Observations on the Mussulmauns of India

LETTER II

Cel­ebra­tion of Mahur­rum.--The Tazia.--Mus­sul­maun Ceme­ter­ies.--An Emaum-​baarah.--Piety of the ladies.--Self-​in­flict­ed ab­sti­nence and pri­va­tions en­dured by each sex.--In­stances of the de­vo­tion­al zeal of the Mus­sul­mauns.--At­tempt­ed in­fringe­ment on their re­li­gious for­mal­ities.--The Res­ident at Luc­know.--En­thu­si­as­tic ar­dour of the poor.--Man­ner of cel­ebrat­ing the Mahur­rum in op­po­si­tion to the pre­cepts of the Kho­raun.--Mosque and Emaum-​baarah con­trast­ed.--The sup­po­si­tion of Mus­sul­mauns prac­tis­ing idol­atry con­fut­ed.

My for­mer Let­ter pre­pares you for the cel­ebra­tion of Mahur­rum, the ob­ser­vance of which is at this time go­ing for­ward here (at Luc­know) with all that zeal­ous em­ula­tive spir­it and en­thu­si­asm which I have be­fore re­marked the Mus­sul­maun pop­ula­tion of In­dia en­ter­tain for their Emaums (lead­ers), and their re­li­gion.

This an­nu­al solemn dis­play of the re­gret and ven­er­ation they con­sid­er due to the mem­ory of de­part­ed ex­cel­lence, com­mences on the first day of the Moon (Mahur­rum). The Mus­sul­maun year has twelve moons; ev­ery third year one moon is added, which reg­ula­tion, I fan­cy, ren­ders their years, in a chrono­log­ical point of view, very near­ly equal with those of Eu­rope. Their day com­mences and ends when the stars are first vis­ible af­ter sun­set.

The first day of Mahur­rum in­vari­ably brings to my rec­ol­lec­tion the strong­ly im­pressed ideas of 'The De­sert­ed Vil­lage'. The pro­found qui­et and solemn still­ness of an ex­ten­sive­ly pop­ulat­ed na­tive city, con­trast­ed with the in­ces­sant bus­tle usu­al at all oth­er times, are too strik­ing to Eu­ro­peans to pass by un­heed­ed. This ces­sa­tion of the an­imat­ed scene, how­ev­er, is not of long du­ra­tion; the sec­ond day presents to the view vast mul­ti­tudes of peo­ple parad­ing back­wards and for­wards, on horse­back, in palkies, and on foot, through the broad streets and road­ways, ar­rayed in their sev­er­al mourn­ing garbs, speed­ing their way to the Emaum-​baarahs[1] of the great men, and the hous­es of friends, to pay the vis­it of re­spect (zeearut), wher­ev­er a Tazia is set up to the re­mem­brance of Hasan and Ho­sein.

The word Tazia[2] sig­ni­fies grief. The term is ap­plied to a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the mau­soleum at Kraabaal­lah, erect­ed by their friends and fol­low­ers, over the re­mains of Hasan and Ho­sein. It is formed of ev­ery va­ri­ety of ma­te­ri­al, ac­cord­ing to the wealth, rank, or pref­er­ence, of the per­son ex­hibit­ing, from the purest sil­ver down to bam­boo and pa­per, strict at­ten­tion be­ing al­ways paid to pre­serve the mod­el of Kraabaal­lah, in the ex­act pat­tern with the orig­inal build­ing. Some peo­ple have them of ivory, ebony, san­dal-​wood, cedar, &c., and I have seen some beau­ti­ful­ly wrought in sil­ver fil­igree. The hand­somest of the kind, to my taste, is in the pos­ses­sion of his Majesty the King of Oude, com­posed of green glass, with brass mould­ings, man­ufac­tured in Eng­land (by whom I could not learn). All these ex­pen­sive Tazias are fix­tures, but there are tem­po­rary ones re­quired for the out-​door cer­emo­ny, which, like those avail­able to the poor and mid­dling class­es, are com­posed of bam­boo frames, over which is fixed coloured uberuck[3] (lapis spec­ularum, or tulk); these are made in the bazaar, of var­ious sizes and qual­ities, to suit the views of pur­chasers, from two ru­pees to two hun­dred each.

The more com­mon Tazias are con­veyed in the pro­ces­sion on the tenth day, and fi­nal­ly de­posit­ed with fu­ner­al rites in the pub­lic buri­al-​grounds, of which there are sev­er­al out­side the town. These ceme­ter­ies are de­nom­inat­ed Kraabaal­lah,[4] and the pop­ula­tion of a large city may be pre­sumed on by the num­ber of these dis­persed in the sub­urbs. They do not bury their dead in the vicin­ity of a mosque, which is held too sa­cred to be al­lowed the pol­lu­tion. Any one hav­ing on­ly touched a dead body, must bathe pri­or to en­ter­ing the mosque, or per­form­ing their usu­al prayer-​ser­vice at home;--such is the ven­er­ation they en­ter­tain for the name of God.

The op­ulent peo­ple of Mus­sul­maun so­ci­ety have an Emaum-​baarah erect­ed in the range of build­ings ex­clu­sive­ly de­nom­inat­ed mur­danah[5] (men's abode). The habi­ta­tion of all Mus­sul­mauns be­ing com­posed of sep­arate de­part­ments for the males and the fe­males, com­mu­ni­cat­ing by pri­vate en­trances, as will be ex­plained here­after.

