Page 52 - New English Book L

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and trained pace with the purpose of performing a
religious festival of rejoicing and chanting. In the East
the Christians still practise what they call higga either
during their festival days or at weddings. Consequently,
this word has nothing to do with pilgrimage, which is
derived from the Italian Pellegrino, and this also from
the Latin peregrinus - meaning a “foreigner.”

Abraham (pbuh) during his sojourns frequently used
to build an altar for worship and sacrifice at different
places and on particular occasions. When Jacob (pbuh) was
on his way to Padan Aram and saw the vision of that
wonderful ladder, he erected a stone there, upon which he
poured oil and called it Bethel, i.e. “the house of God”;
and twenty years later he again visited that stone, upon
which he poured oil and “pure wine,” [!] as recorded in
Genesis xxviii. 10-22; xxxv. A special stone was erected
as a monument by Jacob (pbuh) and his father-in-law upon
a heap of stones called Gal’ ead in Hebrew, and Yaghar
sahdutha by Laban in his Aramaic language, which means
“a heap of witness.” But the proper noun they gave to
the erected stone was Mispa (Gen. xxxi. 45-55), which I
prefer to write in its exact Arabic form, Mispha, and this I
do for the benefit of my Muslim readers.

Now this Mispha became later on the most important
place of worship, and a centre of the national assemblies
in the history of the people of Israel. It was here that
Naphthah -a Jewish hero- made a vow “before the Lord,”
and after beating the Ammonites, he is supposed to have
offered his only daughter as a burnt offering (Judges xi.).
It was at Mispha that four hundred thousand swordsmen
from the eleven tribes of Israel assembled and “swore
before the Lord” to exterminate the tribe of Benjamin
for an abominable crime committed by the Benjamites
of Geba’ and succeeded (Judges xx. xxi.). At Mispha
all the people were summoned by the Prophet Samuel,
where they “swore before the Lord” to destroy all their