Read Ebook: With the pilgrims to Mecca: The great pilgrimage of A.H. 1319; A.D. 1902 by Khan Hadji Gazanfar Ali Sparroy Wilfrid V Mb Ry Rmin Author Of Introduction Etc

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 709 lines and 84014 words, and 15 pages

It is a tradition that the washing of hands before meals will materially help the true Muslim to grow rich, and be the means of delivering him from all diseases. If he rub his eyes immediately after the ablution they will never be sore. The left hand must not be used in eating unless the right be disabled.

All true Muslims when eating are advised to begin with salt and finish with vinegar. If they begin with salt they will escape the contagion of seventy diseases. If they finish with vinegar their worldly prosperity will continue to increase. The host is in etiquette bound to be the first to start eating and the last to leave off. Tooth-picking is considered an act of grace, for Gabriel is reported to have brought a tooth-pick from heaven for the use of the Prophet after every meal. The priests recite certain passages of the Kur?n before and after lunch and dinner, and also before drinking water at any hour of the day.

It is now time to give the reader, in as terse and as condensed a form as possible, a general idea of the part played by religion in the workaday lives of the children of the Faith, beginning with their toilet, that is, with their dressing and bathing, with the combing of their hair and the cutting of their nails.

The Shiahs have the name of one of the twelve Im?ms engraved on the stone; others make use of it as a seal bearing their own names. Hardly less lucky are the turquoise and the ruby, which are believed to have the effect of warding off poverty from those who are fortunate enough to possess them. This is why they are treasured by the fair sex, the ruby being, perhaps, the more dearly loved of the two.

Every bath has generally three courts. On entering each one of these the devout say the prayers prescribed for the occasion, but the generality of Muslims, unless they intend to perform the religious purifications, consider it sufficient to greet the people who are present with the word "Sal?m!" It is considered inauspicious to brush the teeth in the baths, but certain portions of hair must be removed by a composition of quicklime and arsenic, called nureh, and the nureh, though efficacious enough, no matter when it may be used, is said to add immeasurably to a man's chance of salvation by being laid on either on a Wednesday or on a Friday.

The application of the juice of the marsh-mallow as an emollient for the hair is strongly recommended by the saints. Their object in bequeathing this advice to the consideration of their flock was not to inculcate vanity. They had a higher aim than that. Their desire was to stave off starvation from the fold, for that, in their opinion, would be the result of using the lotion on an ordinary day of the week; while rubbing the head vigorously with the precious juice on the Muslim Sabbath would be certain to preserve the skin from leprosy and the mind from madness. To the use of a decoction of the leaves of the lote-tree a divine relief is attributed, for the mere smell of it on the hair of the most unregenerate has on Satan an effect so disheartening that he will cease from leading them into temptation for no less than seventy days.

The pressure of the grave will be mitigated by a skilful and untiring application of the comb in this life. The blessing of the comb is said to have been revealed to Im?m Jafar. Women are not excluded from the spiritual benefits derived from the comb. But, remember, the hair must not be done in a frivolous, much less in a perfunctory fashion. Far from it. On no account whatever must the hair be neglected, for Satan is attracted by dishevelled locks. They are, as it were, a net in which he catches the human soul. Therefore, since the priests and the merchants of Isl?m shave their heads in most parts of the Muslim world, special attention should be paid by them to their beards and eyebrows. A pocket-comb made of sandal-wood is often carried by the true Believers, who, it may be hoped, turn it to good account in moments of spiritual unwillingness on the part of the natural man.

A Mull?'s beard is an object of veneration to his flock. He may trim it lest it should grow as wild as a Jew's, but he is forbidden by tradition to shave it. Even the scissors must be plied sparingly and to the accompaniment of prayer. Perhaps the orthodox length of this almost divine appendage of the true Muslim is the length of the wearer's hand from the point of the chin downwards. This is known as a ghabzeh or handful. A priest may be allowed to add the length of the first joint of his little finger, otherwise his power to awe might grow lax. The soul is in danger every time he forgets to cut his sharib, that is, the tip of his moustache, which should be reduced to bristles once a week. Once on a time a faithful follower of the Prophet asked one of the Im?ms what he should do to increase his livelihood. The Im?m answered unhesitatingly: "Cut your nails and your sharib on a Friday as long as you live!"

Again, according to a Shi'ah traditionist, if a Muslim gaze into a looking-glass, before saying his prayers, he will be guilty of worshipping his own likeness, however unsightly it may appear in his eyes. The hand must be drawn across the forehead, ere the hair or the beard be adjusted, or else the mirror will reflect a mind given over to vanity, which is a grievous, if universal sin. The new moon must be seen "on the face" of a friend, on a copy of the Kur?n, or on a turquoise stone. Unless one of these conditions be observed, there is no telling what evil might not happen.

The devout who are most anxious to vindicate tradition perform two prostrations on beholding the new moon, and sacrifice a sheep for the poor as an additional safeguard against her baneful rays. The Evil Eye more often than not has its seat in the socket of an unbeliever. Therefore, the Muslim who, on being brought face to face with a heretic, should not say the prayer by law ordained must look to his charms or suffer the inevitable blight. A cat may look at a king; a king may shoot a ferocious animal; and a thief may run away with the spoil. But a true Believer must guard his faith against aggression every time he sees a thief, a ferocious animal, or a king. For very different reasons, he must recite a prescribed formula of prayer on the passing of a funeral procession, and also on his seeing the first-fruits of the season and its flowers. The dead, it is said, will hear his voice if, on crossing a cemetery, he cry aloud: "O ye people of the grave, may peace be with you, of both sexes of the Faithful!"

As the sense of sight gives rise to devotional exercises, so also does the sense of hearing. The holy Muslim should lend a prayerful ear to the cries of the muezzin during the first two sentences of the summons, and when the call to prayer is over he should rub his eyes with his fingers, in order to produce the signs of weeping--a mark of contrition and of emotional recrudescence in the matter of piety. The true Believer, whenever he hears the Sureh S?jdeh read in the Kur?n, should prostrate himself and repeat the words after the reader. If he hear a Muslim sneeze he should say, "May peace be with thee!" and if the sneeze be repeated, "Mayest thou be cured!" But, if a Kafir sneeze, the response must be expressed in the wish to see him tread "the straight path."