The Emaum-​baarah is a sa­cred place, erect­ed for the ex­press pur­pose of com­mem­orat­ing Mahur­rum; the founder not un­fre­quent­ly in­tends this al­so as the mau­soleum for him­self and fam­ily. But we gen­er­al­ly find Mukhbur­rahs[6] (mau­soleums) built in con­spic­uous sit­ua­tions, for the re­mains of kings, princes, no­bles, and saint­ed per­sons. Of the lat­ter, many are vis­it­ed, at stat­ed pe­ri­ods, by the mul­ti­tude, with re­li­gious ven­er­ation, the il­lit­er­ate at­tach­ing con­sid­er­able im­por­tance to the an­nu­al pil­grim­age to them; and where--to se­cure the in­flu­ence of the par­tic­ular saint's spir­it, in fur­ther­ing their views--moth­ers present their chil­dren, in num­bers be­yond all cal­cu­la­tion; and each hav­ing some­thing to hope for who vis­its the shrine, presents of­fer­ings of mon­ey and sweet­meats, which be­come the prop­er­ty of the per­son in charge of the tomb, thus yield­ing him a prof­itable sinecure, in pro­por­tion as the saint is pop­ular amongst the ig­no­rant.

An Emaum-​baarah is a square build­ing, gen­er­al­ly erect­ed with a cupo­la top, the di­men­sions guid­ed by the cir­cum­stances of the founder. The floor is mat­ted with the date-​leaf mats, in com­mon use in In­dia, on which is spread a shut­ter­inghie[7] (cot­ton car­pet), and over this a clean white cal­ico cov­er­ing, on which the as­sem­bled par­ty are seat­ed, dur­ing the sev­er­al pe­ri­ods of col­lect­ing to­geth­er to re­mem­ber their lead­ers: these meet­ings are termed Mudgel­luss[8] (mourn­ing as­sem­blies). It would be es­teemed in­deco­rous or dis­re­spect­ful to the Emaums, if any one in er­ror called these as­sem­blies Mool­lakhaut,[9] the usu­al term for mere world­ly vis­it­ing.

The Tazia is placed against the wall on the side fac­ing Mec­ca, un­der a canopy of rich em­broi­dery. A read­ing-​desk or pul­pit (mhem­bur[10]) is placed in a con­ve­nient sit­ua­tion, for the read­er to face Mec­ca, and his voice to be heard by the whole as­sem­bly of peo­ple; it is con­struct­ed of sil­ver, ivory, ebony, &c. to cor­re­spond with the Tazia, if pos­si­ble: the steps are cov­ered some­times with gold-​cloth, or broad-​cloth of black, or green,[11] if a Syaad's prop­er­ty, be­ing the colour worn by that race for mourn­ing. The shape of a mhem­bur is a flight of steps with a flat top, with­out any rail­ing or en­closed place; the read­er, in his recit­ings, oc­ca­sion­al­ly sit­ting on the steps, or stand­ing, as may be most con­ve­nient to him­self.

On the walls of the Emaum-​baarah, mir­rors and look­ing-​glass­es are fixed in suit­able sit­ua­tions to give ef­fect to the bril­liant dis­play of light, from the mag­nif­icent chan­de­liers sus­pend­ed from the cupo­la and cor­nices. The no­bles and the wealthy are ex­cit­ed with a de­sire to em­ulate each oth­er in the splen­dour of their dis­play on these oc­ca­sions;--all the mir­rors, glass, lus­tres, chan­de­liers, &c. are brought to­geth­er to this place, from their sev­er­al sta­tions in the man­sion; and it is due to them to ad­mit the ef­fect to be of­ten im­pos­ing­ly grand, and the blaze of light splen­did. I have fre­quent­ly been re­mind­ed in these scenes of the vi­sion­ary cas­tles con­jured to the imag­ina­tion, whilst read­ing 'The Ara­bi­an Nights' En­ter­tain­ments'.

On each side the Tazia--the whole length of the wall--ban­ners are ranged, in great va­ri­ety of colour and fab­ric; some of them are cost­ly and splen­did. I have seen many con­struct­ed of the rich­est em­broi­dery, on silk grounds, of gold and sil­ver, with massy gold fringes, cords, and tas­sels; the staff is cased with gold or sil­ver, worked in­to fig­ures of birds and oth­er an­imals, in ev­ery va­ri­ety; the top of which has a crest, in some a spread hand,[12] in oth­ers a sort of plume, and not un­fre­quent­ly a crest re­sem­bling a grenade, formed of the pre­cious met­als, and set with stones of great val­ue.

On the base of the Tazia the sev­er­al ar­ti­cles are placed con­ceived like­ly to have been used by Ho­sein at Kraabaal­lah; a tur­ban of gold or sil­ver tis­sue, a splen­did sword and belt, the han­dle and hilt set with pre­cious stones, a shield, the Ara­bi­an bow and ar­rows. These an­cient em­blems of roy­al­ty are in­dis­pens­able in or­der to do hon­our to Ho­sein, in the view they take of his sovereign right to be the head or lead­er of the true Mus­sul­mauns. Wax lights, red and green, are al­so placed in great num­bers about its base, in sil­ver or glass can­dle­sticks; and censers of gold and sil­ver, burn­ing in­cense per­pet­ual­ly dur­ing Mahur­rum. Many oth­er mi­nor trib­utes to the Emaums are dis­cov­ered near the Tazia, as choice fruits and gar­lands of sweet-​scent­ed flow­ers, the of­fer­ings of ladies of the fam­ily to their rel­ative's Tazia.

