APPENDIX XIII
TEBÛK
Ptolemy, Geography, VI, 7: 27, records on the northwestern border of Arabia Felix a settlement called Thapaua, the name of which I regard as a corruption of Thapaucha, or Tebûk. The position of the two tallies.
O. Blau, Altarabische Sprachstudien (1871), p. 561, finds a reference to Tebûk in the work of the anonymous Ravenna geographer, Cosmographia, II, 6 (Pinder and Parthey, p. 57), reading Taboca Romanis instead of Taboca Coromanis, but the former reading is not accurate, for the Ravenna geographer erroneously copies Ptolemy, op. cit., VI, 7: 19; the correct reading of his Taboca Coromanis should be Abukaion Koromanis, which Ptolemy places on the coast of the Persian Gulf.
Al-Belâḏori, Futûḥ (De Goeje), p. 59, relates that in the year 630—631 A. D. the Prophet reached Tebûk with a large Moslem army, concluded peace with the population there on condition that they should pay the ǧizja tax (levied upon Christians and Jews), and after about ten days returned to al-Medîna.—
Tebûk, therefore, at that time was inhabited by Christians and Jews, for they were the only ones who paid the ǧizja tax.
According to Ibn Hišâm, Sîra (Wüstenfeld), Vol. 1, p. 907, mosques of the Prophet are situated at Tebûk, at the valley of al-Ḳura’, and at the following places in between: Ṯenijjet Medrân; Ḏât az-Zerrâb; al-Aḫḍar; Ḏât al-Ḫeṭmi; Alâ’i; by al-Batra at the end of al-Kawâkeb; Šiḳḳ Târa; Ḏi al-Ǧîfa; Ṣadr Ḥawḍa’; al-Ḥeǧr; aṣ-Ṣaʻîd.—
It seems that Ibn Hišâm quotes these in geographical order, for according to al-Bekri the mosque of az-Zerrâb is situated two days’ march from Tebûk; and in Ibn Hišâm it stands in the second place beyond Tebûk and before al-Aḫḍar. The latter is identical with the halting place of al-Aḫẓar, seventy kilometers south of Tebûk, so that about twenty-five kilometers would be reckoned as one day’s march. After ten such marches from Tebûk, al-Ḥeǧr would be reached, and Ibn Hišâm mentions the mosque of al-Ḥeǧr in the tenth place. We may thus locate the mosques enumerated between these two places on the Pilgrim Route. It is remarkable, however, that not a single one of the devout pilgrims who have described this route refers to these mosques consecrated by Mohammed, although they give detailed descriptions of various places connected with the legend of the Prophet Ṣâleḥ.
The defile Ṯenijjet al-Medrân is identical with the defile of al-Medra’, which begins at the ruins Ḳṣêr at-Tamra. These ruins are perhaps the only remains of the mosque of al-Medrân; they are not situated, however, on the Pilgrim Route but about twenty kilometers to the west. I locate the mosque of aṣ-Ṣaʻîd near the springs having their source beneath Ṭwejjel eben Ṣaʻîd; this, however, is not situated to the south but nearly one hundred kilometers north-northwest of al-Ḥeǧr. I should likewise318