Every child of Isl?m, before going to bed, should perform his ablutions and say his prayers. If he wish to be delivered from nightmare and all its terrors let him say to Allah: "I take refuge in Thee from the evil of Satan," and if he is afraid of being bitten by a scorpion let him appeal to Noah, saying, "May peace be with thee, O Noah!" One day Eshagh-ben-Ammar asked Im?m Jafar how he could protect himself against the attack of that malignant arachnidan. The Im?m replied: "Look at the constellation of the Bear; therein you will find a small star, the lowest of all, which the Arabs call Sohail. Fix your eyes in the direction of that star, and say three times, 'May peace be with Muhammad and with his people: O Sohail, protect me from scorpions,' and you will be protected from them." Eshagh-ben-Ammar goes on to relate that he read the formula every evening before going to bed, and that it proved successful; but one evening he forgot to repeat it, and, as a consequence, was bitten by a black scorpion.

Prayers are also said against mosquitoes and other insects. This cleanses the conscience of the irate Muslim, if it fail in preserving his skin. The Eastern peoples in general and the Muhammadans in particular are early risers. Sleep after morning prayers, which are said before sunrise, is sure to cause folly; sleep in the middle of the day is believed to be necessary and suitable to work; while sleep before evening prayers has precisely the same effect as after the devotions of the early morning. A traditionist says that the prophets slept on their backs, so as to be able to converse with the angels at any hour of the night; that the faithful must sleep on their right sides, and the Kafirs on their left; and that the deves take their rest on their stomachs.

Usury, though interest on money was strictly prohibited by the Prophet, is among the Muslims of the present day a common practice. They evade the letter of the law by putting what the Persians call "a legal cap over the head" of the usurious transaction. The money-lender picks up a handful of barley and says to the borrower, "Give me the rate of interest as the cost of this grain, which I now offer to sell to you at that price;" and the borrower replies that he accepts the bargain. Also, a merchant must know all the laws appertaining to buying and selling. Im?m 'Ali is said to have made a daily round of the bazaars of Kufa crying out the while, "O ye merchants and traders, deal honestly and in accordance with the laws of your Prophet. Swear not, neither tell lies, and cheat not your customers. Beware of using false weights, and walk ye in the paths of righteousness."

A high priest in Mecca assured me that to enjoy a derham of interest is as bad as taking the blood of seventy virgins. The admonitions of 'Al? the Just, though sometimes read, are less often followed. On leaving his house a merchant must say "Bismillah," and then blow to his left and his right and also in front of him, so as to clear the way to good business.

The pious recite, on entering the bazaar, a prayer ordained for the occasion. When the bargain is clinched the seller should cry out, "God is great! God is great!" But there should be no dishonest bargaining over the purchasing of these four things: the winding sheets for the dead, the commodities to be distributed in charity, the expenses on the journey to Mecca, and the price of a slave's ransom. In all these transactions the buyer and seller must act according to the dictates of fair play. The man who buys a slave should lay hold of him by a hair of his head and say the prescribed prayer; after which, if guided by Im?m Jafar, he must change the name of his purchase. Slaves are treated with every consideration, so much so indeed that in the household of Eastern potentates, whose treatment of their dependents is extremely arbitrary, the slaves lord it over the servants.

The wedding must not take place when the moon is under an eclipse, nor when she is in the sign of Scorpio. The best time is between the 26th and the end of the lunar month. Muhammad recommended festivals to be celebrated on five occasions: on wedding and nuptial days, on the birth of a child, on the circumcision of a child, on taking up one's abode in a newly-purchased house, and on returning from Mecca. Only persons of unblemished reputation should be invited to the marriage or the nuptial feasts.

To the man who brings him news of the birth of a male child the father should give a present. The nurse should lose no time in singing the first chapter of the prescribed prayer in the baby's right ear, and what is called the standing prayer in its left one, and if the water of the Euphrates be procurable it should be sprinkled on the baby's forehead.

On the seventh day after the child's birth the ceremony of the Aghigheh is performed in Persia. This consists in killing a fatted sheep, in cooking it, and in distributing the flesh among the neighbours or among the poor who come to the door. In memory of the occasion a cornelian engraved with a Kur?n text, and sometimes surrounded with precious stones, as in the cover-design to the present volume, is fastened to the baby's arm by means of a silk band, and is worn perhaps to the end of its life. Not a single bone of the Aghigheh sheep should be broken; certain prayers should be read before the sheep is killed; and the parents should not take part in the feast.

The baby is not often weaned until it is two years old, Muhammad believing that the mother's milk is the best and acts beneficially on the child's future character and temperament.

The twelve Muhammadan months are lunar, and number twenty-nine and thirty days alternately. Thus the whole year contains only three hundred and fifty-four days; but eleven times in the course of thirty years an intercalary day is added. Accordingly, thirty-two of our years are, roughly speaking, equal to thirty-three Muhammadan years. The Muhammadan Era dates from the morning after the Hegira, or the flight of the Prophet from Mecca to Medina, that is, on the 16th of July, A.D. 622. Every year begins earlier than the preceding one, so that a month beginning in summer in the present year will, sixteen years hence, fall in winter. The following are the names of the months, which do not correspond in any way with ours: 1, Muharram; 2, Safar; 3, Rab?u-'l-avval; 4, Rab?u-'s-s?n? or Rab?u-'l-?khir; 5, Jum?d?u-'l-?l?; 6, Jum?d?u-'s-s?n? or Jum?d?u-'l-?khir; 7, Rajab; 8, Sha'b?n; 9, Ramaz?n; 10, Shavv?l; 11, Z?-'l-ka'dah, or Z?-ka'd; 12, Z?-'l-hijjah, or Z?-hajj. Many stories of these months were told to me by the priests and the pilgrims whom I met at Mecca, and it is therefore my intention to tell over again the stories of the most cherished months of the Muslim year. These are Rajab, Sha'b?n, Ramaz?n, Shavv?l, Z?-'l-ka'dah, Z?-'l-hijjah, and Muharram.

