Observations on the Mussulmauns of India

LETTER I

In­tro­duc­to­ry Re­marks.--The char­ac­ter­is­tic sim­plic­ity of man­ners ex­hib­it­ed in Na­tive fam­ilies.--Their mu­nif­icent char­ity.--The Syaads.--Their de­scent, and the ven­er­ation paid to them.--Their pride of birth.--Fast of Mahur­rum.--Its ori­gin.--The Sheahs and Soonies.--Mem­oran­dum of dis­tances.--Mount Judee (Judea), the at­tribut­ed bury­ing-​place of Adam and Noah.--Mau­soleum of Ali.--The tomb of Eve.--Meer Had­jee Shaah.

I have promised to give you, my friends, oc­ca­sion­al sketch­es of men and man­ners, com­pris­ing the so­ci­ety of the Mus­sul­mauns in In­dia. Aware of the dif­fi­cul­ty of my task, I must en­treat your kind in­dul­gence to the weak­ness­es of a fe­male pen, thus ex­er­cised for your amuse­ment, dur­ing my twelve years' domi­cile in their im­me­di­ate so­ci­ety.

Ev­ery one who so­journs in In­dia for any length­ened pe­ri­od, will, I be­lieve, agree with me, that in or­der to pro­mote health of body, the mind must be em­ployed in ac­tive pur­suits. The con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly idle per­sons, of ei­ther sex, amongst Eu­ro­peans, are in­vari­ably most sub­ject to feel dis­tressed by the pre­vail­ing an­noy­ances of an In­di­an cli­mate: from a list­less life re­sults dis­con­tent, ap­athy, and of­ten dis­ease. I have found, by ex­pe­ri­ence, the salu­tary ef­fects of em­ploy­ing time, as re­gards, gen­er­al­ly, health­iness of body and of mind. The hours de­vot­ed to this oc­cu­pa­tion (trac­ing re­marks for the pe­rusal of far dis­tant friends) have passed by with­out a mur­mur or a sigh, at the height of the ther­mome­ter, or the length of a day dur­ing the sea­son of hot winds, or of that hu­mid heat which pre­vails through­out the pe­ri­od­ical rains. Time flies quick­ly with use­ful em­ploy­ment in all places; in this ex­haust­ing cli­mate ev­ery one has to seek amuse­ment in their own re­sources, from sun­rise to sun­set, dur­ing which pe­ri­od there is no mov­ing from home for, at least, eight months out of the twelve. I have not found any oc­cu­pa­tion so pleas­ant as talk­ing to my friends, on pa­per, up­on such sub­jects as may ad­mit of the trans­fer for their ac­cep­tance--and may I not hope, for their grat­ifi­ca­tion al­so?

The pa­tri­ar­chal man­ners are so of­ten pic­tured to me, in many of the ev­ery-​day oc­cur­rences ex­hib­it­ed in the sev­er­al fam­ilies I have been most ac­quaint­ed with in In­dia, that I seem to have gone back to that an­cient pe­ri­od with my new-​sought home and new friends. Here I find the mas­ter and mis­tress of a fam­ily re­ceiv­ing the ut­most ven­er­ation from their slaves and do­mes­tics, whilst the lat­ter are per­mit­ted to con­verse and give their opin­ions with a free­dom (al­ways re­spect­ful), that at the first view would lead a stranger to imag­ine there could be no great in­equal­ity of sta­tion be­tween the per­sons con­vers­ing. The un­de­vi­at­ing kind­ness to aged ser­vants, no longer ca­pa­ble of ren­der­ing their ac­cus­tomed ser­vices; the re­mark­able at­ten­tion paid to the con­ve­nience and com­fort of poor rel­atives, even to the most re­mote in con­san­guin­ity; the beam­ings of uni­ver­sal char­ity; the ten­der­ness of par­ents; and the im­plic­it obe­di­ence of chil­dren, are a few of those ami­able traits of char­ac­ter from whence my al­lu­sions are drawn, and I will add, by which my re­spect has been com­mand­ed. In their rev­er­en­tial homage to­wards par­ents, and in af­fec­tion­ate so­lic­itude for the hap­pi­ness of those ven­er­at­ed au­thors of their ex­is­tence, I con­sid­er them the most praise­wor­thy peo­ple ex­ist­ing.

On the spir­it of phi­lan­thropy ex­hib­it­ed in their gen­er­al char­ity, I may here re­mark, that they pos­sess an in­junc­tion from their Law­giv­er, 'to be uni­ver­sal­ly char­ita­ble'.[1] This com­mand is rev­er­enced and obeyed by all who are his faith­ful fol­low­ers. They are per­suad­ed that alms­giv­ing pro­pi­ti­ates the favour of Heav­en, con­se­quent­ly this be­lief is the in­duc­ing medi­um for cloth­ing the naked, feed­ing the hun­gry, sup­port­ing the weak, con­sol­ing the af­flict­ed, pro­tect­ing the fa­ther­less, shel­ter­ing the house­less trav­eller, and ren­der­ing the ear and the heart alive to the dis­tress­es of the poor in all sit­ua­tions. A good Mus­sul­maun nev­er al­lows the voice to pass un­heed­ed where the sup­pli­ant ap­plies, 'In the name of God', or 'For the love of God'.

