Sunni and Shi'ah works, is as follows. According to the Sunnis:

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 permission 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 (mutawalli) has been appointed for a Masjid, and delivery of the property has been made to him, the Masjid ceases to be private pro

perty. So, also, when delivery of it is made to the Qazi, 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 bo 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 assemble on it for prayers, the space becomes a Masjid, if the permission were given expressly to pray on it for ever; 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 permission 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.

If a man during his sickness 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 witness 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,

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 possession.

If a person should say, "I have bequeathed a third of my property to the Masjid," it would not be lawful, unless 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 unless 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. (Fatawa-1- Alamgiri, vol ii. p. 545; Hidayah, vol i. p. 356; Baillie's Digest, pp. 504-605.)

The Shrah law regarding the endowment of Masjids, or land for the benefit of Masjids, does not differ in any important particular from that of the Sunnis But there is a provision in the Shi'ah law regarding the sale of an endowment which is important.

If dissensions 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, dissensions 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 ap proved doctrine is to forbid it. (Mujātik; Shara iu l-Islām, p. 239.)

AL-MASJIDU 'L-AQṢA (all

). Lit. "The Most Distant Mosque." The temple at Jerusalem erected by Solomon, called also al-Buitu'l-Muqaddas, or the Holy House." Known also in Muhammadan literature as as-Sakhrah, “the Rock," from which it is believed Muhammad ascended to heaven on the occasion of his celestial journey. (See Qur'an, Surah xvii.)

Jalalu d-din as-Suyuty has devoted a whole volume to the consideration of the superabundant merits existing in the Masjidu l-Aqsa, which work has been translated into English by the Rev. James Reynolds (Oriental Translation Fund, 1836). He says it is called al-Aqsa, because it is the most distant mosque to which pilgrimage is directed. (JERUSALEM, AS-SAKHRAH.]

MASJIDU 'L-HARAM (Lo "The Sacred Mosque."

الحرام

The temple at Makkah which contains the Ka'bah, or Cube-house, in which is placed the Hajaru l-Aswad, or "Black Stone." The term Baitu 'llah, or "House of God," is applied to the whole enclosure, although it more specially denotes the Ka'bah 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 thirtyeight 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 Ka'bah 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 Qutbu 'd-din, 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 Ramazan. 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. Qutbu 'd-din 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 thickness. On the cast 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 linegrained red porphyry; these are probably the columns which Qutbu 'd-din states to have been brought from Egypt, and principally from Akhinim (Panopolis), when the chief Mahdi enlarged the mosque, in A.11. 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

THE SACRED MOSQUE, THE MASJIDU L-HARAM AT MAKKAH.