On the Day of Judgment, the Holy Muezzin, sitting on the Throne, will cry out, ere he pass judgment on the Faithful, saying: "O moons of Rajab, Sha'b?n, and Ramaz?n, how stands it with the deeds of this humble slave of ours?" The three moons will then prostrate themselves before the Throne, and answer: "O Lord, we bear witness to the good deeds of this humble slave. When he was with us he kept on loading his caravans with provisions for the next world, beseeching Thee to grant him Thy divine favour, and expressing his perfect contentment with the fate that Thou hadst sent unto him." After them their guardian-angels, meekly kneeling on their knees, will raise their voices in praise of the pious Muslim, crying: "O Lord God Almighty, we also bear witness to the good deeds of this humble slave of Thine. On earth his eyes, his ears, his nose, his mouth, and his stomach were all obedient both to whatsoever Thou hast forbidden and also to whatsoever Thou hast made lawful. The days he passed in fasting, and the nights in sleepless supplication. Verily he is a good doer!" Then Allah will command his slave to be borne into Paradise on a steed of light, accompanied by angels, and by all the rewards of his piety on camels of light, and there he will be conducted to a palace whose foundation is laid in everlasting felicity, and whose inmates never grow old. The moon of Rajab is the month of Allah. It is said that there is a stream of that name in Paradise, whose water is white, and more wholesome than milk and sweeter than honey. The first to welcome the new arrival will be this stream, which will straightway wend its course round his palace. To Salim, one of his disciples, Muhammad is reported to have said: "If you keep fast for one day during the month of Rajab you will be free from the terror of death, and the agony of death, from the percussion of the grave, and the loneliness thereof. If you keep fast for two days the eight doors of Paradise will be opened unto you."

The authoritative tradition goes that a crier will make himself heard from between the earth and the sky, summoning the pious who observed the prayers and the privations of the moon of Rajab: "Oh, ye Rajabians, come forth and present yourselves before your Creator." Then the Rajabians, whose heads will be crowned with pearls and rubies, and whose faces will be bathed in the universal light, will arise and stand before the Throne. And each one among them will have a thousand angels on his right hand and a thousand on his left, and they will shout with one accord, saying: "O, ye Rajabians, may ye be deserving of all the holy favours ye are about to receive!" And last of all, Allah, in his mercy, will say to them: "O my male and female slaves, I swear by my own magnanimity, that I will give you lodgings in the most delightful nooks of my Paradise, namely, in the palaces around which flow the most refreshing streams of purest water."

A baby is to the Muslim a symbol of purity: and so a man who worships God in the month of Rajab will become like unto a new-born child, always provided that he repent of the sins which he has committed, and follow the law of the Prophet. Not until then will the pious Rajabian be in a fit state, in his character of new-born babe, to start life afresh. The Muhammadans, in so far as duty and obedience are concerned, put on pretty much the same footing the relation of the slave to his master, of the wife to her husband, of the child to its parent, and of the guest to his host. The parallel between the last-mentioned and the preceding is complete because the guest must acquiesce in his host's will, which is supreme. In the matter of repentance, that of Nessouh is exemplary among the Muhammadans.

Now, this man Nessouh was in his face and his voice so like a woman that his wicked nature persuaded him to wear skirts that he might add to his experience of the opposite sex by mixing freely among its members. Soon, his curiosity growing in ratio with his acquired knowledge, we hear of him as an attendant in the hammam of the royal seraglio, where he might have pursued his studies in peace and in rapture had not one of the Royal Princesses, who had lost a ring, cast suspicion on every servant in turn. The seed of Nessouh's repentance was sown when the decree went out that all the attendants of the baths were to be searched. The fear lest his sex should be discovered yielded so swiftly to repentance for having veiled it, that Almighty Allah despatched an angel from Paradise to discover the missing treasure before the decree took effect; and thenceforward Nessouh, out of the gratitude of his heart, renounced his studies of human nature in petticoats, and vied with the most rigid disciplinarians in prayer and in fasting. His virtues grew so conspicuous in male attire that his repentance has come to be accepted as worthy of imitation by every true Believer.

According to tradition it was on the first day of God's moon that Noah, having taken his seat in the Ark, commanded all the men and jinns and beasts that were with him to keep fast from sunrise to sunset. On the evening of the same day, when the sun was going down, the Ark, riding over the flood, would have heeled over had not Allah sent seventy thousand of his angels to the rescue. It is interesting to note that the number of all the traditional rewards of virtue, as well as that of such of the heavenly hosts as lend their assistance in cases of distress, is always a multiple of seven. A Meccan priest added the following to my collection of "rewards": God will build seventy thousand cities in Paradise, each city containing seventy thousand mansions, each mansion seventy thousand houris, each houri surrounded by seventy thousand beautiful serving women, for the pilgrim--mark this--who shall say his prayers with the best accent on the H?jj Day. The Mull? in question was himself a perfect Arabic scholar; his enunciation in reciting the forthcoming bliss was faultlessly correct; each syllable seemed to pay his lips the tribute of a kiss for the pleasure it had derived from listening to the mellifluous sound of its predecessors. This learned priest will be in his element on all scores should the Paradise of his invention be materialised.

As Rajab belongs to Allah so Sha'b?n is held sacred to the Prophet. For we read in the history of Isl?m that Muhammad, who entered Medina on the first day of the gracious moon, commanded the muezzins to make it known to his people that the good actions which they might perform during the month would help both himself and them to gain salvation; whereas their evil actions would be committed against his apostleship, and would on that account be the more severely punished hereafter.