I have of­ten been obliged to hear the Mus­sul­mauns ac­cused of an os­ten­ta­tious dis­play of their fre­quent acts of char­ity. It may be so in some in­stances; hu­man na­ture has fail­ings com­mon to all com­plex­ions. Pride may some­times open the purse of the af­flu­ent to the poor man's pe­ti­tion; but when the needy ben­efit by the rich, it is un­just to scru­ti­nize the heart's mo­tive, where the act it­self al­le­vi­ates the present suf­fer­ings of a fel­low-​crea­ture.

Im­po­si­tion is doubt­less of­ten prac­tised with suc­cess by the in­do­lent, who ex­cite the good feel­ings of the wealthy by a tale of woe; the sin rests with him who begs un­worthi­ly, not with him who re­lieves the sup­posed dis­tress­es of his poor­er neigh­bour. The very best of hu­man be­ings will ac­knowl­edge they de­rive ben­efits from the boun­ty of their Mak­er, not be­cause they are de­serv­ing, but that 'He is mer­ci­ful'.

I shall have oc­ca­sion to de­tail in my Let­ters some of the Mus­sul­maun ob­ser­vances, fes­ti­vals, &c., which can­not be ac­com­plished with­out feed­ing the poor; and, in jus­tice to their gen­er­al char­ac­ter, be it ac­knowl­edged, their lib­er­al­ity is not con­fined to those stat­ed pe­ri­ods.

The Syaads[2] (Meers[3]) are de­scen­dants from Mahu­mud, the ac­knowl­edged Prophet and Law­giv­er of the Mus­sul­mauns; and, as might be ex­pect­ed, are pe­cu­liar ob­jects of re­spect and favour amongst the true be­liev­ers (as those who hold their faith are des­ig­nat­ed). 'The poor Syaad's fam­ily' are the first to be con­sid­ered when the rich have de­ter­mined on dis­pens­ing gifts in char­ity. The Syaads, how­ev­er, are un­der pe­cu­liar re­stric­tions as re­gards the na­ture of those gifts which they are per­mit­ted to ac­cept. Mon­ey ob­tained by un­law­ful means, as for­bid­den in the Kho­raun[4] (usury for in­stance[5]), is deemed pol­lut­ed, and must nei­ther be of­fered to, nor ac­cept­ed by, these 'chil­dren of the Prophet'.

The Syaads are the Lords of Mus­sul­maun so­ci­ety, and ev­ery fe­male born to them is a La­dy (Be­gum[6]). Her­alds' of­fices they have none, but ge­neal­ogy is strict­ly kept in each Mus­sul­maun fam­ily, who can boast the high priv­ilege of bear­ing the Prophet's blood in their veins. The chil­dren of both sex­es are taught, from the time of their first speak­ing in­tel­li­gi­bly, to re­count their pedi­gree, up to Hasan, or Ho­sein, the two sons of Ali, by his cousin Fa­ti­ma, the daugh­ter of their Prophet: this forms a strik­ing part of their dai­ly ed­uca­tion, whilst they con­tin­ue in their moth­er's zeenah­nah[7] (la­dy's apart­ment); and, from the fre­quent rep­eti­tion, is so firm­ly fixed in the mem­ory, that they have no dif­fi­cul­ty in trac­ing their pedi­gree when­ev­er called up­on to do so, un­aid­ed by the manuscript ge­neal­ogy kept with care in the parental trea­sury.

This method of re­tain­ing lin­eage is not al­ways a check against im­pos­tors; many have tak­en up­on them­selves the hon­ourable dis­tinc­tion of the Syaad, with­out hav­ing the slight­est claim to the ti­tle; but when the cheat is dis­cov­ered such per­sons are dis­graced, and be­come aliens to the re­spectable. So many ad­van­tages are en­joyed by Syaads, that it is not sur­pris­ing there should be some, which have no right, anx­ious to be num­bered with those who are tru­ly the Mus­sul­maun lords; though such men are taught to be­lieve that, by the usurpa­tion, they shut them­selves out from the ad­van­tages of their Prophet's in­ter­ces­sion at the great day of judg­ment.

The Syaads are very tena­cious in re­tain­ing the pu­ri­ty of their race un­sul­lied, par­tic­ular­ly with re­spect to their daugh­ters; a con­sci­en­tious Syaad re­gards birth be­fore wealth in ne­go­ti­ations for mar­riage: many a poor la­dy, in con­se­quence of this prej­udice, lives out her num­bered days in sin­gle blessed­ness, al­though--to their hon­our be it told--many char­ita­bly dis­posed amongst the rich men of the coun­try have, with­in my rec­ol­lec­tion of In­di­an so­ci­ety, grant­ed from their abun­dance suf­fi­cient sums to de­fray the ex­pens­es of a union, and giv­en the mar­riage por­tion, un­so­licit­ed, to the daugh­ters of the poor­er mem­bers of this ven­er­at­ed race. A Syaad rarely speaks of his pe­cu­niary dis­tress­es, but is most grate­ful when re­lieved.

