Observations on the Mussulmauns of India

LETTER X

The Zuck­haut (God's por­tion).--Syaads re­strict­ed the ben­efit of this char­ity.--The Sutkah.--The Emaum's Za­umunee (pro­tec­tion).--The Tenths, or Syaads' Due.--Mus­sul­mauns at­tribute thanks to God on­ly, for all ben­efits con­ferred.--Ex­tracts from the 'Hyaa­tool Kaaloob'.--Mahu­mud's ad­vice.--His pre­cepts tend to in­cul­cate and en­cour­age char­ity.--Re­marks on the benev­olence of Mus­sul­mauns.

On the sub­ject of Zuck­haut, com­mand­ed by Mahu­mud to his fol­low­ers, I shall have lit­tle to re­mark;--the na­ture of the in­sti­tute is in­tend­ed to oblige mankind to share with the poor a due por­tion of those ben­efits they have re­ceived through the boun­ty of Di­vine Prov­idence. Ev­ery Mus­sul­maun is ex­pect­ed by this law to set apart from his an­nu­al in­come one-​for­ti­eth part, de­nom­inat­ed Zuck­haut (God's por­tion), for the sole ben­efit of the poor. I be­lieve there are not many,--judg­ing by what I have wit­nessed among the Mus­sul­maun pop­ula­tion of Hin­doost­aun,--who do not ex­pend a much larg­er por­tion of their year­ly in­come in char­ita­ble do­na­tions, than the en­joined for­ti­eth part.

The poor Syaads are not al­lowed to re­ceive any re­lief from 'the Zuck­haut'[1]; they be­ing of the Prophet's blood, are not to be in­clud­ed with the in­di­gent for whom these do­na­tions are gen­er­al­ly set apart. The strict Mus­sul­maun of the Sheah sect usu­al­ly deducts one-​tenth[2] from what­ev­er mon­ey comes in­to his pos­ses­sion as 'the Syaads' due', to whom it is dis­tribut­ed, as prop­er ob­jects present them­selves to his knowl­edge; much in the same way as the tribe of Levi are en­ti­tled to the tenth of the pro­duce from their brethren of Is­rael by the Mo­sa­ic law.

The Syaads are like­wise re­strict­ed from ac­cept­ing many oth­er char­ita­ble of­fer­ings,--sutkah for in­stance--by which is meant the sev­er­al things com­pos­ing peace-​of­fer­ings, of­fer­ings in atone­ment, &c. The bet­ter to ex­plain this I must here de­scribe some of the habits of the Mus­sul­maun pop­ula­tion:--When any per­son es­capes from a threat­ened dan­ger, or ac­ci­dent, their friends send of­fer­ings of corn, oil, and mon­ey; all that is thus sent to the per­son pre­served, must be touched by his hand and then dis­tribut­ed amongst the poor and needy.

If any mem­ber of a fam­ily be ill, a tray is filled with corn, and some mon­ey laid on it: it is then placed un­der the bed of the sick per­son for the night; in the morn­ing this is to be dis­tribut­ed amongst the poor. Some peo­ple cook bread, and place it in the same way with mon­ey un­der the bed of the sick. All these things are called Sutkah[3] in what­ev­er form they are planned, which is done in a va­ri­ety of ways; and, when dis­tribut­ed to the poor, are nev­er to be of­fered to, nor al­lowed to be ac­cept­ed by, the Syaad race. The scape­goat, an an­imal in good health and with­out blem­ish, is an­oth­er of­fer­ing of the Sutkah de­nom­ina­tion: a Syaad is not al­lowed to be one of the num­ber to run af­ter the goat re­leased from the sick cham­ber.

When any one is go­ing a jour­ney, the friends send bands of silk or riband, in the folds of which are se­cured sil­ver or gold coins; these are to be tied on the arm of the per­son pro­ject­ing the jour­ney, and such of­fer­ings are called 'Emaum Za­umunee',[4] or the Emaum's pro­tec­tion. Should the trav­eller be dis­tressed on his jour­ney, he may, with­out blame, make use of any such de­posits tied on his arm, but on­ly in emer­gen­cies; none such oc­cur­ring, he is ex­pect­ed, when his jour­ney is ac­com­plished in safe­ty, to di­vide all these of­fer­ings of his friends amongst righ­teous peo­ple. The Syaads may ac­cept these gifts, such be­ing con­sid­ered holy,--paak[5] is the orig­inal word used, lit­er­al­ly clean.

They be­lieve the Emaums have knowl­edge of such things as per­tain to the fol­low­ers of Mahu­mud and his de­scen­dants. Thus they will say, when de­sir­ing bless­ings and com­forts for an­oth­er per­son, 'Emaum Za­umunee, Za­umunee toom kero!'[6] may the Emaums pro­tect you, and give you their safe sup­port!

The tenths, or Syaads' dues, are nev­er ap­pro­pri­at­ed to any oth­er use than the one de­signed. Thus they evince their re­spect to the de­scen­dants of Mahu­mud; by these tenths the poor­er race of Syaads are main­ly sup­port­ed; they rarely em­bark in trade, and nev­er can have any share in bank­ing, or such pro­fes­sions as would draw them in­to deal­ings of usury. They are chiefly em­ployed as writ­ers, moon­shies,[7] maul­vees, and mool­lahs, doc­tors of law, and read­ers of the Kho­raun; they are al­lowed to en­ter the army, to ac­cept of­fices of state; and if they pos­sess any em­ploy­ment suf­fi­cient to sup­port them­selves and fam­ily, the true Syaad will not ac­cept from his neigh­bours such char­ita­ble do­na­tions as may be of ser­vice to the poor brethren of his race. The Syaads, how­ev­er poor, are sel­dom known to in­trude their dis­tress­es, pa­tient­ly abid­ing un­til re­lief be sent through the in­ter­pos­ing pow­er of di­vine good­ness.

