if you yield, such is your doom.”  Afterwards repenting, he bound himself with a huge chain to the date-tree in whose place the column now stands, vowing to continue there until Allah and the Apostle accepted his penitence-a circumstance which did not take place till the tenth day, when his hearing was gone and he had almost lost his sight.

The less celebrated pillars are the Ustuwanat al-Sarir, or Column of the Cot, where the Apostle was wont to sit meditating on his humble couch-frame of date-sticks.  The Ustuwanat Ali notes the spot where the fourth Caliph used to pray and watch near his father-in-law at night.  At the Ustuwanat al-Wufud, as its name denotes, the Apostle received envoys, couriers, and emissaries from foreign places.  The Ustuwanat al-Tahajjud now stands where Mohammed, sitting upon his mat, passed the night in prayer.  And lastly is the Makam Jibrail (Gabriel’s place), for whose other name, Mirbaat al-Bair, “the Pole of the Beast of Burden,” I have been unable to find an explanation.

The four Riwaks, or porches, of the Madinah Mosque open upon a hypaethral court of parallelogramic shape.

[p.337] The only remarkable object in it[FN#75] is a square of wooden railing enclosing a place full of well-watered earth, called the Garden of our Lady Fatimah.[FN#76] It now contains a dozen date-trees-in Ibn Jubayr’s time there were fifteen.  Their fruit is sent by the eunuchs as presents to the Sultan and the great men of Al-Islam; it is highly valued by the vulgar, but the Olema do not think much of its claims to importance.  Among the palms are the venerable remains of a Sidr, or Lote tree,[FN#77] whose produce is sold for inordinate sums.  The enclosure is entered by a dwarf gate in the South-Eastern