Amongst the poor­er class­es of the peo­ple an equal pro­por­tion of zeal­ous spir­it is evinced; and ac­cord­ing to their sev­er­al abil­ities, so they com­mem­orate the pe­ri­od, in­ter­est­ing alike to all. Those who can­not com­pass the re­al splen­dour of an Emaum-​baarah, are sat­is­fied with an im­ita­tive one in the best hall their habi­ta­tion af­fords; and, where mir­rors and chan­de­liers are not avail­able, they are con­tent to do hon­our to the Emaums with lamps of uberuck, which in truth are pleas­ing sub­sti­tutes at a small price: these lamps are made in a va­ri­ety of pret­ty shapes, cu­ri­ous­ly paint­ed, and in­ge­nious­ly or­na­ment­ed with cut pa­per; they burn oil in them, and, when well ar­ranged, and di­ver­si­fied with their wont­ed taste, pro­duce a good light, and pleas­ing ef­fect.

The ban­ners of Ho­sein, in the hous­es of the poor, are formed of ma­te­ri­als ac­cord­ing to their hum­ble means, from tin­sel im­ita­tions down to dyed muslin; and a sim­ilar dif­fer­ence is to be per­ceived in their se­lec­tion of the met­al of which their crests are made.

Mourn­ing as­sem­blies are held in the Emaum-​baarahs twice ev­ery day dur­ing Mahur­rum; those of the evening, how­ev­er, are the most at­trac­tive, and have the fullest at­ten­dance of vis­itors. The mas­ter of the house, at the ap­point­ed hour, takes his seat on the floor near the pul­pit, sur­round­ed by the males of his fam­ily and in­ti­mate friends, and the crowd of strangers ar­range them­selves--wher­ev­er there is sit­ting room--with­out im­ped­ing the view of the Tazia.

One of the most pop­ular Maul­vees[13] of the age is en­gaged to re­cite the par­tic­ular por­tion ap­point­ed for each day, from the manuscript doc­uments, called Dhie Mudgel­luss,[14] in the Per­sian lan­guage. This work is in ten parts and con­tains a sub­ject for each day's ser­vice, de­scrip­tive of the life and suf­fer­ings of the Emaums, their friends, and chil­dren, par­tic­ular­ly as re­gards the event­ful pe­ri­od of Mahur­rum in which they were en­gaged. It is, I am as­sured, a pa­thet­ic, fine com­po­si­tion, and a faith­ful nar­ra­tive of each par­tic­ular cir­cum­stance in the his­to­ry of their lead­ers, the hero­ic brav­ery of their friends, &c. They are par­tic­ular­ly anx­ious to en­gage an elo­quent read­er for this part of the per­for­mance, who by his im­pres­sive man­ner com­pels his hear­ers to sym­pa­thise in the af­fect­ing in­ci­dents which are re­cit­ed by him.

I have been present when the ef­fect pro­duced by the su­pe­ri­or or­ato­ry and ges­tures of a Maul­vee has al­most ter­ri­fied me, the pro­found grief, evinced in his tears and groans, be­ing pierc­ing and ap­par­ent­ly sin­cere. I have even wit­nessed blood is­su­ing from the breast of stur­dy men, who beat them­selves si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly as they ejac­ulat­ed the names 'Hasan!' 'Ho­sein!'[15] for ten min­utes, and oc­ca­sion­al­ly dur­ing a longer pe­ri­od, in that part of the ser­vice called Mortem.[16]

The por­tion of Dhie Mudgel­luss con­clud­ed, sher­bet is hand­ed round to the as­sem­bly; and as they vol­un­tar­ily ab­stain from lux­uries at this sea­son, a sub­sti­tute for pawn[17]--the green leaf in gen­er­al use amongst the na­tives--has been in­tro­duced, con­sist­ing of dried cof­fee, co­coa-​nut shreds, be­tel-​nut, cardimuns,[18] dun­yah,[19] and a pro­por­tion­ate quan­ti­ty of to­bac­co-​leaf and lime; these are mixed to­geth­er and hand­ed to the vis­itors, on small sil­ver trays. The hookha[20] is in­tro­duced to the su­pe­ri­ors of the as­sem­bly; you are per­haps aware that in­fe­ri­ors do not smoke in the pres­ence of su­pe­ri­ors with­out their com­mand or per­mis­sion.

This cer­emo­ny ter­mi­nat­ed, the Murseeah[21] is chant­ed, by sev­er­al well-​prac­tised voic­es, with good ef­fect. This part of the ser­vice is, per­haps, the most im­pres­sive, as the very ig­no­rant, even, can com­pre­hend ev­ery word,--the Murseeah be­ing in the Hin­doost­an­ic tongue, a po­et­ical com­po­si­tion of great mer­it, and em­brac­ing all the sub­jects they meet to com­mem­orate. The whole as­sem­bly rise up af­ter­wards, and, as with one voice, re­count the names of the law­ful lead­ers af­ter Mahu­mud, en­treat­ing bless­ings and peace to their souls. They then re­peat the names of the hat­ed usurpers (Caliphas), on whose mem­ory they in­voke curs­es, &c. Mortem fol­lows, beat­ing of breasts in uni­son with the voic­es, and ut­ter­ing the names of Hasan and Ho­sein; this per­for­mance con­cludes each day's Mudgel­luss, ei­ther of the morn­ing or evening.

