Observations on the Mussulmauns of India

LETTER VI

The Mus­sul­maun re­li­gion.--Sec­tar­ians.--Their dif­fer­ence of faith.--His­to­ry of the Soonies.--The Caliphas Omir, Os­man, Aboubuk­er, &c.--Mahu­mud's part­ing charge to Ali.--Omir's jeal­ousy of Ali.--The Kho­raun.--How com­piled.--The Calipha Omir held in de­tes­ta­tion.--Creed of the Sheahs.--Fu­ner­al ser­vice.--Opin­ions of the Mus­sul­mauns re­spect­ing the Mil­len­ni­um.--The foun­da­tion of their faith ex­hib­it­ed.--Sen­ti­ments of the most de­vout fol­low­ers of Mahu­mud.--Bridge of Sir­raat, the Scales, &c. ex­plained.--Emaum Mhid­hie.--Prophe­cy of his reap­pear­ance.--Its ear­ly ful­fil­ment an­tic­ipat­ed.--Dis­course with the Meer Had­jee Shaah on this sub­ject.

I do not pre­sume to of­fer opin­ions on the na­ture, sub­stance, or char­ac­ter, of the Mus­sul­maun Faith; but con­fine my­self to the mere re­la­tion of such facts as I have re­ceived from the best pos­si­ble au­thor­ity, viz. the re­li­gious men who are of that faith, and live in strict ac­cor­dance with the tenets they pro­fess.

There are two sects of the Mus­sul­maun per­sua­sion, as I have be­fore re­marked, viz. the Sheahs and the Soonies. The lead­ers of the for­mer are called Emaums; and those of the lat­ter Caliphas. The Sheahs ac­knowl­edge Ali and his im­me­di­ate de­scen­dants (eleven in num­ber) 'the right and on­ly law­ful Emaums', in suc­ces­sion, af­ter Mahu­mud. The Soonies de­clare the Caliphas--as Omir, Aboubuk­er, &c.--to be their law­ful lead­ers af­ter Mahu­mud.

I do not find that there is any great dif­fer­ence in the points of faith be­tween the two sects; they are equal­ly guid­ed by the same laws and or­di­nances in­cul­cat­ed by Mahu­mud in the Kho­raun;--the Sheahs pur­su­ing the pat­tern of ob­ser­vances traced out in the life and man­ners of Ali and his de­scen­dants;--and the Soonies tak­ing their ex­am­ples from the man­ners of the Caliphas. There is a dis­tin­guish­ing method in ablu­tions be­fore prayers, and al­so in the man­ner of bow­ing and pros­trat­ing in their de­vo­tion­al ex­er­cis­es;[1] this dif­fer­ence, how­ev­er, has noth­ing to do with their faith,--the sub­ject and form of their dai­ly prayer is one; but both sects have ex­tra ser­vices for par­tic­ular oc­ca­sions, agree­able to the in­struc­tion of their favourite lead­ers. The Na­maaz (dai­ly prayer) was taught by Mahu­mud to his fol­low­ers, ev­ery line of which is re­li­gious­ly rev­er­enced by Mus­sul­mauns, and can­not be al­tered by sec­tar­ian prin­ci­ples.

The Mus­sul­maun faith is found­ed on three roots; from these spring, with the Sheahs, six branch­es; with the Soonies, five. The roots are as fol­lows:--

First.--'There is but one God, self ex­ist­ing; ev­er was, and ev­er will be; in Whom is all Pow­er, Majesty, and Do­min­ion; by Whom all things are, and were cre­at­ed. With Whom is nei­ther part­ner or sub­stance:[2] and He alone is to be wor­shipped.'

Sec­ond.--'The Prophets were all true; and all their writ­ings to be re­lied on, with a true faith.'

Third.--'The res­ur­rec­tion of the dead is cer­tain.'

The Sheahs' branch­es, or em­ana­tions, from the three roots of their faith, are as fol­low:--

1st.--'Na­maaz,'[3] (prayer five times dai­ly); a nec­es­sary du­ty, nev­er to be omit­ted.