Such is the way in which they re­ceive the bless­ings show­ered by the or­der­ings of the Almighty, that one nev­er hears a Mus­sul­maun of­fer thanks to his earth­ly bene­fac­tor, in re­turn for present ben­efits; but 'Shooghur Al­lah!'[8] all thanks to God! I was some­what sur­prised when first ac­quaint­ed with these peo­ple, that they ac­cept­ed any kind of ser­vice done them with the same salu­ta­tion as when first meet­ing in the morn­ing, viz. salaam, and a bow. I in­quired of the Meer if there was no word in Hin­doost­au­nie that could ex­press the 'Thank you!' so com­mon to us in Eng­land? He bade me re­mark that the Mus­sul­mauns re­turn thanks to God when­ev­er they re­ceive a ben­efit from mor­tals, whom they con­sid­er but as the agents ap­point­ed by God to dis­tribute His gifts. 'All thanks to God!' is re­peat­ed with ev­ery ben­efit re­ceived; and this fol­lows ev­ery meal or cup of wa­ter as nat­ural­ly, as to eat or to drink is pre­ced­ed by 'Bis ma Al­lah!'[9]--In the name, or to the praise of God!

Amongst the many choice things I have gleaned from the work so of­ten quot­ed in my Let­ters, viz. 'Hyaa­tool Kaaloob', the fol­low­ing, through my Meer's aid in trans­la­tion, may here be in­sert­ed.

MAHU­MUD'S AD­VICE

'Ob­serve, ye faith­ful, there are five things most ac­cept­able to God the Cre­ator, from man, His crea­ture:--

1st. 'A gen­er­ous gift, made when you have the great­est ne­ces­si­ty your­self for that which you give away.

2nd. 'All gifts that are free-​will of­fer­ings of the heart, nei­ther ex­pect­ing nor de­sir­ing your boun­ty, should be re­ward­ed, ei­ther by re­turns or ac­knowl­edge­ments.

3rd. 'To be most hum­ble, when in the en­joy­ment of the great­est pros­per­ity.

4th. 'To pro­mote peace, when the rea­son for in­dulging your anger is most en­tic­ing.

5th. 'To for­give freely from the heart, when the pow­er to re­venge is present with you.'

You per­ceive a sys­tem of char­ita­ble feel­ing is in­cul­cat­ed by the laws of Mahu­mud; and in ev­ery-​day prac­tice it is found to be the promi­nent fea­ture in their gen­er­al habits. It is com­mon with the mean­est of the peo­ple to of­fer a share of their food to any one call­ing up­on them at meal-​time. I have seen this ami­able trait of char­ac­ter in all class­es of the peo­ple; and of­ten on a riv­er voy­age, or a land jour­ney, when the ser­vants cook their din­ner un­der a tree or by the bank of the riv­er, if a dog, which they con­sid­er an un­clean an­imal, ad­vances with­in their reach, a por­tion of their food is thrown to him with that kind­li­ness of feel­ing which in­duces them to share with the hun­gry, what­ev­er gifts they re­ceive from the Au­thor of all good.[10] Ex­cept in sea­sons of famine, no one need de­spair of hav­ing suf­fi­cient to sup­port na­ture, wher­ev­er the Mus­sul­mauns con­gre­gate. I speak it to their cred­it, and in jus­tice to their char­ac­ter.

[1] See p. 67.

[2] Known among In­di­an Musalmans as _dasaun­dh_, 'tithes'.

[3] _Sadaqah_, used in the Ko­ran (ii. 265) for alms­giv­ing. In In­dia the term is ap­plied to the cus­tom by which mon­ey, clothes, grain, &c., are waved over a pa­tient, or on­ly shown to him, and then giv­en away to beg­gars; or they are placed near the foot of a tree, on the bank of a riv­er, or where four roads meet, and are then sup­posed to car­ry away the dis­ease with them.--Jaf­fur Shur­reef, _Qanoon-​e-​Is­lam_, p. 252.

[4] _Imam za­mi­ni_, 'a gift to the guardian saint'. When about to go on a jour­ney, or when any mis­for­tune be­falls a per­son, a coin or met­al ring is tied up in a cloth coloured with turmer­ic, in the name of the Imam Za­min, and worn on his left arm. When the trav­eller reach­es his des­ti­na­tion, or gets rid of his af­flic­tion, it is tak­en off, and its val­ue, with some mon­ey in ad­di­tion, is spent in food or sweet­meats, which are of­fered in the name of the saint.--Jaf­fur Shur­reef, p. 182.

[5] _Pak_.

[6] _Imam Za­mani, Za­mani tum karo_.

[7] _Mun­shi_, 'a writ­er, sec­re­tary'.

[8] _Shukr Al­lah_.

[9] _Bi'smi'llah_: the full form is _bi'smi'llah'r-​rah­mani'r-​rahim_, 'In the name of Al­lah, the Com­pas­sion­ate, the Mer­ci­ful!' These lat­ter ti­tles are omit­ted when go­ing in­to bat­tle, or when slaugh­ter­ing an­imals.

[10] The Prophet or­dered that when a dog drinks from a ves­sel, it must be washed sev­en times, the first cleans­ing be­ing with earth. But the dog of the Sev­en Sleep­ers will be ad­mit­ted in­to Heav­en.--_Ko­ran_, xvi­ii. 17.