Anecdota Oxoniensia. Semitic series.

130 CHURCHES A,.D MONASTERIES OF EGYPT.

The Book of the Monasteries, by Ash-Shabushtil, bears witness that
this monastery is on the bank of the lake of Al-Habash, near the river,
and that beside it are several gardens, one of which was laid out by
the emir Tamlm, brother of Al-'Aziz bi-'llah; and in this there is
a pavilion, the roof of which is supported by pillars. The pavilion
is beautifully designed, skilfully constructed and adorned, and decorated
with paintings; near it is a well called Bir Naja'i, beside which grows
a tall sycamore affording much shade; and here the people assemble
to enjoy the shade, and saunter around the spot, when the Nile is high
and the lake is full, and also when the crops are green and the flowers
are blooming. Near the aforesaid sycamore is the bridge which leads
to many roads, and at which men set lines for fishing during the days
of high Nile; and this is a pretty sight.
Al-IHakim seized upon part of this monastery and church, and rebuilt
it as a mosque, with a minaret; and his name was inscribed upon it.
Now2 the first who constructed minarets3 in mosques was Mukhallad
al-Ansari4.
night of the Epiphany was still observed; and not only the Christians but the
Mahometans also followed the practice, and marked the festival by illuminations,
and a fair with its usual accompaniments; many of them pitching tents beside
the river. Al-Mas'udi, who witnessed the festival in A. H. 33o=A. D. 942, describes
the illuminations and festivities on this night ordered by Al-Ikhshid, then governor
of Egypt; and Al-Masihi describes the observance of the festival by the Fatimide
caliph Az-Zahir in A. H. 415=A. D. 1024. See Al-Mas'fidi, Muruj adh-Dhahab
(ed. Barbier), ii. p. 364 f.; Al-Makrizi, Khztat, i. p. *i.
1 See Introduction.
2 I have changed the order of the sentences to avoid the awkward parenthesis
in the text.
3 In a paper which I wrote some years ago in the Athenaeum, I881, I tried
to show that the minaret (U '= lighthouse) took its origin from the Pharos at
Alexandria (i L)aJ l 'LzA), and that theory has been rather strengthened than
shaken by subsequent research. Al-Makrizi relates that all the early minarets
were of brick, and that the first stone minaret was that of the mosque of
Al-Maridani; see S. Lane Poole's Art of the Saracens, p. 59. (A. J. B.)
4 It was not Mukhallad, but his son Maslamah ibn Mukhallad, governor of
Egypt under the caliph Mu'awiyah from A. H. 47 =A. D. 668 to A. H. 62 =A. D. 682;