The ladies cel­ebrate the re­turn­ing sea­son of Mahur­rum with as much spir­it and zeal as the con­fine­ment, in which they ex­ist, can pos­si­bly ad­mit of. There are but few, and those chiefly princess­es, who have Emaum-​baarahs at com­mand, with­in the bound­ary of the zeenah­nah; the largest and best apart­ment in their es­tab­lish­ment is there­fore se­lect­ed for the pur­pose of an Emaum-​baarah, in­to which none but fe­males are ad­mit­ted, ex­cept­ing the hus­band, fa­ther, son, or broth­er, of the la­dy; who hav­ing, on this oc­ca­sion, full lib­er­ty to in­vite her fe­male ac­quain­tance, those who are her near­est male rel­atives even are not ad­mit­ted un­til pre­vi­ous no­tice is giv­en, in or­der that the fe­male guests may se­crete them­selves from the sight of these rel­atives of their host­ess.

In com­mem­orat­ing this re­mark­able event in Mus­sul­maun his­to­ry, the ex­pres­sions of grief, man­ifest­ed by the ladies, are far greater, and ap­pear to me more last­ing than with the oth­er sex; in­deed, I nev­er could have giv­en cred­it to the ex­tent of their be­wail­ings, with­out wit­ness­ing, as I have done for many years, the sea­son for tears and pro­found grief re­turn with the month of Mahur­rum. In sor­row­ing for the mar­tyred Emaums, they seem to for­get their pri­vate griefs; the be­reave­ment of a beloved ob­ject even is al­most over­looked in the du­ti­ful re­mem­brance of Hasan and Ho­sein at this pe­ri­od; and I have had op­por­tu­ni­ties of ob­serv­ing this tri­umph of re­li­gious feel­ing in wom­en, who are re­mark­able for their af­fec­tion­ate at­tach­ment to their chil­dren, hus­bands, and par­ents;--they tell me, 'We must not in­dulge self­ish sor­rows of our own, whilst the Prophet's fam­ily alone have a right to our tears'.

The re­li­gious zeal of these peo­ple is evinced, like­wise, in a stern, sys­tem­at­ic, line of pri­va­tions, dur­ing the pe­ri­od of Mahur­rum; no one is obliged by any law or com­mand; it is vol­un­tary ab­sti­nence on the part of each in­di­vid­ual--they im­pose it on them­selves, out of pure pity and re­spect for their Emaums' well-​re­mem­bered suf­fer­ings. Ev­ery thing which con­sti­tutes com­fort, lux­ury, or even con­ve­nience at oth­er times, on these oc­ca­sions are rigid­ly laid aside. The pal­lungh and the char­poy[22] (the two de­scrip­tions of bed­steads in gen­er­al use), on which the fe­males love to lounge for some hours in the day and night, are re­moved from their stand­ings, and, in lieu of this com­fort, they take their rest on a com­mon date mat, on the floor. The mus­nud,[23] and all its cush­ioned lux­uries, give place, on this oc­ca­sion, to the sim­ply mat­ted floor. The in­dul­gence in choice dain­ties, at oth­er times so nec­es­sary to their hap­pi­ness, is now fore­gone, and their meal lim­it­ed, through­out Mahur­rum, to the coars­est food--such as bar­ley bread, rice and peas boiled to­geth­er (called kutch­er),[24] with­out even the usu­al ad­di­tions to make it palat­able ketcherie,[25] as ghee, salt, pep­per, and spices; these in­gre­di­ents be­ing con­sid­ered by the zeal­ous fe­males too in­dul­gent and lux­uri­ous for hum­ble mourn­ers dur­ing Muhur­rum.

The pawn leaf, an­oth­er lux­ury of no small mo­ment to Asi­at­ic tastes, is now ban­ished for the ten days' mourn­ing. A very poor sub­sti­tute has been adopt­ed, in the mix­ture de­scribed at the gen­tle­men's as­sem­bly--it is called goat­tur.[26] The truth is, their health would suf­fer from any long dis­use of to­bac­co-​leaf, lime, and a bit­ter gum,[27] which are in gen­er­al use with the pawn; the lat­ter is of a warm aro­mat­ic na­ture, and im­parts a fine flavour to the oth­er in­gre­di­ents; but, as it is con­sid­ered a great in­dul­gence to eat pawn, they ab­stain from it al­to­geth­er dur­ing Mahur­rum;--the mix­ture, they say, is on­ly al­lowed for health's sake.