2nd.--'Rumza­un,'[4] (fast­ing) the whole thir­ty days of that month; a ser­vice ac­cept­able to God from His hum­ble crea­tures.

3rd.--'The Had­je,'[5] (pil­grim­age to Mec­ca); com­mand­ed by Mahu­mud, and there­fore to be obeyed.

4th.--'Zuck­haut;'[6] the for­ti­eth por­tion of all world­ly goods to be set apart ev­ery year (an of­fer­ing to God) for the ser­vice of the poor.

5th.--To fight in the road of God, or in His ser­vice, against the idol­aters.

6th.--To be­lieve that the twelve Emaums were the true and law­ful lead­ers, af­ter Mahu­mud; to fol­low in their path, or ex­am­ple, and to suc­cour and de­fend the Syaads, their de­scen­dants.

The Soonies omit the last branch in their pro­fes­sion of faith; with this soli­tary ex­cep­tion, the creed of the two sects, from all I can un­der­stand, is the same. The Sheahs are those who cel­ebrate Mahur­rum: in my de­scrip­tion of that event will be seen the zeal­ous par­ti­zans of the sect; and here may be in­tro­duced with pro­pri­ety, some ac­count of the op­po­site par­ty de­nom­inat­ed Soonies.

The word Calipha[7] im­plies the mas­ter or head of any trade, pro­fes­sion, or call­ing,--as the mas­ter of the tai­lors, the head mas­ter of a col­lege or school, &c. Omir was the first to usurp the ti­tle af­ter Mahu­mud's death, and to him suc­ceed­ed Aboubuk­er, and then Aus­maun (Os­man).[8]

Aboubuk­er may have claimed some re­la­tion­ship to Mahu­mud;--he was con­vert­ed by his preach­ing from idol­atry to the faith;--he gave his daugh­ter in mar­riage to Mahu­mud, by whom two sons were born to him, Ish­mael and Ibrahim.[9] 'An an­gel ap­peared to Mahu­mud, say­ing, Which of thy fam­ily shall be tak­en from thee, Oh, Mahu­mud! such is the com­mand of God; two of thy youth must die, and I am sent to de­mand of thee whether it is thy wish Ish­mael and Ibrahim, thine own sons, shall be tak­en from this world, or Hasan and Ho­sein, the sons of Fa­ti­ma thy daugh­ter?' The his­to­ri­an con­tin­ues, af­ter dwelling much on the virtues of the Prophet's on­ly daugh­ter, 'Such was the af­fec­tion of Mahu­mud for his daugh­ter Fa­ti­ma and her chil­dren, and so well he knew the pu­ri­ty of their hearts, that he hes­itat­ed not a mo­ment in re­ply­ing, “If the Lord gra­cious­ly per­mits His ser­vant to choose, I freely of­fer my two sons Ish­mael and Ibrahim; that Hasan and Ho­sein may live by His mer­cy ”'.

Omir was al­so a con­vert to the faith Mahu­mud taught: he like­wise gave a daugh­ter in mar­riage to Mahu­mud;[10] by whom, how­ev­er, the same his­to­ri­an re­marks, his house was not peo­pled. His on­ly daugh­ter, Fa­ti­ma, lived to add num­bers to his fam­ily: she was born to him by the pi­ous fe­male (a wid­ow) who was his first wife[11] and to whom he was unit­ed be­fore he com­menced his work of con­ver­sion. Ali, to whom Fa­ti­ma was mar­ried, was the nephew of Mahu­mud, and from this union the Syaad race de­scend to the present day. The Prophet ob­serv­ing re­al piety in Ali, de­signed him not on­ly to be the most suit­able hus­band for his ami­able daugh­ter, but the best qual­ified per­son to be cho­sen as his suc­ces­sor, when he should be called by 'the hand of death'; and in the most pub­lic man­ner gave charge of his flock to Ali, not long be­fore that event oc­curred. Mahu­mud's speech to Ali on that oc­ca­sion is much rev­er­enced by the Sheah sect;--it has been trans­lat­ed for me by my hus­band, and is as fol­lows:--