Once a year, on the approach of Ramaz?n, the precincts of Paradise, and all its gardens and palaces, are illuminated, festooned, and decorated, and a most tuneful wind, known in Arabic by the name of Meshireh, makes music in the trees. Now, no sooner do the houris hear this sound than they rush out from their seclusion, and cry aloud: "Is there any one to marry us through the desire to perform a good deed towards the creatures of God?" Then, turning to Rezvan, the guardian of Paradise, "What night is this?" they ask; and Rezvan answers, "O ye fair-faced houris, this is the eve of the holy moon of Ramaz?n. The gates of Paradise have I ordered to be opened unto the fast-keepers of the Faith of the Faithful." Then Allah, addressing the angel who has the charge of Hell, says to him: "O M?lik, I bid thee to close thy gates against the fast-keepers of the faith of my Apostle." And next, summoning the Archangel of Revelations, He gives command, saying: "O Gabriel, go forth in the earth and put Satan in chains, and all his followers, that the path of my chosen people may be safe." So, on the first day of Ramaz?n, Gabriel swoops down on the earth accompanied by hosts of angels. He has six hundred wings, and opens all of them except two. In his hands he bears four green banners, emblems of the Muslim creed. These he plants on the summit of Mount Sinai, and on the Prophet's tomb at Medina, and in the Harem of Mecca. His army of angels bivouacs on the plains round about the Holy City and on the surrounding mountains. On the eve of the day of reward, which is called Ghadre, the angels are ordered to disperse throughout the Muslim world, and every true Believer seen praying during that night is embraced by one of them, and his prayer meets with an angelic Amen. At the dawn of Ghadre day a heavenly bugle recalls the angels to Mecca. When Gabriel returns to Heaven it is to say to Allah, "My Lord, all the true Believers have I forgiven in Thy name save those who have been constant wine-bibbers, or incurred the displeasure of their parents, or indulged in abusing their fellow Muslims."

The various sects of the Muhammadans disagree a good deal as to the date of Ghadre day. Some say it is on the 19th, some on the 21st, and others on the 23rd of the Muslim Lent; but all agree in believing it to be the day on which the books of deeds, good and evil, are balanced, and on which the angels make known to Muhammad the predestination of his followers for whom he intercedes. All Shi'ahs who would win a reputation for piety must keep Ahia, that is, pass the three nights above-mentioned in fasting and holy devotions--a penance of untold severity in that every day of the month must be similarly spent from sunrise to sundown. Through most ardent prayers on the 21st of Ramaz?n the devout Mussulman may win the privilege of becoming a H?j? in the following year. The 7th is the anniversary of Muhammad's victory over the Kuraish in the battle of Badre, and is a great day with all Islamites. For the rest, the Arabs follow the example of their Prophet in breaking their fast on dates and water; special angels are appointed to plant heavenly trees, and to build divine palaces in readiness for such of the Muslims as should neither neglect their religious purifications nor forget to behave themselves as "Allah's guests." Many Muslims, unquestionably, adhere strictly to all the rites and observances of the occasion; not a few, on the other hand, though they may fast during the day, devote the night to feasting. Indeed, in every capital of Isl?m, in Teheran, in Constantinople, and in Cairo, the darkling hours are given up by certain people to amusements and sometimes to vicious pursuits.

The heavenly hosts under the Archangel Gabriel, with his five hundred and ninety-eight wings wide open, and his green banner flying over the gate of the Ka'bah,--the heavenly hosts, I say, dispersing through the Muslim world on the eve of Ghadre will prevail on the ghosts of the one hundred and twenty-four thousand prophets to kiss the Muslims that are piously engaged at night, delivering them from the danger of drowning, of being buried under ruins, of choking at meal times, and of being killed by wild beasts. For them the grave will have no terror, and on leaving it a substantial cheque on the keeper of Paradise, crossed and made payable to bearer, will be placed in the hands of each one of them.

On the first day of the moon of Shavv?l, the fast of Ramaz?n being over, all true Muslims are supposed to give away in charity a measure of wheat, barley, dates, raisins, or other provisions in common use. The guests who stay over the preceding night are entitled to receive a portion of the alms distributed by the master of the house next morning; and hence only the poor and needy are invited to accept hospitality on the occasion of the Zikat-?-Fetre--that is, the festival of alms-giving. The fulfilment of the law is believed not only to produce an increase of wealth in the forthcoming year, but also to cleanse the body of all impurities. So much for the rewards as a stimulus to honesty. Now for the penalty as a deterrent from greed. In the third S?ra of the Kur?n it is written: "But let not those who are covetous of what God of His bounty hath granted them imagine that their avarice is better for them; nay, rather it is worse for them. For that which they have covetously reserved shall be bound as a collar about their necks on the day of the resurrection: and God is well acquainted with what ye do." Shiahs are reluctant to get married in the interval between the first of Shavv?l and the tenth of Z?-'l-hijjah, because the Prophet is said to have married Aishah, the enemy of 'Al?, about that time. On the other hand the Sunnis, who reverence that brilliant woman, commemorate her wedding day by solemnising their own during this season, unless they are performing the pilgrimage of Mecca.

The most sacred day of the following month--the moon of Z?-'l-ka'dah--is the twenty-fifth. On that day Adam was created; Abraham, Ishmael, and Jesus were born, and the Shiah Messiah, the concealed Im?m, will come again to judge the world. A Muslim, if he keep fast on the twenty-fifth of Z?-'l-ka'dah, will earn the rewards of a man to whom Allah in his mercy should grant the privilege and the power of praying for nine hundred years. On the first of Z?-'l-hijjah, which is the month of pilgrimage, Abraham received from God the title of Al-Khal?l, or the Friend of Allah. It is accounted a good deed to fast from the first to the tenth day of this the last journeying month; it is also wise to do so, for it is not every month in the year that the Mussulman can win, by nine days of fasting, the fruits of a whole lifetime of self-denial. Another tradition deserving of mention in connection with this month is that Jesus, in the company of Gabriel, was sent to earth by God with five prayers, which he was commanded to repeat on the first five days of the pilgrims' moon; but the two holiest days of the moon of Z?-'l-hijjah are the ninth and the tenth. On the ninth, after morning prayer, the pilgrims, in olden times, departed from the Valley of Mina, whither they had come on the previous day, and rushed in a headlong manner to Mount Arafat, where a sermon is preached, and where they performed the devotions entitling them to be called H?j?s. But nowadays they pass through Mina to Mount Arafat without stopping on the outward journey; and at sunset, after the sermon is over, they betake themselves to Muzdalifah, an oratory between Arafat and Mina, and there the hours of the night are spent in prayer and in reading the Kur?n.