When vis­itors call on the Mus­sul­maun ladies at Mahur­rum, the goat­tur is pre­sent­ed on trays, ac­com­pa­nied by bags, neat­ly em­broi­dered in sil­ver and gold, of many dif­fer­ent shapes and pat­terns, most­ly their own work and in­ven­tion; they are called but­tooah[28] and jhaum­da­nies.[29]

The va­ri­ety of or­na­ments, which con­sti­tute the great de­light of all class­es of fe­males in In­dia, are en­tire­ly laid aside, from the first hour of Mahur­rum, un­til the pe­ri­od for mourn­ing con­cludes. I nev­er heard of any peo­ple so thor­ough­ly at­tached to or­na­ments as the fe­males of In­dia are gen­er­al­ly. They are in­dulged in this foible--par­don­able it may be--by their hus­bands and par­ents. The wealth­iness of a fam­ily may of­ten be judged by a sin­gle glance at the prin­ci­pal la­dy of the zeenah­nah, who sel­dom omits do­ing hon­our to her hus­band, by a full dis­play of the pre­cious met­als, with a great va­ri­ety of gems or jew­els on or­di­nary oc­ca­sions. The men of all ranks are proud of their wives' fin­ery; even the poor­est hold in de­ri­sion all or­na­ment that is not com­posed of ster­ling met­al, of which they seem ex­cel­lent judges. The massy chains of gold or sil­ver, the sol­id ban­gles for the arms and an­cles, the nut[30] (nose-​ring) of gold wire, on which is strung a ru­by be­tween two pearls, worn on­ly by mar­ried wom­en; the joshun[31] (arm­let), of sil­ver or gold, of­ten set with pre­cious stones; the many rings for the fin­gers, thumbs, and toes, form the dai­ly dress of a la­dy;--but I must not di­gress fur­ther. These are all re­moved from the per­son, as soon as the moon is seen, when the first day of Mahur­rum com­mences; the hair is un­loosed from its usu­al con­fine­ment, and al­lowed to flow in dis­or­der about the per­son; the coloured py­jaamahs[32] and deput­tahs[33] are re­moved, with ev­ery oth­er ar­ti­cle of their usu­al cos­tume, for a suit that, with them, con­sti­tutes mourn­ing--some choose black, oth­ers grey, slate, or green, and the wid­ow wears white from the day her hus­band dies.

A wid­ow nev­er al­ters her style of dress, nei­ther does she wear a sin­gle or­na­ment, dur­ing her wid­ow­hood, which gen­er­al­ly lasts with her life. I nev­er heard of one sin­gle in­stance, dur­ing my twelve years' res­idence amongst them, of a wid­ow mar­ry­ing again--they have no law to pro­hib­it it; and I have known some ladies, whose af­fi­anced hus­bands died be­fore the mar­riage was con­clud­ed, who pre­ferred a life of soli­tude and prayer, al­though many oth­er over­tures were made.[34]

Many of the rigid­ly zeal­ous, among the fe­males, mor­ti­fy them­selves by wear­ing their suit of mourn­ing, dur­ing the ten days, with­out chang­ing; the dress is worn next the skin, and, in very warm weath­er, must be com­fort­less af­ter the first day--but so it is; and so many are the va­ri­eties of self-​in­flict­ed pri­va­tions, at this pe­ri­od, that my let­ter might be filled with the ob­ser­va­tions I have made. I can­not, how­ev­er, omit to men­tion my old wom­an-​ser­vant (ayah[35]), whose mode of ab­sti­nence, in re­mem­brance of Ho­sein, is rigid­ly se­vere; my in­flu­ence does not pre­vail in dis­suad­ing her, al­though I fear the con­se­quences to her health will be se­ri­ous­ly felt if she per­sist in the ful­fil­ment of her self-​im­posed tri­al. This poor old crea­ture re­solves on not al­low­ing one drop of wa­ter, or any liq­uid, to pass her lips dur­ing the ten days' mourn­ing; as she says, 'her Emaum, Ho­sein, and his fam­ily, suf­fered from thirst at Kraabaal­lah, why should such a crea­ture as she is be in­dulged with wa­ter?' This shows the tem­per of the peo­ple gen­er­al­ly; my ayah is a very ig­no­rant old wom­an, yet she re­spects her Emaum's mem­ory.[36]

The Tazia, you are to un­der­stand, graces the hous­es of all good Mus­sul­mauns in In­dia, who are not of the sect called Soonies. This mod­el of their Emaum's tomb is an ob­ject of pro­found re­spect. Hin­doos, even, on ap­proach­ing the shrine, bow their heads with much solemn grav­ity; I of­ten fan­cied they mis­took the Tazia for a Bootkhanah[37] (the house of an idol).

It is cred­itable to the Mus­sul­mauns, that they do not re­strict any pro­fes­sion of peo­ple from vis­it­ing their as­sem­blies; there is free ad­mis­sion grant­ed when the Emaum-​baarah is first light­ed up, un­til the hour of per­form­ing the ser­vice, when strangers, that is the mul­ti­tude, are civil­ly re­quest­ed to re­tire. Ev­ery one is ex­pect­ed, on en­ter­ing the out­ward ve­ran­dah, to leave their shoes at the thresh­old of the sanc­tu­ary;[38] none but Eu­ro­peans have any oc­ca­sion to be re­mind­ed of this, as it is a well known and gen­er­al ob­ser­vance with all de­grees of na­tives in Asia. The ser­vants, in charge of the Emaum-​baarah, are re­spon­si­ble for the due ob­ser­vance of re­spect to the place, and when any for­eign­ers are ad­vanc­ing, they are po­lite­ly re­quest­ed to leave their shoes out­side; which must be com­plied with, or they can­not pos­si­bly be ad­mit­ted.

