The difference in the height of the minarets offends the eye, but not so much 
in this point of view as when opposite the facade: one of them is also much larger 
than the other; each has three stages or galleries; the highest is about two hundred 
and eighty feet. The dome above the tomb of the founder is about one hundred 
and seventy feet high, and nearly seventy feet in diameter. 
The mosques are open from daybreak to the last evening-prayer, two hours after 
sunset. The Mussulman does not consider a mosque, as some other religionists look 
upon their sacred edifices, as one wherein the presence of the Divinity is supposed, 
but as a building only for the union of the faithful in prayer, or the accomplishment 
of a religious duty. The part of a mosque which is held in the greatest reverence 
is the Melirab, from its position towards the Kaaba, and is alone considered sacred. 
Ooste’s “Monumens du Kaire,” &c. 
Roberts’s Journal. 