The custom of sacrificing a camel on the tenth day of Z?-'l-hijjah prevails among the Shiahs in most of the towns of Persia and of Central Asia. The ceremony varies with the locality; but the one we witnessed was so picturesque that we cannot refrain from describing it. For the first nine days the camel, richly caparisoned, is led through the streets of the city; half a dozen Dervishes, intoning passages of the Kur?n, swing along at the head of the procession; at every house the camel is made to halt, and subscriptions are raised towards its purchase-money and its maintenance. The victim, goaded on from street to street and from square to square, ends at last by collecting alms for its tormentors. On the eve of the Day of Sacrifice the camel is stripped of its gaudy trappings, and its body is, as it were, mapped out into portions with red ink, one portion being allotted to every quarter of the city. The place of sacrifice is usually outside the city walls, and early in the morning each district arms its strongest men to go and claim its share of the carcase. Each group may contain as many as twenty men, bristling from head to foot with uncouth weapons, and a band of drummers adds to the barbaric display the sounds of discordant music. One man in each group rides on horseback and wears a cashmere shawl; it is he who receives into his hands the sacrificial share of the parish he represents. Prayers are said, and then, at a given signal, the butcher prepares his knife, and the cutters appointed by the respective quarters make ready to hack the victim in pieces. The camel, bare of covering, and marked all over with the red lines, turns its supercilious eyes on the eager cutters, and they, in their turn, watch the butcher. The wretched victim may or may not be conscious of its fate. I believe it to be conscious; but, whether it is or not, there is no sign of terror in its eyes, only the customary look of sly disdain. No sooner does the butcher plunge the knife into the camel's windpipe than the cutters vie with one another as to who shall be the first to finish carving the still animate body, each allotted part of which is handed warm and well-nigh throbbing with life, to the horseman of the quarter to which it belongs. He takes it in procession to the house of the magistrate, who distributes it among the poor.

The blessed, having quenched their thirst in Muhammad's pond, are admitted into Paradise, and there they are entertained to dinner by the Supreme Host. For meat they will have the ox Bal?m and the fish N?n, and for bread--mark this--God will turn the whole earth into one huge loaf, and hand it to His guests, "holding it like a cake." When the repast is over they will be conducted to the palaces prepared for them, where they will dwell with the houris they have won by their good deeds on earth. They will fare sumptuously through all eternity, and without loss of appetite, eat as much as they will: for all superfluities will be discharged by sweat as fragrant as musk, so that the last morsel of food will be as comforting as the first.

The imagination of the tradition-mongers is not less extravagant when it busies itself with the holy festivals of the faith. The A'y?de-Shadir, perhaps the most important of these feast-days, falls on the eighteenth of Z?-'l-hijjah. Books might be written--nay, tomes innumerable have been filled--to do honour to the attributes of that day. In fact, Oriental exaggeration in general, and the Shiah superstition in particular, reach the climax of fancy in the description of the events that are supposed by the devout Shiah to have happened on the A'y?d of Ghadir. For was it not on the eighteenth of Z?-'l-hijjah that Muhammad mounted a camel, and, raising 'Al? in his arms, appointed this chivalrous cousin and son-in-law of his to be his lawful successor? This righteous act on the part of the Prophet is the corner-stone of the Shiah faith, and so it is not unnatural, perhaps, that it should have been made the source of unnumbered traditions. We read, among other inventions, that it was on that day that God chose to humiliate Satan by ordering an angel to rub his nose in the dirt; that the Archangel Gabriel, along with a host of angels, came down from heaven in the evening, bearing a throne of light, which he placed opposite to the Ka'bah, and from which he preached to his companions a stirring sermon in praise of Isl?m and its Prophet; that Moses had made his will in favour of Aaron and that Jesus had selected Simon Peter to go and preach to the Jews on the same day in their own lives.

The waters that acknowledged 'Al? to be the Prophet's successor became "sweet" or fresh on the eighteenth of Z?-'l-hijjah. The rest either remained salt or turned brackish. The birds that accepted 'Al? as Muhammad's heir were taught to sing like a nightingale or to talk like a parrot. Those that denied him were stricken deaf and dumb. For the angels who delighted to honour him a sumptuous palace was built with slabs of gold and silver in alternate order. Two hundred thousand domes crowned this edifice, and half of them were made of red rubies, and half of green emeralds. Through the courtyard flowed four rivers: one with water, one with milk, another with honey, and a fourth with wine. Trees of gold, bearing fruits of turquoise, grew along the banks, and on the branches were perched the most marvellous birds. Their bodies were made of pearls, their right wings of rubies, and their left wings of turquoises. All the hosts of heaven gathered together, praising God. The birds dived, singing, into the streams. The angels clapped their hands and shouted. The houris joined in the chorus. Then, with one accord, they all raised their voices in homage of 'Al? and his wife, the Prophet's daughter, Fatima. Lovers should remember to strengthen the bond of affection by exchanging rings. The men should kiss each other frequently whenever and wherever they meet. The servants should kiss their master's hands, and the children those of their parents. If a Muslim smile on his brother-Muslim on this holy a'y?d, God will smile on him on the day of the resurrection. If he die, he will receive the rewards of a martyr of the faith. If he call on a true believer, he will be visited in the grave when he draws his last breath by seventy thousand angels. If he neglect neither the ordained prayer nor the prescribed purification, he will be entitled to rank with the man to whom God has granted the rewards of one hundred thousand pilgrimages to Mecca. And a week later, on the 25th of Z?-'l-hijjah, the angel of revelations brought down from heaven to the Prophet the chapter of the Kur?n, entitled Man, and told Muhammad that God congratulated him on the virtues of his family.

Since the narrative which follows this introduction is written rather from the Persian and Shiah than from the Turkish and Sunni point of view, it is necessary for us to dwell briefly on two more important subjects in connection with Persian thought:-- on the love of metaphysical speculation which vindicates the claim of Aryan thought to be free, and which has given rise to the doctrines of S?f?ism,--our immediate consideration; and on the growth of Shiahism, the State religion, and more particularly in its relation to the Passion-Drama, which is the outcome of the Muharram celebrations in honour of Huseyn's martyrdom.