'You, my son, will suf­fer many per­se­cu­tions in the cause of re­li­gion; many will be the ob­struc­tions to your preach­ing, for I see they are not all as obe­di­ent and faith­ful as your­self. Usurpers of the au­thor­ity, del­egat­ed to you, will arise, whose views are not pure and holy as your own; but let my ad­mo­ni­tions dwell on your mind, re­mem­ber my ad­vice with­out swerv­ing. The re­li­gion I have laboured to teach, is, as yet, but as the buds shoot­ing forth from the tree; ten­der as they are, the rude blasts of dis­sen­sion may scat­ter them to the winds, and leave the par­ent tree with­out a leaf:--but suf­fered to push forth its pro­duce qui­et­ly, the hand of Time will ripen and bring to per­fec­tion that which has been the busi­ness of my awak­ened life to cul­ti­vate. Nev­er, my son, suf­fer your sword to be un­sheathed in the jus­tice of your cause; I ex­hort you to bear this in­junc­tion on your mind faith­ful­ly; what­ev­er may be the provo­ca­tions you re­ceive, or in­sults of­fered to your per­son,--I know this tri­al is in store for my son,--re­mem­ber the cause you are en­gaged in; suf­fer pa­tient­ly; nev­er draw your sword against the peo­ple who pro­fess the true faith, even though they are but by name Mus­sul­mauns.

'Against the en­emies of God, I have al­ready giv­en you di­rec­tions; you may fight for Him--the on­ly true God,--but nev­er against Him, or His faith­ful ser­vants.'

When Mahu­mud was num­bered with the dead, Omir soon set him­self for­ward as the law­ful suc­ces­sor; he was of good ad­dress, and in­sin­uat­ing man­ners, and suc­ceed­ed in draw­ing 'num­bers to his thresh­old'. He preached the same doc­trine Mahu­mud had taught, but sen­su­al in­dul­gence and ear­ly de­vel­oped am­bi­tion were more strong in his heart than the faith he preached. Omir grew jeal­ous of Ali's virtues and for­bear­ance, un­der the var­ious tri­als of op­pres­sion and in­jus­tice he chose to vis­it him with; and re­solved that, if pos­si­ble, he would de­stroy not on­ly Ali, but his whole fam­ily. Omir caused his house to be fired treach­er­ous­ly, but as the his­to­ri­ans say, 'the mer­cy of God watched over the sanc­ti­fied fam­ily'; they es­caped from the flames, with no oth­er loss than that of their small prop­er­ty.

The Kho­raun was not the work of any par­tic­ular pe­ri­od in the life of Mahu­mud. It was not com­piled in­to a book un­til af­ter Mahu­mud's death, who was to­tal­ly un­ac­quaint­ed with let­ters; each chap­ter hav­ing been con­veyed by the an­gel Gabriel[12] to Mahu­mud, his in­spired mem­ory en­abled him to re­peat, ver­ba­tim, the holy mes­sen­ger's words to his dis­ci­ples and con­verts when as­sem­bled as was their dai­ly cus­tom. To as many as com­mit­ted verse, chap­ter, or por­tion to mem­ory, by this oral com­mu­ni­ca­tion, Mahu­mud re­ward­ed with the high­est seats in his as­sem­bly (mean­ing near­est his per­son); and to those who wished for em­ploy­ment, he gave the com­mand of de­tach­ments sent out against the in­fi­dels.

The whole Kho­raun was thus con­veyed to Mahu­mud by the an­gel Gabriel, at many dif­fer­ent pe­ri­ods of his mis­sion; and by dai­ly rep­eti­tion, did he in­stil in­to the mem­ory of his fol­low­ers that men­tal scrip­ture. But when Omir usurped the right to lead, he am­bi­tious­ly planned for him­self a large share of pop­ular­ity by caus­ing the Kho­raun to be com­mit­ted to pa­per, and he ac­cord­ing­ly gave or­ders, that the best scribes should be em­ployed to con­vey its pre­cepts to writ­ing.