I am in­ti­mate­ly ac­quaint­ed with a fam­ily in which this pride of birth pre­dom­inates over ev­ery ad­van­tage of in­ter­est. There are three un­mar­ried daugh­ters, re­mark­able for their in­dus­tri­ous habits, moral­ity, and strict ob­ser­vance of their re­li­gious du­ties; they are hand­some, well-​formed wom­en, po­lite and sen­si­ble, and to all this they add an ac­com­plish­ment which is not by any means gen­er­al amongst the fe­males of Hin­doost­aun, they have been taught by their ex­cel­lent fa­ther to read the Kho­raun in Ara­bic--it is not al­lowed to be trans­lat­ed,[8]--and the Com­men­tary in Per­sian. The fame of their su­pe­ri­or­ity has brought many ap­pli­ca­tions from the heads of fam­ilies pos­sess­ing wealth, and de­sirous to se­cure for their sons wives so em­inent­ly en­dowed, who would waive all con­sid­er­ations of the mar­riage dowry, for the sake of the Be­gum who might thus adorn their un­ti­tled house. All these of­fers, how­ev­er, have been prompt­ly re­ject­ed, and the young ladies them­selves are sat­is­fied in procur­ing a scanty sub­sis­tence by the labour of their hands. I have known them to be em­ployed in work­ing the jaullie[9] (net­ting) for courties[10] (a part of the fe­male dress), which, af­ter six days' close ap­pli­ca­tion, at the ut­most could not re­al­ize three shillings each; yet I nev­er saw them oth­er than con­tent­ed, hap­py, and cheer­ful,--a fam­ily of love, and pat­terns of sin­cere piety.

The ti­tles and dis­tinc­tions con­ferred by sovereigns, or the Hon. East In­dia Com­pa­ny in In­dia, as Khaun,[11] Ba­had­hoor,[12] Nuwaub,[13] &c., are not ac­tu­al­ly hered­itary hon­ours, though of­ten pre­sumed on, and in­dulged in, by suc­ces­sors. The Syaads, on the con­trary, are the Meers and Be­gums (no­bil­ity) through­out their gen­er­ations to the end of time, or at any rate, with the con­tin­uance of the Mus­sul­maun re­li­gion.

Hav­ing thus far ex­plained the hon­ourable dis­tinc­tion of the Syaads, I pro­pose giv­ing you some ac­count of the Mahur­rum,[14] a cel­ebrat­ed mourn­ing fes­ti­val in re­mem­brance of their first mar­tyrs, and which oc­cu­pies the at­ten­tion of the Mus­sul­mauns an­nu­al­ly to a de­gree of zeal that has al­ways at­tract­ed the sur­prise of our coun­try­men in In­dia; some of whom, I trust, will not be dis­sat­is­fied with the ob­ser­va­tions of an in­di­vid­ual, who hav­ing spent many years of her life with those who are chief ac­tors in these scenes, it may be ex­pect­ed, is the bet­ter able to ex­plain the na­ture of that Mahur­rum which they see com­mem­orat­ed ev­ery year, yet many, per­haps, with­out com­pre­hend­ing ex­act­ly why. Those strong ex­pres­sions of grief--the som­bre cast of coun­te­nance,--the mourn­ing garb,--the self-​in­flict­ed ab­sti­nence, sub­mit­ted to by the Mus­sul­maun pop­ula­tion, dur­ing the ten days set apart for the ful­fil­ment of the mourn­ing fes­ti­val, all must have wit­nessed who have been in Hin­doost­aun for any pe­ri­od.

I must first en­deav­our to rep­re­sent the prin­ci­pal caus­es for the ob­ser­vance of Mahur­rum; and for the in­for­ma­tion of those who have wit­nessed its cel­ebra­tion, as well as for the ben­efit of oth­ers who have not had the same op­por­tu­ni­ty, de­scribe the man­ner of cel­ebrat­ing the event, which oc­curred more than twelve hun­dred years ago.

Hasan and Ho­sein were the two sons of Fa­ti­ma and Ali, from whom the whole Syaad race have gen­er­at­ed; Hasan was poi­soned by an emis­sary of the usurp­ing Calipha's;[15] and Ho­sein, the last sad vic­tim of the fam­ily to the King Yuzeed's[16] fury, suf­fered a cru­el death, af­ter the most se­vere tri­als, on the plains of Kraabaal­lah,[17] on the tenth day of the Ara­bi­an month Mahur­rum; the an­niver­sary of which catas­tro­phe is sol­em­nized with the most de­vot­ed zeal.

This brief sketch con­sti­tutes the ori­gin of the fes­ti­val; but I deem it nec­es­sary to de­tail at some length the his­to­ry of that pe­ri­od, which may the bet­ter ex­plain the mo­tives as­signed by the Mus­sul­mauns, for the deep grief ex­hib­it­ed ev­ery year, as the an­niver­sary of Mahur­rum re­turns to these faith­ful fol­low­ers of their mar­tyred lead­ers, Hasan and Ho­sein, who, with their de­vot­ed fam­ilies, suf­fered in­no­cent­ly by the hands of the guilty.

Yuzeed, the King of Shawm,[18] it ap­pears, was the per­son in pow­er, amongst the fol­low­ers of Mahu­mud, at that ear­ly pe­ri­od of Mus­sul­maun his­to­ry. Of the Soonie sect,[19] his ha­tred to the de­scen­dants of Mahu­mud was of the most in­vet­er­ate kind; jeal­ousy, it is sup­posed, aid­ed by a very wicked heart, led him to de­sire the ex­tir­pa­tion of the whole race, par­tic­ular­ly as he knew that, gen­er­al­ly, the Mus­sul­maun peo­ple se­cret­ly de­sired the im­me­di­ate de­scen­dants of their Prophet to be their rulers. They were, how­ev­er, in­tim­idat­ed by Yuzeed's au­thor­ity; whilst he, ev­er fear­ing the pos­si­bil­ity of the Syaads' restora­tion to their rights, re­solved, if pos­si­ble, on sac­ri­fic­ing the whole fam­ily, to se­cure him­self in his il­le­gal pow­er.