Now the S?f?s, who are split up into numerous sects, with slightly varying doctrines, speak of themselves as travellers, for they regard life as a journey from their earthly abode to the spiritual world. The stages between them and their destination are reckoned as seven. Some call them seven regions, and others seven towns. Unless the traveller get rid of his animal passions and pass safely through these seven stages he cannot hope to lose himself in the ocean of Union, nor slake his thirst for immortality in the unexampled wine of Love. The first region before the traveller, the region of Aspiration, can only be traversed on the charger of Patience. Though a thousand temptations beset him on the road he must not lose heart, but must seek to cleanse his mind from all selfish desires. Other-worldliness should alone absorb his thoughts, and to that end the gates of friendship and of enmity should be closed against the people of the world. Only thus can he find his way into the heart of the realm, wherein every traveller is a lover in search of the True Beloved.

One day Majn?n, whose love for Laili has inspired many a Persian poet, was playing in a little sand heap when a friend came to him and said--"Why are you wasting your time in an occupation so childish?" "I am seeking Laili in these sands," replied Majn?n: whereat his friend, all lost in amazement, cried--"Why, Laili is an angel, so what is the use of seeking her in the common earth?" "I seek her everywhere," said Majn?n, bowing his head, "that I may find her somewhere."

And so the traveller, on this stage of his pilgrimage, should regard no earthly abode as too humble a shrine for the spirit of the True Beloved. He should eat, but only to live; he should drink, but only to love; and, though all worldlings should be shunned, he should keep in touch with the hearts of his fellow-travellers lest, peradventure, he might lose a guide to his destination. Now, if he find in this region some sign from the Unsigned, and trace the lost Beloved, he will pass forthwith into the limitless bourne of Devotion, and see the setting of the sun of Inspiration, and watch in rapture the dawn of Love. At this time the crops of Wisdom are burnt in the fire of Affection, and the traveller loses all consciousness of self; he knows neither knowledge nor ignorance; he recognises neither certainty nor doubt; but, turning his back on the dusk of perplexity, he rides breast forward on the charger of Pain and Endurance, drawing ever nearer to the light of salvation. In this Kingdom of the Soul, he will know nothing but tribulation unless he strive strenuously to escape from himself on the wings of self-renunciation. "Oh, traveller, if thou wouldst gaze on the Joseph face of thy Beloved turn not away from the Egypt of Love! And wouldst thou attain to divine truth, oh learn the way of friendship from the grate, consuming thyself for the sake of the True Beloved! For the love that thou wouldst find demands the sacrifice of self to the end that the heart may be filled with the passion to stand within the Holy of Holies, in which alone the mysteries of the True Beloved can be revealed unto thee. This is so."

And thenceforward the traveller, his heart aglow with the sacred fire of Love, tears aside the curtain of earthly passions, and wins his way into the Kingdom of Knowledge. He has passed by slow degrees from doubt into certainty and from darkness into light. Seeing with clearer eyes he is now quick to discern wisdom in ignorance and in oppression justice. Then, on ascending hopefully the ladder of Wisdom, he rises higher and higher above the ocean of being, and enters into closer communion with the spirit of the one he seeks. The arc of truth becomes an almost perfect round, and he is drawn irresistibly towards the centre, where dwells the object of his quest. After traversing the realm of knowledge, which is the last stage of fear, the traveller enters the first City of Union, and drinks deep from the bowl of its spirit: and the next thing he does is to enter the chamber of the True Beloved. As all the shine of the sea and its shade are reflected in the heart of a single pearl, so now the infinite splendour is manifested within the traveller's soul. Looking round him with the eyes of Unity he recognises his true identity in that of his host, and reads the name of the Beloved in his own name. The circle of his aspirations will soon be complete, for the sun of divine grace is seen to rise equally on all creatures; and he is prepared in spirit to advance one step nearer the end. And soon, on the breeze of godly independence, which blows from the spirit's flame and burns the curtain of poverty, the traveller is borne into the City of Freedom. There he will know no sorrow, but will pass through the gates of joy, and, though he be on the earth, will ride the heaven of power, and quench his thirst in the wine of love. The sixth stage on the road to immortality is that of Amazement. Sometimes he will notice perfect poverty in riches, and sometimes perfect wealth in poverty. His surprise will grow at every step. Each second will bring a fresh revelation. Now he will dive into the ocean of divine omniscience, and now be carried to the crest of omnipotence divine.

When Muhammad died he was succeeded by his father-in-law, Ab? Bekr, a man of great prudence and sincere piety. His rule was accepted by all the Prophet's companions, if we except the Hashemites, who, under the leadership of 'Al?, declined at first to take the oath of fidelity. But the death of Fatima, the wife of 'Al?, so subdued the spirit of her husband that he made his peace with the aged Caliph, who died after a reign of two years, bequeathing his sceptre to the iron hand of the incorruptible Omar. In the twelfth year of a reign of unexampled glory Omar was assassinated, and his successor was elected by six of his most trustworthy lieutenants. Othman, the man chosen by them, had been Muhammad's secretary: he was not a successful ruler. His helpless character and resourcelessness of mind succumbed to the burden of his responsibilities; his subjects rose in arms throughout his Empire, and the treachery of one of his secretaries hastened his downfall. The brother of Ayeshah is believed to have led the assassins, and Othman, with the Kur?n on his knees, was pierced with a multitude of wounds. He died in the year 655 A.D., in the eleventh year of his reign. The inauguration of 'Al? put an end to the anarchy that ensued; but, with all his bravery and all the brilliancy of his endowments, 'Al? was alike too forbearing and too magnanimous to cope successfully with the difficulties of his position. He was not so much a politician as a poet turned knight-errant, a religious enthusiast turned soldier. The first Caliph would have secured the allegiance of Telha and Zobeir, two of the most powerful of the Arabian chieftains, by gifts. Omar, the second Caliph, would have insured his authority and checked their lawlessness by casting them into prison. Whereas 'Al?, from purely chivalrous motives, left them to their own devices without, however, in his contempt for what he had condemned in another as self-seeking generosity, bribing them to keep the peace. And so Telha and Zobeir escaping from Medina, fled, and raised the standard of revolt in Assyria. The Prophet's widow, Ayeshah, the implacable enemy of 'Al?, accompanied them, and was present at the battle in which the Caliph, at the head of twenty-nine thousand men, defeated the enemy, and in which the rebel leaders were slain. This battle was called the Day of the Camel: for, "in the heat of the action, seventy men, who held the bridle of Ayeshah's camel, were successively killed or wounded; and the cage or litter in which she sat was struck with javelins and darts like the quills of a porcupine." Ayeshah was reproached by the victorious 'Al?, and then sent under escort to Medina where she lived to the end of her days at her husband's tomb.