Some few years since, a par­ty of young gen­tle­men, from can­ton­ments, had made up their minds to evade the ne­ces­si­ty for re­mov­ing their boots, on the oc­ca­sion of a vis­it to one of the great men's Emaum-​baarahs, at a Na­tive city; they had pro­vid­ed them­selves with white socks, which they drew over their boots be­fore leav­ing their palkies. The cheat was dis­cov­ered by the ser­vants in at­ten­dance, af­ter they had been ad­mit­ted; they made a pre­cip­itate re­treat to avoid the con­se­quences of a rep­re­sen­ta­tion to the Res­ident, by the pro­pri­etor of the Emaum-​baarah; who, hear­ing of the cir­cum­stance, made all pos­si­ble in­quiry, with­out, how­ev­er, dis­cov­er­ing the names of the gen­tle­men, who had thus, in his opin­ion, vi­olat­ed the sanc­tu­ary.

The Na­tives are aware that the Res­ident sets the bright ex­am­ple of con­form­ing to the ob­ser­vances of the peo­ple, over whom he is placed as gov­er­nor and guardian; and that he very prop­er­ly dis­coun­te­nances ev­ery at­tempt of his coun­try­men to in­fringe on their rights, prej­udices, or priv­ileges; and they have, to my knowl­edge, al­ways looked up to him as to a par­ent and a friend, from the first to the last day of his ex­alt­ed sta­tion amongst them. Many a tear marked the re­gret of the Na­tives, when their best, their kind­est, earth­ly friend quit­ted the city he had blessed by his pres­ence; and to the lat­est page of their his­to­ry, his mem­ory will doubt­less be cher­ished with sin­cere ven­er­ation and re­spect­ful at­tach­ment.[39]

The poor peo­ple vie with their rich neigh­bours, in mak­ing a bril­liant light in their lit­tle halls con­tain­ing the Tazia; the very poor­est are lib­er­al in the ex­pen­di­ture of oil and tal­low can­dles--I might say ex­trav­agant­ly so, but for the pu­ri­ty of their in­ten­tions, sup­pos­ing it to be a du­ty--and they cer­tain­ly man­ifest their zeal and re­spect to the ut­most of their pow­er; al­though many, to my knowl­edge, live all the year round on the very coars­est fare, to en­able them to show this rev­er­ence to their Emaum's mem­ory.

The ladies as­sem­ble, in the evening, round the Tazia they have set up in their pur­da­hed pri­va­cy--fe­male friends, slaves, and ser­vants, sur­round­ing the mis­tress of the house, in solemn grav­ity.

The few fe­males who have been ed­ucat­ed are in great re­quest at this sea­son; they read the Dhie Mudgel­luss, and chant the Musseeah with good ef­fect. These wom­en, be­ing hired for the pur­pose, are de­tained dur­ing the ten days; when the Mahur­rum ceas­es, they are dis­missed to their own homes, load­ed with the best gifts the good la­dy their em­ploy­er can con­ve­nient­ly spare, com­men­su­rate with the ser­vices per­formed. These ed­ucat­ed fe­males are chiefly daugh­ters of poor Syaads, who have not been mar­ried for the lack of a dowry; they live de­vout­ly in the ser­vice of God, ac­cord­ing to their faith. They are some­times re­quired, in the fam­ilies of the no­bil­ity, to teach the Kho­raun to the young ladies, and, in that ca­pac­ity, they are called Ous­taardie, or more fa­mil­iar­ly Ar­too­jee.[40]

As I have men­tioned be­fore, the Musseeah nar­ra­tive of the suf­fer­ings at Kraabaal­lah is a re­al­ly pa­thet­ic and in­ter­est­ing com­po­si­tion; the work be­ing con­veyed in the lan­guage of the coun­try, ev­ery word is un­der­stood, and very deeply felt, by the fe­males in all these as­sem­blies, who, hav­ing their hearts soft­ened by the em­phat­ic chant­ings of the read­ers, burst in­to vi­olent tears and sob­bings of the most heart-​rend­ing de­scrip­tion. As in the gen­tle­men's as­sem­bly, they con­clude with Mortem, in which they ex­er­cise them­selves un­til they are ac­tu­al­ly ex­haust­ed; in­deed, many del­icate fe­males in­jure their health by the vi­olence and en­er­gy of their ex­er­tions, which they nev­er­the­less deem a most es­sen­tial du­ty to per­form, at all haz­ards, dur­ing the con­tin­uance of Mahur­rum.

This method of keep­ing Mahur­rum is not in strict obe­di­ence to the Mahu­mu­dan laws; in which code may be found pro­hi­bi­tions against all vi­olent and ex­ces­sive grief--tear­ing the hair, or oth­er ex­pres­sions of un­govern­able sor­row.[41]

I have ob­served that the Maul­vees, Mool­lahs,[42] and de­vout­ly re­li­gious per­sons, al­though mix­ing with the en­thu­si­asts on these oc­ca­sions, ab­stain from the vi­olent ex­hi­bi­tion of sor­rows which the un­in­formed are so prone to in­dulge in. The most re­li­gious men of that faith feel equal, per­haps greater sym­pa­thy, for the suf­fer­ings of the Emaums, than those who are less ac­quaint­ed with the pre­cepts of the Kho­raun; they com­mem­orate the Mahur­rum with­out pa­rade or os­ten­ta­tious dis­play, and ap­par­ent­ly wear mourn­ing on their hearts, with their garb, the full term of forty days--the com­mon pe­ri­od of mourn­ing for a beloved ob­ject; but these per­sons nev­er join in Mortem, beat­ing breasts, or oth­er out­ward show of sad­ness, al­though they are present when it is ex­er­cised; but their qui­et grief is ev­ident­ly more sin­cere.