Ali had been treach­er­ous­ly mur­dered through the con­trivances of the usurp­ing Calipha; af­ter his death, the whole fam­ily re­moved from Shawm, the cap­ital, to Med­ina, where they lived some years in tran­quil­li­ty, mak­ing many con­verts to their faith, and ex­er­cis­ing them­selves in the ser­vice of God and vir­tu­ous liv­ing. Un­os­ten­ta­tious in their habits and man­ners, they en­joyed the af­fec­tion of their neigh­bours, their own good name in­creas­ing dai­ly, to the ut­ter dis­may of their sub­tle en­emy.

In the course of time, the de­vout peo­ple of Shawm, be­ing hearti­ly tired of Yuzeed's tyran­ni­cal rule, and fear­ing the true faith would be de­famed by the ex­cess­es and abus­es of pow­er com­mit­ted by him, they were de­sirous of call­ing to their aid a lead­er from the Prophet's fam­ily, who would se­cure, in its orig­inal pu­ri­ty, the per­for­mance of that re­li­gion which Mahu­mud had taught. Some thou­sands of re­spectable Mus­sul­mauns, it is re­lat­ed, signed a pe­ti­tion to Ho­sein, re­quest­ing his im­me­di­ate pres­ence at Shawm, in or­der, as the pe­ti­tion stat­ed, 'that the re­li­gion his grand­sire taught might be sup­port­ed and pro­mot­ed'; and declar­ing 'the volup­tuous­ness and in­famy of Yuzeed's life to be so of­fen­sive and glar­ing, that the true faith was en­dan­gered by his vi­cious ex­am­ples'; and en­treat­ing him to ac­cept his law­ful rights as 'Emaum'[20] (Lead­er of the Faith­ful).

Ho­sein re­ceived the pe­ti­tion, but de­clined ac­cept­ing the pro­posed resti­tu­tion of his fam­ily's rights at that time; yet he held out hopes in his re­ply, that he might even­tu­al­ly lis­ten to their en­treaties, should he be con­vinced his pres­ence was es­sen­tial to their wel­fare; and, as a pre­lude to this, he sent his cousin Moslem,[21] on whom he could re­ly, to make per­son­al ob­ser­va­tion of the re­al state of things at Shawm; ex­pect­ing to learn, from his ma­tured knowl­edge, the re­al caus­es of com­plaint, and the wish­es of the peo­ple, and by whose re­port he would be guid­ed, as to his fi­nal ac­cep­tance or re­jec­tion of the pro­posed mea­sure for his be­com­ing their lead­er.

Moslem, ac­com­pa­nied by his two sons, mere youths, left Med­ina on this im­por­tant mis­sion, and hav­ing ac­com­plished the te­dious march with­out ac­ci­dent or in­ter­rup­tion, he de­liv­ered Ho­sein's let­ters to those per­sons of con­se­quence in Shawm, who were at the head of the par­ty pe­ti­tion­ing his ap­pear­ance there, and who prof­fered their in­flu­ence and sup­port for the re­cov­ery of the rights and priv­ileges so long with­held from the de­scen­dants of Mahu­mud.

Moslem was kind­ly greet­ed by them, and mul­ti­tudes flocked to his quar­ters, declar­ing Ho­sein the law­ful lead­er of true Mus­sul­mauns. Elat­ed with these flat­ter­ing in­di­ca­tions, he too prompt­ly despatched his mes­sen­gers to Ho­sein, urg­ing his im­me­di­ate re­turn to Shawm.

In the mean time, and long be­fore the mes­sen­gers could reach Med­ina, Yuzeed, learn­ing the state of things in the cap­ital, was se­ri­ous­ly alarmed and great­ly en­raged; he is­sued or­ders for the seizure of Moslem and his chil­dren, and de­sir­ing to have them brought to his pres­ence, of­fered im­mense sums of mon­ey for their cap­ture. The friends of Moslem, how­ev­er, suc­ceed­ed, for a time, in se­cret­ing his per­son from King Yuzeed's emis­saries, trust­ing the dark­ness of night would en­able him to es­cape. But the slaves and de­pen­dants of the tyrant be­ing despatched in­to all quar­ters of the city, Moslem's re­treat was even­tu­al­ly dis­cov­ered; and, through the in­flu­ence of a purse of gold, his per­son was giv­en up to the King's par­ti­zans.

The un­for­tu­nate agent of Ho­sein had con­fid­ed the charge of his two sons to the Kauzy[22] of the city, when the first re­port reached him of the tyrant Yuzeed's fury. This faith­ful Kauzy, as the night ad­vanced, in­tend­ed to get the poor boys con­veyed to the halt­ing place of a Kaarawaun,[23] which he knew was but a few miles off, on their route for Med­ina. The guide, to whom the youths were in­trust­ed, ei­ther by de­sign or mis­take, took the wrong road; and, af­ter wan­der­ing through the drea­ry night, and suf­fer­ing many se­vere tri­als, they were tak­en pris­on­ers by the cru­el hus­band of a very ami­able fe­male, who had com­pas­sion­ate­ly, at first, giv­en them shel­ter as weary trav­ellers on­ly; but, on dis­cov­er­ing whose chil­dren they were, she had se­cret­ed them in her house. Her hus­band, how­ev­er, hav­ing dis­cov­ered the place of their con­ceal­ment, and iden­ti­fied them as the sons of Moslem, cru­el­ly mur­dered the in­no­cent boys for the sake of the re­ward of­fered for their heads. In his fury and thirst for gold, this wicked hus­band of the kind-​heart­ed wom­an spared not his own wife and son, who strove by their unit­ed ef­forts, al­ter­nate­ly plead­ing and re­sist­ing, to save the poor boys from his bar­barous hands.