Meanwhile, Moawiyah, the son of Ab? Sophian, had assumed the title of Caliph and won the support of the Syrians and the interest of the house of Ommiyah, and against him 'Al? now marched. Mounted on a piebald horse, and wielding his two-edged sword with terrific effect, he literally ploughed his way through the ranks of the Syrians, crying out at every stroke of the blade, "God is victorious." In the course of the night in which the battle raged he was heard to repeat "that tremendous exclamation" four hundred times. Nothing save flight would have saved his enemies, had not the crafty Moawiyah exposed on the foremost lances the sacred books of the Kur?n, thus turning the pious zeal of his opponents against themselves; and 'Al?, in the face of his followers' awe, was constrained to submit to a humiliating truce. In his grief and anger he retreated to Kufa; his party was dejected; the distant provinces of Persia, of Yemen, and of Egypt acclaimed his stealthy rival; and he himself, in the mosque of his city of refuge, fell a victim to a fanatic's knife.

Moawiyah, after the death of 'Al?, brought about the abdication of the latter's son Hasan, who, retiring without regret from the Palace of Kuf?, went to live in a hermit's cell near the tomb of the Prophet, his grandfather. There he was poisoned, and, as many believe, by his wife. But Huseyn, his younger brother, was not set aside so easily. In every way worthy to inherit the regal and sacerdotal office, he added to Hasan's benevolence and piety, no insignificant measure of his father's indomitable spirit, having served with honour against the Christians in the siege of Constantinople. So that, when Moawiyah proclaimed his son Yazid, who was as dissolute as he was weak-minded, to be the Commander of the Faithful and the successor of the Apostle of God, Huseyn, who was living in Medina at the time, scorned to acknowledge the title of the youth, whose vicious habits he despised. One hundred and forty thousand Muslims of Kuf? and thereabouts professed their attachment to Huseyn's cause, and a list of these adherents of his was transmitted to Medina. Against the advice of his wisest friends, he resolved to traverse the desert of Arabia, and to appear on the banks of the Euphrates--a river held sacred to this day by every Shiah. He set out with his family, crossed the barren expanse of desert, and approached the confines of Assyria, where he was alarmed by the hostile aspect of the country and "suspected either the ruin or the defection of his party." His fears were well founded. Obeidullah, the Governor of Kuf?, had quelled the rising insurrection; and Huseyn, in the plain of Kerbela, was surrounded by a body of five thousand horse, who cut off his communication with the city and the river. Rather than retreat to a fortress in the desert and confide in the fidelity of the tribe of Tai he proposed to the chief of the enemy the choice of three honourable courses of action--that he should be allowed to return to Medina, or be stationed in a frontier garrison against the Turks, or safely conducted to the presence of Yazid. He was informed that he must surrender unconditionally or accept the consequences of his rebellion. "Do you think to terrify me with death?" he replied, and to his sister Zainab, who deplored the impending ruin of his house, he said: "Our trust is in God alone. All things, both in heaven and in earth, must perish and return to their Creator. My brother , my father , my mother , were better than I am; and every Mussulman has an example in the Prophet." His little band of followers consisted only of thirty-two horsemen and forty foot soldiers. He begged them to make good their own escape by a hasty flight; but they held firm to their allegiance, refusing to desert him in his straits. In return he prayed that God might accept his death as a propitiation for their sins; they vowed they would not survive him, and the family of the Tent, as Huseyn and his fellow-martyrs are lovingly called by the Shiahs, passed the night in holy devotions.

The last hours of their lives cannot be more tersely told, and therefore more suitably to our purpose, than in the words of Gibbon:

"On the morning of the fatal day, Huseyn mounted on horseback, with his sword in one hand and the Kur?n in the other; his generous band of martyrs were secured in their flanks and rear, by the tent-ropes and by a deep trench which they had filled with lighted faggots, according to the practice of the Arabs. The enemy advanced with reluctance, and one of their chiefs deserted, with thirty followers, to claim the partnership of inevitable death. In a very close onset, or single combat, the despair of the Fatimites was invincible; but the surrounding multitude galled them from a distance with a cloud of arrows, and the horses and men were successively slain: a truce was allowed on both sides for the hour of prayer; and the battle at length expired by the death of the last of the companions of Huseyn. Alone, weary, and wounded, he seated himself at the door of his tent. As he tasted a drop of water he was pierced in the mouth with a dart; and his son and nephew, two beautiful youths, were killed in his arms. He lifted his hands to heaven; they were full of blood, and he uttered a funeral prayer for the living and the dead. In a transport of despair his sister issued from the tent, and adjured the general of the Cufians that he would not suffer Huseyn to be murdered before his eyes; a tear trickled down his venerable beard; and the boldest of his soldiers fell back on every side as the dying hero threw himself among them. The remorseless Shamer, a name detested by the Faithful, reproached their cowardice; and the grandson of Mahomet was slain with three and thirty strokes of lances and swords. After they had trampled on his body, they carried his head to the castle of Kuf?, and the inhuman Obeidullah struck him on the mouth with a cane. 'Alas!' exclaimed an aged Mussulman, 'on these lips have I seen the lips of the Prophet of God!' In a distant age and climate the tragic scene of the death of Huseyn will awaken the sympathy of the coldest reader. On the annual festival of his martyrdom, in the devout pilgrimage to his sepulchre, his Persian votaries abandon their souls to the religious frenzy of sorrow and indignation."