I have con­versed with many sen­si­ble men of the Mus­sul­maun per­sua­sion on the sub­ject of cel­ebrat­ing Mahur­rum, and from all I can learn, the pompous dis­play is grown in­to a habit, by a long res­idence amongst peo­ple, who make a mer­it of showy pa­rades at all their fes­ti­vals. For­eign Mus­sul­mauns are equal­ly sur­prised as Eu­ro­peans, when they vis­it Hin­doost­aun, and first see the Tazia con­veyed about in pro­ces­sion, which would be count­ed sac­ri­le­gious in Per­sia or Ara­bia; but here, the cer­emo­ny is not com­plete with­out a mix­ture of pageantry with, the deeply ex­pressed and pub­lic ex­po­sure of their grief.[43]

The re­mark­able plain­ness of the mosque, con­trast­ed with the su­perb dec­ora­tions of an Emaum-​baarah, ex­cit­ed my sur­prise. I am told by the most ven­er­able of Syaads, 'The Mosque is de­vot­ed on­ly to the ser­vice of God, where it is com­mand­ed no world­ly at­trac­tions or or­na­ments shall ap­pear, to draw off the mind, or di­vert the at­ten­tion, from that one great ob­ject for which the house of prayer is in­tend­ed'. An Emaum-​baarah is erect­ed for the pur­pose of do­ing hon­our to the mem­ory of the Emaums, and of late years the em­ula­tive spir­it of in­di­vid­uals has been the great in­duce­ment to the dis­play of or­na­men­tal dec­ora­tions.

It is rather from their re­spect to the Founder of their re­li­gion and his de­scen­dants, than any part of their pro­fes­sion of faith, that the Mus­sul­maun pop­ula­tion of Hin­doost­aun are guid­ed by in these dis­plays, which are mere­ly the fash­ion of oth­er peo­ple whom they im­itate; and with far dif­fer­ent mo­tives to the weak-​mind­ed Hin­doos, who ex­alt their idols, whilst the for­mer thus tes­ti­fy their re­spect to wor­thy mor­tals on­ly. This is the ex­pla­na­tion I have re­ceived from de­vout Mus­sul­mauns, who di­rect me to re­mark the strong sim­ilar­ity--in habit on­ly, where 'the faith' is not li­able to in­no­va­tions--be­tween them­selves and the Hin­doo pop­ula­tion;--the out-​of-​door cel­ebra­tions of mar­riage fes­ti­vals, for in­stance, which are so near­ly re­sem­bling each oth­er, in the same class­es of so­ci­ety, that scarce­ly any dif­fer­ence can be dis­cov­ered by the com­mon ob­serv­er.

Idol­atry is hate­ful to a Mus­sul­maun, who ac­knowl­edges 'one on­ly true God', and 'Him alone to be wor­shipped'.[44] They re­spect, ven­er­ate, love, and would im­itate, their ac­knowl­edged Prophet and the Emaums (who suc­ceed­ed Mahu­mud in the mis­sion), but they nev­er wor­ship them, as has been of­ten imag­ined. On the con­trary, they de­clare to me that their faith com­pels them 'to be­lieve in one God, and that He alone is to be wor­shipped by the crea­ture; and that Mahu­mud is a crea­ture, the Prophet sent by God to make His will known, and de­clare His pow­er. That to bow down and wor­ship Mahu­mud would be gross idol­atry; and, al­though he is of­ten men­tioned in their prayers, yet he is nev­er prayed to. They be­lieve their Prophet is sen­si­ble of what­ev­er pass­es amongst his true dis­ci­ples; and that, in pro­por­tion as they ful­fil the com­mands he was in­struct­ed by God to leave with them, so will they de­rive ben­efit from his in­ter­ces­sion, on that great and aw­ful day, when all mankind shall ap­pear be­fore the judg­ment seat of God.'

[1] _Imam­bara_, 'en­clo­sure of the Imam', the place where the Muhar­ram rites are per­formed, as con­trast­ed with Masjid, a mosque, and 'Idgah, where the ser­vice at the 'Id fes­ti­vals is con­duct­ed.

[2] _Ta'ziya_, 'con­sol­ing'. The use of these minia­ture tombs is said to date from the time of Amir Taimur (A.D. 1336-1405), who on his re­turn from Kar­bala made a mod­el of Hu­sain's tomb. See a good ac­count of them in Sir G. Bird­wood, _Sva_, 173 ff.

[3] _Abrak_, tale.

[4] From Kar­bala, the place of pil­grim­age.

[5] _Mar­danah_.

[6] _Maqbarah_, 'place of graves'.

[7] _Sha­tranj[-i]_, a che­quered cloth, from _sha­trang_, the game of chess.

[8] _Ma­jlis_.

[9] _Mu­laqat_.

[10] _Mim­bar_, some­times a wood­en struc­ture, some­times of ma­son­ry.

[11] Green is the Sayyid colour (E.W. Lane, _Mod­ern Egyp­tians_, i. 38). But it is an in­no­va­tion in Is­lam, and Sayyids in Al-​Hi­jaz, as a gen­er­al rule, do not wear a green tur­ban (Bur­ton, _Pil­grim­age_, ii. 4).