This trag­ic event is con­veyed in­to pa­thet­ic verse, and as of­ten as it is re­peat­ed in the fam­ilies of the Mus­sul­mauns, tears of fresh sym­pa­thy are evinced, and be­wail­ings re­newed. This forms the sub­ject for one day's cel­ebra­tion dur­ing Mahur­rum; the boys are de­scribed to have been most beau­ti­ful in per­son, and ami­able in dis­po­si­tion.

Af­ter en­dur­ing ig­nominy and tor­ture, and with­out even be­ing brought to tri­al, Moslem was cast from a precipice, by Yuzeed's or­ders, and his life speed­ily ter­mi­nat­ed, to glut the vengeance of the tyrant King.

As the dis­as­trous con­clu­sion of Moslem's mis­sion had not reached the ear of Ho­sein, he, elat­ed with the favourable re­cep­tion of his cousin, and the prospect of be­ing re­ceived at Shawm in peace and good will, had with­out de­lay com­menced his jour­ney, ac­com­pa­nied by the fe­males of his fam­ily, his re­la­tions, and a few steady friends who had long de­vot­ed them­selves to his per­son and cause. The writ­ten doc­uments of that re­mark­able pe­ri­od no­tice, that the whole par­ty of Ho­sein, trav­el­ling from Med­ina to­wards Shawm, con­sist­ed on­ly of sev­en­ty-​two souls: Ho­sein hav­ing no in­ten­tion to force his way to the post of lead­er, had not deemed it nec­es­sary to set out with an army to aid him, which he un­doubt­ed­ly might have com­mand­ed by his in­flu­ence with the peo­ple pro­fess­ing 'the Faith'.

Yuzeed, in the mean time, hav­ing by his pow­er de­stroyed Moslem and the two youths his sons, and re­ceiv­ing pos­itive in­tel­li­gence that Ho­sein had quit­ted Med­ina to march for Shawm, as his fears sug­gest­ed, with an army of some mag­ni­tude, he or­dered out an im­mense force to meet Ho­sein on the way, set­ting a price on his head, and pro­claim­ing promis­es of hon­ours and re­wards, of the most tempt­ing na­ture, to the for­tu­nate man who should suc­ceed in the ar­du­ous en­ter­prise.

The first de­tach­ment of the Shawmies (as they are des­ig­nat­ed in the manuscript of Ara­bia), un­der a res­olute chief named Hurrh,[24] fell in with Ho­sein's camp, one day's march be­yond the far-​famed ground, amongst Mus­sul­mauns, of Kraabaal­lah, or Hurth Maa­ree,[25] as it was orig­inal­ly called.

Hurrh's heart was sub­dued when he en­tered the tent of the peace­able Ho­sein, in whose per­son he dis­cov­ered the ex­act re­sem­blance of the Prophet; and per­ceiv­ing that his small camp in­di­cat­ed a qui­et fam­ily par­ty jour­ney­ing on their way, in­stead of the formidable force Yuzeed's fears had an­tic­ipat­ed, this chief was sur­prised and con­found­ed, con­fessed his shame to Ho­sein that he had been in­duced to ac­cept the com­mand of the force despatched against the chil­dren of the Prophet, and urged, in mit­iga­tion of his of­fences, that he had long been in Yuzeed's ser­vice, whose com­mis­sion he still bore; but his heart now yearn­ing to aid, rather than per­se­cute the Prophet's fam­ily, he re­solved on giv­ing them an op­por­tu­ni­ty to es­cape the threat­ened vengeance of their bit­ter­est en­emy. With this view, he ad­vised Ho­sein to fall with his par­ty in­to the rear of his force, un­til the main body of the Shawmies had passed by; and as they were then on the mar­gin of a for­est, there to sep­arate and se­crete them­selves till the road was again clear, and af­ter­wards to take a dif­fer­ent route from the pro­posed one to Shawm.

Ho­sein felt, as may be sup­posed, grate­ful to his pre­serv­er; and, fol­low­ing his di­rec­tions, suc­ceed­ed in reach­ing the con­fines of Kraabaal­lah un­mo­lest­ed.

The an­cient writ­ings of Ara­bia say, Mahu­mud had pre­dict­ed the death of Ho­sein, by the hands of men pro­fess­ing to be of 'the true faith', at this very place Kraabaal­lah, or Hurth Maa­ree.

Ho­sein and his fam­ily hav­ing con­clud­ed their morn­ing de­vo­tions, he first in­quired and learned the name of the place on which their tents were pitched, and then im­part­ed the sub­ject of his last night's dream, 'that his grand­sire had ap­peared to him, and pro­nounced that his soul would be at peace with him ere that day closed'. Again he fell on his knees in de­vout prayer, from which he rose on­ly to ob­serve the first warn­ings of an ap­proach­ing army, by the thick clouds of dust which dark­ened the hori­zon; and be­fore the evening closed up­on the scene, Ho­sein, with ev­ery male of his small par­ty ca­pa­ble of bear­ing arms, had been hur­ried to their fi­nal rest. One son of Ho­sein's, in­sen­si­ble from fever at the time, was spared from the sac­ri­fice, and, with the fe­males and young chil­dren, tak­en pris­on­ers to the King's palace at Shawm.

