DESERT MOSQUE.
A few of them perform, by way of Tripoli, the
pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, adopting on
their return the title of Haj or pilgrim. But these
pilgrims are very rare among them, for as a rule
they are either too poor or too indifferent upon the
subject to incur the expense which this pilgrimage
entails. The fierce fanaticism with which they are
usually credited takes more the form of intense
hatred of infidels than of any very strict adherence
to the rules of their religion.
Except in the big oases and in the Zawia of
Temassanin there are no mosques in the ordinary
acceptation of the word in the Sahara. The mosques
to be found there are merely small stone enclosures
a few inches in height, with a niche at one end to
indicate the direction of Mecca. They are usually
erected where some marabout has died or performed
some important act during his life.
Though there are no mosques among the
Tawareks there exist a few zawias. But these
desert monasteries, with the exception of that at
Temassanin, are not by any means of the elaborately
built and highly decorated type to be found in
Algeria. The zawias of the Sahara are huge camps
consisting of perhaps twenty or more large tents
pitched all round the circumference of a circle.
Here, when at home, the marabout, surrounded by
his followers, holds his court, moving his monastery
from place to place to meet the requirements of the
flocks of sheep and goats and herds of camels upon
which the inmates of the tents largely depend for
food. In these Saharan monasteries many of the