The oasis of ʻAjnûna is famed for its good, fresh water, which once flowed through a walled aqueduct, now ruined in places, to the coast settlement of al-Ḫrajbe. We recognized this place from a number of palm trees standing on the shore itself. Behind the palms several stone huts have been built, but as they are of the same gray color as the shore they are indistinguishable from it. At ten o’clock we entered Wâdi ʻAjnûna, two kilometers broad, which might easily be transformed into one great palm garden. On the southern side there rose a low elevation, upon which was situated a four-cornered building with the Turkish flag flying over it. This building, really no more than a spacious cottage, is the fortress of al-Ḫrajbe. West of the fortress, or rather of the barracks, there are a number of palms, and between them and the sea stand ten small trading huts built of marl.
AT AL-ḪRAJBE
At 10.28 A. M. our camels knelt down beneath the palms at al-Ḫrajbe (Fig. 56) (temperature: 35° C). As there was no pasture anywhere in the neighborhood, we tied their forelegs together, and instead of grazing they rested. Before long six traders approached us. They were young men with thick lips and broad, fleshy noses; and all of them were
Al-Muḳaddasi (985 A. D.), Aḥsan (De Goeje, 2nd edit.), p. 54, assigns the settlements of ʻAjnûna’, Wajla, Madjan, Tebûk, Aḏruḥ, Moab, and Maʻân to the administrative district of Ṣoṛar.
Al-Bekri. Muʻǧam (Wüstenfeld), p. 266, mentions the settlements of Ḥebra’ and ʻAjnûna’, situated between the Wâdi al-Ḳura, and Syria, which Tamîm ad-Dârij obtained from the Prophet as a fief. Al-Kalbi thinks that these two settlements belonged to Syria. When Sulejmân ibn ʻAbdalmalek (died 717 A. D.) journeyed there, he did not venture to spend the night in them, as he said, for fear of the Prophet.—Tamîn ibn Aws ibn Ḫâreǧe ad-Dârij was probably a Christian monk who passed over to Islâm (see an-Nawawi [died 1278 A. D.], Tahḏîb [Wüstenfeld], pp. 178–179).The place Ḥebra’ is not mentioned by any other writer. Possibly it is a bad transcription for the settlement of Ḥawra’ situated near Madjan. According to al-Kalbi these two were the only fiefs bestowed by the Prophet in Syria, but al-Wâḳedi, Maṛâzi (Wellhausen’s transl.), p. 405, records that the Prophet bestowed also the settlement of Maḳna as a fief, and this is situated to the northwest of ʻAjnûna’. If Ḥebra’ and ʻAjnûna’ belonged to Syria, then Maḳna did also: and so there were then not two but three fiefs situated in Syria. Syria denotes the administrative district of Ṣoṛar. Al-Bekri places ʻAjnûna’ not in Syria but in the border territory.Jâḳût, op. cit., Vol. 3, p. 758, decides that it is possible to write either ʻAjn Una’ or ʻAjnûna’. According to him, Una’ is a valley on the shore between aṣ-Ṣala’ and Madjan. As-Sukkari, the commentator on the Kitâb al-luṣûṣ, writes that the settlement of ʻAjnûna’ is situated on the Egyptian Pilgrim Route. The poet al-Kuṯejjer refers to a journey from the valley of al-Buḍajʻ, by way of ʻAjn Una’, to the slopes of Ḳibâl.—Aṣ-Ṣala’ is identical with the modern al-Mwêleḥ and Madjan with the oasis of al-Bedʻ: I locate the valley of al-Buḍajʻ among the valleys of the region of al-Beẓîʻ: the place Ḳibâl must be read as Ḳijâl, as the valley about twenty kilometers to the west of ʻAjnûna’ is called.Abu-l-Faḍâ’il (died 1338 A. D.), Marâṣid (Juynboll), Vol. 2, p. 294, records the form ʻAjnuwunna’, which presupposes a name Unna’, recalling the Onne of Ptolemy.Jâḳût. op. cit., Vol. 1. p. 367, also mentions the simple form Una’. It is a wâdi near the shore of aṣ-Ṣala’ and Madjan, through which the pilgrims passed. In it there is a spring which is called the spring of Una’, ʻAjn Una’.