The ac­count giv­en by his­to­ri­ans of this aw­ful bat­tle, de­scribes the courage and in­tre­pid­ity of Ho­sein's small band, in glow­ing terms of praise; hav­ing fought singly, and by their des­per­ate brav­ery 'each arm (they say) lev­elled his hun­dreds with their kin­dred dust ere his own gave way to the sway of death'.

Amongst the num­ber of Ho­sein's brave de­fend­ers was a nephew, the son of Hasan: this young man, named Cos­sum,[26] was the af­fi­anced hus­band of Ho­sein's favourite daugh­ter, Sakeena Koo­braah;[27] and pre­vi­ous to his go­ing to the com­bat on that event­ful day, Ho­sein read the mar­riage lines be­tween the young cou­ple, in the tent of the fe­males. I men­tion this here, as it points to one par­tic­ular part of the cel­ebra­tion of Mahur­rum, which I shall have oc­ca­sion to men­tion in due or­der, where­in all the out­ward forms of the wed­ding cer­emo­ny are strict­ly per­formed, an­nu­al­ly.

Dur­ing the whole of this ter­ri­ble day, at Kraabaal­lah, the fam­ily par­ty of Ho­sein had been en­tire­ly de­prived of wa­ter; and the riv­er Fraught[28] (Eu­phrates) be­ing block­ad­ed by their en­emies, they suf­fered ex­ceed­ing­ly from thirst. The hand­some Abass,[29] an­oth­er nephew of Ho­sein, and his stan­dard-​bear­er, made many ef­forts to pro­cure wa­ter for the re­lief of the al­most fam­ish­ing fe­males; he had, at one at­tempt, suc­ceed­ed in fill­ing the mushukh,[30] when, re­treat­ing from the riv­er, he was dis­cov­ered by the en­emy, was pur­sued and severe­ly wound­ed, the mushukh pierced by ar­rows, and the wa­ter en­tire­ly lost ere he could reach the camp.

In re­mem­brance of this pri­va­tion of the suf­fer­ers at Kraabaal­lah, ev­ery good Mus­sul­maun, at Mahur­rum, dis­tributes sher­bet in abun­dance, to all per­sons who choose to ac­cept this their favourite bev­er­age (sug­ar and wa­ter, with a lit­tle rose­wa­ter, or ku­rah,[31] to flavour it); and some char­ita­ble fe­males ex­pend large sums in milk, to be dis­tribut­ed in the pub­lic streets; for these pur­pos­es, there are neat lit­tle huts of sir­ra­kee[32] (a reed, or grass, re­sem­bling bright straw) erect­ed by the road side of the Mus­sul­mauns' hous­es; they are called saabeels,[33] where the red earth­en cups of milk, sher­bet, or pure wa­ter are seen ranged in rows, for all who choose to call for drink.

Ho­sein, say their his­to­ri­ans, was the last of the par­ty who suf­fered on the day of bat­tle; he was sur­round­ed in his own camp--where, by the us­age of war, at that time, they had no right to en­ter--and when there was not one friend­ly arm left to ward the blow. They re­late 'that his body was lit­er­al­ly man­gled, be­fore he was re­leased from his un­mer­it­ed suf­fer­ings'. He had mount­ed his favourite horse, which, as well as him­self, was pierced by ar­rows in­nu­mer­able; to­geth­er they sank on the earth from loss of blood, the cow­ard­ly spear­men pierc­ing his wound­ed body as if in sport; and whilst, with his last breath, 'Ho­sein prayed for mer­cy on his de­stroy­ers, Shimeear[34] end­ed his suf­fer­ings by sev­er­ing the al­ready pros­trate head from the mu­ti­lat­ed trunk'.--'Thus they sealed (say those writ­ers) the last­ing dis­grace of a peo­ple, who, call­ing them­selves Mus­sul­mauns, were the mur­der­ers of their Prophet's de­scen­dants.'

This slight sketch gives but the out­line of those events which are ev­ery year com­mem­orat­ed amongst the zeal­ous fol­low­ers of Ali, the class de­nom­inat­ed Sheahs.

The Mus­sul­maun peo­ple, I must here ob­serve, are di­vid­ed in­to two dis­tinct sects, viz. the Sheahs and the Soonies. The for­mer be­lieve Ali and his de­scen­dants were the law­ful lead­ers af­ter Mahu­mud; the lat­ter are per­suad­ed that the Caliphas, as Aboubuk­er, Omir, &c., were the lead­ers to be ac­cred­it­ed 'law­ful'; but of this I shall speak more ful­ly in an­oth­er Let­ter.

Per­haps the vi­olence of par­ty spir­it may have act­ed as an in­duce­ment to the Sheahs, for the zeal­ous an­nu­al ob­ser­vance of this pe­ri­od, so in­ter­est­ing to that sect; what­ev­er the mo­tive, we very of­ten find the two sects hoard up their pri­vate an­imosi­ties and dis­likes un­til the re­turn of Mahur­rum, which scarce­ly ev­er pass­es over, in any ex­ten­sive­ly pop­ulat­ed city of Hin­doost­aun, with­out a se­ri­ous quar­rel, of­ten ter­mi­nat­ing in blood­shed.[35]

I could have giv­en a more length­ened ac­count of the events which led to the sol­em­niza­tion of this fast, but I be­lieve the present is suf­fi­cient to ex­plain the mo­tives by which the Mus­sul­mauns are ac­tu­at­ed, and my next Let­ter must be de­vot­ed to the de­scrip­tion of the rites per­formed up­on the cel­ebra­tion of these events in In­dia.

P.S. I have a mem­oran­dum in my col­lec­tion which may here be copied as its prop­er place.

From Mec­ca, 'The Holy City', to Med­ina the dis­tance is twelve stages (a day's march is one stage, about twen­ty miles of En­glish mea­sure­ment). From Med­ina to Kraabaal­lah there are twen­ty-​one stages; this dis­tance is trav­elled on­ly by those who can en­dure great dif­fi­cul­ties; nei­ther wa­ter nor pro­vi­sions are to be met with on the whole jour­ney, ex­cept­ing at one halt, the name of which is Shim­maar. From Kraabaal­lah to Koofah is two stages.

In the vicin­ity of Koofah[36] stands Mount Judee[37] (Judea), on which is built, over the re­mains of Ali, the mau­soleum called Nudghiff Usheruff.[38] On this Mount, it is said, Adam and Noah were buried. Ali be­ing aware of this, gave di­rec­tions to his fam­ily and friends, that when­ev­er his soul should be re­called from earth, his mor­tal re­mains were to be de­posit­ed near those graves ven­er­at­ed and held sa­cred 'by the faith­ful'. The an­cient writ­ers of Ara­bia au­tho­rise the opin­ion that Ali's body was en­tombed by the hands of his sons, Hasan and Ho­sein, who found the earth open to re­ceive their sire, and which closed im­me­di­ate­ly on his re­mains be­ing de­posit­ed.

Here, too, it is be­lieved Noah's ark rest­ed af­ter the Del­uge. When pil­grims to Mec­ca make their zeearut[39] (all sa­cred vis­its are so called) to this Mount, they of­fer three prayers, in mem­ory of Adam, Noah, and All.

The grave of Eve is al­so fre­quent­ly vis­it­ed by pil­grims, which is said to be sit­uat­ed near Jed­dah; this, how­ev­er, is not con­sid­ered an in­dis­pens­able du­ty, but, as they say, prompt­ed by 're­spect for the Moth­er of men'.[40]

These re­marks, and many oth­ers of an in­ter­est­ing na­ture, I have been favoured with from the most ven­er­able aged man I ev­er knew, Meer Had­jee Shaah,[41] the revered fa­ther of my ex­cel­lent hus­band; who hav­ing per­formed the Had­je[42] (pil­grim­age) three sev­er­al times, at dif­fer­ent pe­ri­ods of his event­ful life--re­turn­ing af­ter each pil­grim­age to his home in Luc­know--and be­ing a per­son of strict ve­rac­ity, with a re­mark­ably in­tel­li­gent mind and re­ten­tive mem­ory, I have prof­it­ed large­ly by his in­for­ma­tion, and de­rived from it both amuse­ment and in­struc­tion, through many years of so­cial in­ter­course. When he had num­bered more than eighty years he dwelt with hope on again per­form­ing the Had­je, where it was his in­ten­tion to rest his earth­ly sub­stance un­til the great day of resti­tu­tion, and of­ten ex­pressed his wish­es to have me and mine to share with him the pil­grim­age he de­sired to make. But this was not al­lowed to his prayer; his sum­mons ar­rived rather un­ex­pect­ed­ly to those who loved and revered him for virtues rarely equalled; hap­pi­ly for him, his pure soul was pre­pared to meet his Cre­ator, in whose ser­vice he had passed this life, with all hu­mil­ity, and in whose mer­cy alone his hopes for the fu­ture were cen­tred.

[1] 'What­so­ev­er alms ye shall give, of a truth God knoweth it.... Give ye your alms open­ly? it is well. Do ye con­ceal them and give them to the poor? This, too, will be of ad­van­tage to you, and will do away your sins: and God is cog­nizant of your ac­tions' (_Ko­ran_, ii. 274-5).

[2] _Sayyid_, 'lord', 'chief, the class of Musalmans who claim de­scent from Fa­timah, daugh­ter of the Prophet, and 'Ali, his cousin-​ger­man and adopt­ed son; they are di­vid­ed in­to two branch­es de­scend­ed from Hasan and Hu­sain, sons of 'Ali and Fa­timah.

[3] _Mir_, a con­trac­tion of _Amir_, 'lord'.

[4] _Ko­ran, Qur'an_.

[5] 'They who swal­low down usury shall arise in the res­ur­rec­tion on­ly as he ariseth whom Sa­tan hath in­fect­ed by his touch' (_Ko­ran_, ii. 276). But this is rather the­ory than prac­tice, and many in­ge­nious meth­ods are adopt­ed to avoid the pro­hi­bi­tion.

[6] _Begam_, fem­inine of _Beg_, 'lord', used to de­note a Sayyid la­dy, like Khanam among Pathans.

[7] Here, as else­where, _zenanah, zananah_, Per­sian _zan_, 'wom­an'.

[8] This is in­cor­rect. The Ko­ran has been trans­lat­ed in­to var­ious lan­guages, but the trans­la­tion is al­ways in­ter­lin­eary with the orig­inal text. In Cen­tral Asia the Musalman con­querors al­lowed the Ko­ran to be re­cit­ed in Per­sian, in­stead of Ara­bic, in or­der that it might be in­tel­li­gi­ble to all (Arnold, _The Preach­ing of Is­lam_, 183).

[9] _Jali_.

[10] _Kur­ti_, a loose, long-​sleeved jack­et of muslin or net, among rich wom­en em­broi­dered on the neck and shoul­ders with gold, and draped down to the an­kles in full, loose folds. It is made of red or oth­er light-​coloured fab­rics for girls and mar­ried wom­en; dark blue, bronze, or white for old ladies; bronze or black for wid­ows.