The date of Huseyn's death was the tenth of Muharram. The month is one of mourning throughout the Shiah world, every man and every woman wearing black, and Passion plays based on the tragedy of the Tent being performed in all the chief cities and even in the more important villages of Persia, while the day itself is made the occasion of a yearly outburst of grief, of rage, and of fanaticism, which is as unbridled as it is sincere. On this the Day of Cutting, processions bearing banners draped in black pass weeping through the streets; the Muslim Friars, or, to give them their true title, the Seyyid R?s? Kh?ns, lead the way, rending their naked breasts with knives or with needles, and swelling the shouts of "Y?-Huseyn! Y?-Hasan!" with the refrains of their wildest hymns. The flow of blood drives the populace beside itself. In every thoroughfare men of the lower classes run to join the ranks of the mourners, laying bare their right shoulders and breasts to the weapons they carry. And soon every ward of every city in the country echoes and re-echoes, not less to the curses showered on the head of Omar, than to the cries in lamentation of 'Al?'s assassination, of Hasan's murder, and of Huseyn's martyrdom. The universal mourning animates the collective body of the nation as with one soul. If it is mixed with a mean hatred for a man of unrivalled integrity and force of character, it is still, as the expression of the nation's love for its chosen hero, a sentiment of loyal devotion and enduring compassion. The noise of the grief over Huseyn's remote death may ring discordant, unphilosophic, and almost barbaric, in these days of the lukewarm enthusiasms and uninspiring scepticism which sap the energies of the more cultured of mankind; but it rings all the more moving to those who can hear and understand. For "it is the noise of the mourning of a nation" mighty in its grief, as Lionel Tennyson has it.

So true and so deep is this outburst of sorrow that every Englishman who believes the Persian people to be corrupt should weigh well his evidence before he passes a sentence so sweeping and so unjust. The nobility of a nation is dependent, not so much on ends which consist in "immediate material possession" of European means and methods of transport, as "on its capability of being stirred by memories," on its faculty to animate an alien creed with the breath of its own spirit, or on the courage of its conscience to remain incorruptible in the day of persecution and death. These tests, though they be of the spirit and as such unworthy of the consideration of a trading nation and a commercial age, would, if applied to Persia, raise that distressful country to the rank of the first eminence. The power of steam, though it rules the waves and devours distance, has its limits as a civilising influence, among mankind. It cannot fill the hungry heart, though it may be the means of overloading the belly; much less, if less may be, can it inspire in the soul by its achievements the passion whereof the religious drama of Persia is the embodiment. The incorruptibility of the Persian's outlook on spiritual truth has been vindicated in the blood of countless martyrs, and out of his susceptibility to be inspired by the heroism of the mighty dead, or, to put the proposition more particularly, out of his unfeigned devotion to the memory of the family of the Tent, has sprung the Shiah Passion-drama, as from the depth of a whole Empire's sorrow. Were it not so, the growth of the Miracle-play, that passionate outcry of the Aryan spirit in the Persian Muslim, would be a miracle indeed.

The truth is, the Shiah religious drama makes a most touching appeal to the best qualities of the heart and the mind. In its pathos, the episode of the Tent recalls the tragedy of Calvary, and the virtues of the members of the House of Hashem might have been modelled on those of the twelve Apostles of Christ. The sublime figure of Huseyn stands out among them as the redeemer of his people. As the Founder of Christianity was tempted of the devil in the wilderness to forego His lofty mission that He might gain a worldly kingdom, so Huseyn, in the scene on the plain of Kerbela, rejects the assistance offered to him by the King of the Jinns on purpose to atone for the sins of his people by death. On the Cross Christ's heart forsook him--once, and only once. It was when He cried: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" In like manner the heroic Huseyn, within sight of Kuf?, having to baffle the attack of Yaz?d and his hosts by turning aside from the direct road leading to his city of refuge, and seeing the exceeding anguish of his beloved sister Zainab, had felt the sting of his own destiny: "Ye crooked conducted spheres," he had cried, "how long will ye tyrannise over us? How long will ye act thus cruelly to the family of God's Prophet?" Then, nerving himself to the trial, he prophesied his death on the morrow, and said, with his customary fortitude, that the sacrifice of himself and his companions was not a cause for grief, since it would work for the salvation of his grandfather's people; and thenceforward his resolution to meet the fate he had chosen for himself never swerved; not even when the very angels of heaven sought to save his life from sheer love of a soul so dauntless and so incorruptible.

The reward of his martyrdom is won in the last scene of all, which represents the resurrection. The Prophet, failing to save his followers from punishment, notwithstanding the united efforts of himself, of 'Al?, and of Hasan, throws away his rod, his cloak, and his turban, in his disappointment. Nor is he in the least pacified until Gabriel makes it clear to him that Huseyn, who "has suffered most," must lend him the assistance he requires. The compassionate heart of the man is wrung, so that when Huseyn makes his appearance it is to receive from his magnanimous grandsire the key of intercession. The Prophet says to him: "Go thou, and deliver from the flames every one who hath in his lifetime shed a single tear for thee, every one who hath in any way helped thee, every one who hath performed a pilgrimage to thy shrine, or mourned for thee, and every one who hath written tragic verses to thee. Bear each and all with thee to Paradise." And this being done, all the sinners redeemed by their mediator enter into heaven, crying: "God be praised! by Huseyn's grace we are made happy, and by his favour we are delivered from destruction."

One word more. Among the sinners whom Muhammad commanded Huseyn to rescue from hell-fire, as the reader will have read, perhaps with a smile, were those who had written tragic verses in praise of the martyr of the Tent. His smile may, possibly, ring out in a laugh when we inform him that the Seyyid R?z? Kh?ns, the Shiah friars, are said to have been the originators of the Passion-drama. The foresight of the authors in thus securing for themselves an entrance into Paradise and for their fellow-writers the yearly prayers of the endless generations of mankind, was it not ingenuously artful?

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet