identify the mosque of Ḥawḍa’ with the ruins near the well of al-Ḥawṣa’ on the crossroad to the northeast of Tebûk and at a long distance from it. If, however, these conjectures of mine are accurate, Ibn Hišâm does not enumerate the mosques in their actual order and thus does not afford an opportunity of fixing their exact position. It rather seems that the pious tradition ascribed all the mosques constructed between al-Medîna and Syria at some distance from the Pilgrim Route to the Prophet on his expeditions to Tebûk and Dûmat al-Ǧandal (al-Ǧowf).
Al-Masʻûdi, Tanbîh (De Goeje), p. 270, includes Tebûk in Syria and states that it is ninety parasangs or twelve nights distant from al-Medîna.—As the journey from Tebûk to al-Medîna is more than 550 kilometers, one parasang would be more than six kilometers. Al-Masʻûdi is the only Arabic author who gives the distances on the Syrian Pilgrim Route in parasangs. His statement cannot be more than roughly accurate, because, knowing the number of marches, he multiplied them by seven, although the separate daily marches might be longer or shorter according to the supply of water. He reckons Tebûk as part of Syria, because at his time (the middle of the tenth century) it belonged to the political administration of Syria.
According to al-Muḳaddasi, Aḥsan (De Goeje), p. 179, Tebûk in the tenth century was a small town with a mosque of the Prophet.
Al-Idrîsi, Nuzha, III, 5, locates Tebûk about midway between al-Ḥeǧr and the Syrian frontier, from which it is four days’ march distant. At Tebûk, he says, there is a citadel haunted by spirits. The inhabitants obtain water from a well which gushes out with great force, and they cultivate date palms.—
These assertions make the Ḥeǧâz extend as far as the foot of the aš-Šera’ range at a distance from Tebûk of four days’ march. Such marches would be of forty-five kilometers each.
Jâḳût, Muʻǧam (Wüstenfeld), Vol. 1, pp. 421, 824 f.; Vol. 4, p. 690, says that Tebûk, a place between Wâdi al-Ḳura’ and Syria, is a reservoir of the Beni Saʻd of the ʻUḏra tribe. He cites Abu Zejd al-Anṣâri to the effect that Tebûk is situated between al-Ḥeǧr and the Syrian frontier, four days’ journey from al-Ḥeǧr and nearly midway between al-Medîna (twelve days’ march distant) and Damascus. He says that it is a stronghold girded by a high wall, with a well and palms, between the mountains of Ḥesma’ in the west and Šarawra’ in the east. Many have related that the Prophet Šuʻejb was sent from Madjan—which is situated on the shore of the Red Sea six days’ journey from Tebûk—to Tebûk to the owners of the thicket of al-Ajka. But Jâḳût did not believe this narrative and was of the opinion that the thicket of al-Ajka must be located in the neighboring Madjan, whence the Prophet Šuʻejb came. At the command of Caliph ʻOmar ibn al-Ḫaṭṭâb, the Jew Ibn ʻArîḍ walled up an excellent well at Tebûk, which, according to Ibn Saʻd, was known as Mûla. It contained so much water that it perpetually overflowed.—
The distance from Tebûk to Madjan and to al-Medîna is not given in marches of equal length. Madjan is only 150 kilometers distant from Tebûk, so that Jâḳût must be reckoning according to the march of loaded camels, this being about twenty-five kilometers daily. But from Tebûk to al-Medîna is more than 550 kilometers, so that each march would have to be forty-five kilometers, the average speed of a camel rider. The ʻUḏra