[11] _Khan_, 'lord', 'prince', spe­cial­ly ap­plied to per­sons of Mughal or Pathan de­scent.

[12] _Ba­hadur_, 'cham­pi­on', a Mon­gol term; see Yule, _Hob­son-​Job­son_[2], 48 ff.

[13] _Nawab_, 'a deputy, del­egate': the An­glo-​In­di­an Nabob (ibid., 610 ff.).

[14] _Muhar­ram_, 'that which is for­bid­den', the first month of the Musalman year, the first ten days of which are oc­cu­pied with this mourn­ing fes­ti­val.

[15] By his wife Ja'dah, who was sub­orned to com­mit the deed by Yazid.

[16] Yazid, son of Mu'awiyah, the sec­ond Caliph of the house of Umaiyah, who reigned from A.D. 679 to 683. Gib­bon (_De­cline and Fall_, ed. W. Smith, vi. 278) calls him 'a fee­ble and dis­so­lute youth'.

[17] Ker­bala, Kar­bala, a city of Iraq, 50 miles south-​west of Bagh­dad, and about 6 miles from the Eu­phrates.

[18] Syr­ia.

[19] _Sun­ni_, Ahlu's-​Sun­nah, 'one of the Path', a tra­di­tion­al­ist. The Sun­nis ac­cept the first four Caliphs, Abu Bakr, 'Umar, 'Us­man, 'Ali, as the right­ful suc­ces­sors of Muham­mad, and fol­low the six au­then­tic books of the tra­di­tions. The Shi'ahs, 'fol­low­ers' of 'Ali, main­tain that he was the first le­git­imate Imam or Caliph, i.e. suc­ces­sor of the Prophet. For a full ac­count of the mar­tyr­dom of Hu­sain see Si­mon Ock­ley, _His­to­ry of the Sara­cens_ (1848), 287 ff.; Sir L. Pel­ly, _The Mir­acle Play of Hasan and Hu­sain_ (1879), Pref­ace, v ff.

[20] _Imam._

[21] Mus­lim.

[22] _Qazi_, a Muham­madan law of­fi­cer.

[23] _Kar­wan_, a car­avan.

[24] al-​Hurr.

[25] This term is ob­scure. Jaf­fur Shur­reef (_Qanoon-​e-​Is­lam_, 107) says the plain of the mar­tyr­dom was called 'Ma­reea'. For 'Hurth' Prof. E.G. Browne sug­gests _hirth_, 'a ploughed field', or _ard_, 'land'. Sir C. Lyall sug­gests Al-​hi­rah, the old Ara­bi­an cap­ital which stood near the site of the lat­er Ku­fah.

[26] Qasim.

[27] Sak­inah, He­brew Shechi­nah; Koo­braah, _Kib­riya_, 'no­ble'.

[28] The Eu­phrates is called in Sume­ri­an _pu­ra-​num_, 'Great wa­ter', whence Pu­rat, Pu­rat­tu in Semitic Baby­lo­ni­an; Perath in He­brew; Frat or Fu­rat in Ara­bic.

[29] 'Ab­bas, son of 'Ali.

[30] _Mashk_, _Mashak_, the An­glo-​In­di­an Mus­suck, a leath­ern skin for con­vey­ing wa­ter, in gen­er­al use amongst Musalmans at this day in In­dia; it is com­posed of the en­tire skin of a goat, prop­er­ly pre­pared. When filled with wa­ter it re­sem­bles a huge por­poise, on the back of the beeshtie [Bhishti] (wa­ter-​car­ri­er). [_Au­thor._]

[31] _Ko­ra_, the fresh juice of _Aloe ve­ra_, said to be cathar­tic and cool­ing.

[32] _Sir­ki_ (_Sac­cha­rum cil­iare_).

[33] _Sabil_: see Bur­ton, _Pil­grim­age_, Memo­ri­al ed., i. 286.

[34] Shi­mar, whose name now means 'con­temptible' among Shi'ahs.

[35] This state­ment is too wide. 'Among Muham­madans them­selves there is very lit­tle re­li­gious dis­cus­sion, and Sun­nis and Shi'ahs, who are at such dead­ly feud in many parts of Asia, in­clud­ing the Pun­jab and Kash­mir, have, in Oudh, al­ways freely in­ter­mar­ried' (H.C. Ir­win, _The Gar­den of In­dia_, 45).

[36] Ku­fah, four miles from Na­jaf, the cap­ital of the Caliph 'Ali, which fell in­to de­cay when the gov­ern­ment was re­moved to Bagh­dad.

[37] Con­fused with Al-​ju­di, Mt. Ararat, on which the Ark rest­ed.--_Ko­ran_, xi. 46.

[38] Na­jaf al Sharif, or Mash­had 'Ali, 50 miles south of Kar­bala, the tomb and shrine of 'Ali.

[39] _Zi­yarat_, 'vis­ita­tion', es­pe­cial­ly to the tomb of the Prophet or that of a Muham­madan saint. The pil­grim says, not 'I have vis­it­ed the Prophet's tomb', but 'I have vis­it­ed the Prophet'. (Bur­ton, _Pil­grim­age_, i. 305.)

[40] The grave is said to be nine yards long: ac­cord­ing to oth­ers, much longer. See the flip­pant re­mark of Bur­ton, ibid., ii. 273 ff.

[41] Mir Ha­ji Shah.

[42] _Ha­jj_, 'set­ting out'.