[12] The spread hand des­ig­nates the Sheah sect. There are times when hold­ing up the spread hand de­clares the Sheah, whilst the Soonie is dis­tin­guished by his hold­ing up three fin­gers on­ly. In vil­lages, the spread hand is marked on the walls where Sheahs re­side dur­ing Mahur­rum. [_Au­thor_.]

[The five spread fin­gers are re­gard­ed as em­blem­at­ical of the Prophet, Fâ­timah, 'Ali, Hasan, and Hu­sain. The Sun­nis pre­fer three fin­gers, sig­ni­fy­ing the first three Caliphs. In its ul­ti­mate ori­gin, the spread hand is a charm against demons and evil spir­its.]

[13] _Maulavi_, a Muham­madan doc­tor of law, a judge.

[14] From Dhie, ten; Mudgel­luss, as­sem­bling to­geth­er for sa­cred pur­pos­es. [_Au­thor_.] or [_Dah_, or _Dah­ha ma­jlis_ de­notes the ten days of Muhar­ram; see Sir L. Pel­ly, _The Mir­acle Play of Hasan and Hu­sain_, i. 74.]

[15] Cor­rupt­ed by An­glo-​In­di­ans in­to _Hob­son-​Job­son_, the ti­tle of Sir H. Yule's _An­glo-​In­di­an Glos­sary_.

[16] _Matam_, 'mourn­ing'.

[17] _Pan_, 'be­tel leaf'.

[18] Car­damom.

[19] _Dhaniya_ (_Co­rian­drum sativ­itm_).

[20] _Huqqah_, 'a wa­ter to­bac­co pipe'.

[21] _Mar­siyah_, 'a fu­ner­al el­egy'.

[22] _Palang_, a more pre­ten­tious piece of fur­ni­ture than the _charpai_, or com­mon 'cot'.

[23] _Mas­nad_, 'a thing leaned on', a pile of cush­ions; the throne of a sovereign.

[24] _Khichar_.

[25] _Khichri_, the 'Kedgeree' of An­glo-​In­di­ans.

[26] _Go­ta_.

[27] Cat­echu, Hin­di _Kath_.

[28] _Bat­ua_.

[29] _Jam­dani_, prop­er­ly a port­man­teau for hold­ing clothes (_Ja­ma_): a kind of flow­ered cloth.

[30] _Nath_.

[31] _Joshan_, an or­na­ment worn on the up­per arm.

[32] _Pa[~e]ja­ma_, 'leg cloth­ing', draw­ers.

[33] _Dopat­ta_, a sheet made of two breadths of cloth.

[34] Amongst the Muham­madans the pro­por­tion of wid­ows has de­clined steadi­ly since 1881, and is now on­ly 143 per mille com­pared with 170 in that year. It would seem that the prej­udices against wid­ow-​mar­riages are grad­ual­ly be­com­ing weak­er.--_Re­port Cen­sus of In­dia_, 1911, i. 273.

[35] [~A]y[~a], from Por­tuguese _aia_, 'a nurse'.

[36] Af­ter much, en­treaty, this hum­ble zealot was in­duced to take a sweet lime, oc­ca­sion­al­ly, to cool her poor parched mouth. She sur­vived the tri­al, and lived many years to re­peat her prac­tised ab­sti­nence at the re­turn of Mahur­rum. [_Au­thor_.]

[37] _Butkhanah_.

[38] This was a prim­itive Semitic taboo (Ex­odus iii. 5; Joshua v. 15, &c.). The rea­son of this pro­hi­bi­tion is that shoes could not be eas­ily washed.--W.R. Smith, _Re­li­gion of the Semites_[2], 453.

[39] Mor­daunt Rick­etts was Res­ident at Luc­know be­tween 1821 and 1830, when he was 'su­per­an­nu­at­ed' ow­ing to fi­nan­cial scan­dals, for the de­tails of which see Sir G. Trevelyan, _Life and Let­ters of Lord Macaulay_, cap. x; H.G. Keene, _Here and There_, 10; on Novem­ber 1, 1824, he was mar­ried at Luc­know by Bish­op Heber to the wid­ow of George Raven­scroft, the civil­ian who was Col­lec­tor of Cawn­pore, and there em­bez­zled large sums of mon­ey, the prop­er­ty of Gov­ern­ment. He fled with his wife and child to Bhin­ga in Oudh, where, on May 6, 1823, he was mur­dered by Da­coits. The strange sto­ry is well told by Slee­man, _A Jour­ney through the King­dom of Oudh_, i. 112 ff.

[40] Per­sian _us­tad, us­tad­ji_, 'an in­struc­tor'.

[41] Lamen­ta­tion for the dead was strict­ly pro­hib­it­ed by the Prophet; but, like all ori­en­tals, the In­di­an Musalmans in­dulge in it. (_Mishkat_, i, chap, vii.)

[42] _Mul­la_, the Per­sian form of Maulavi, 'a doc­tor of law'.

[43] It is a mis­take to sup­pose that the pro­ces­sion of the Ta'ziya or Tabut is pe­cu­liar to In­dia. It is prac­tised in Per­sia and Egypt.

[44] The Prophet was obliged to make some com­pro­mise with idol­atry, as in the case of the Black Stone at Mec­ca. But he protest­ed against idols in one of the ear­li­est Su­urahs of the Ko­raan (lii 35-43), and in oth­er pas­sages.