Ali had been en­gaged in the same em­ploy­ment for some time, per­ceiv­ing the fu­ture ben­efit to the faith which would ac­crue from such a labour, and on the very day, when Omir was seat­ed in form to re­ceive the work of his scribes, Ali al­so pre­sent­ed him­self with his ver­sion of the Kho­raun. It is as­sert­ed that Omir treat­ed him with some in­dig­ni­ty, and gave the pref­er­ence to the vol­ume his own scribes had pre­pared, de­sir­ing Ali, nev­er­the­less, to leave that he had tran­scribed with him, though he can­did­ly told him he nev­er in­tend­ed it should be 'the Book for the Peo­ple'. Ali found, on this try­ing oc­ca­sion, the ben­efit of Mahu­mud's ad­vice, to keep his tem­per sub­dued for the tri­al, and with­drew with his book clasped to his heart, as­sur­ing Omir, that the vol­ume should on­ly be the prop­er­ty of his de­scen­dants; and that when the twelfth Emaum, proph­esied by Mahu­mud, should dis­ap­pear from the eye of man, the Kho­raun he had writ­ten should al­so dis­ap­pear, un­til that Emaum re­turned, with whom the book he had writ­ten should again be found.

The name of Omir is de­testable to all lovers of lit­er­ature, or ad­mir­ers of an­cient his­to­ry and valu­able records. By his or­ders, the bath was heat­ed with the valu­able col­lec­tion of manuscripts, which it had been the work of ages to com­plete.[13] Omir was told that the peo­ple val­ued the writ­ings of the an­cients, and that they were dis­pleased at this ir­repara­ble de­struc­tion of valu­able records; he asked if the peo­ple were not sat­is­fied with the Kho­raun? and if sat­is­fied, why should they seek for oth­er knowl­edge than that book con­tained? declar­ing it to be an use­less em­ploy­ment of time, to be en­gaged in any oth­er read­ings. They say the col­lec­tion of books thus de­stroyed was so vast, that it served the pur­pose, to which it was ap­plied, for many suc­ces­sive days. I have thus far giv­en the ac­counts I have re­ceived of the ori­gin of the two sects amongst the Mus­sul­mauns from good au­thor­ity. My hus­band says, that in Hin­doost­aun the two sects may be near­ly equal in num­ber;[14] in Per­sia the Sheahs cer­tain­ly pre­vail; in Turkey all are Soonies; and in Ara­bia the Sheahs are sup­posed to pre­pon­der­ate. On the whole, per­haps, the two sects are about equal­ly di­vid­ed.

The Mus­sul­mauns' Creed, of the Sheah sect, is as fol­lows:--

'I be­lieve in one God, supreme over all, and Him alone do I wor­ship.

'I be­lieve that Mahu­mud was the crea­ture of God, the Cre­ator; I be­lieve that Mahu­mud was the mes­sen­ger of God, (the Lord of mes­sen­gers); and that he was the last of the prophets. I be­lieve that Ali was the chief of the faith­ful, the head of all the in­her­itors of the law, and the true lead­er ap­point­ed of God; con­se­quent­ly to be obeyed by the faith­ful. Al­so I be­lieve that Hasan and Ho­sein, the sons of Ali, and Ali son of Ho­sein, and Mahu­mud son of Ali, and Jau­fur son of Mahu­mud, and Moosa son of Jau­fur, and Ali son of Moosa, and Mahu­mud son of Ali, and Ali son of Mahu­mud, and Hasan son of Ali, and Mhid­hie (the stand­ing proof) son of Hasan; the mer­cy of God be up­on them! these were the true lead­ers of the faith­ful, and the proof of God was con­veyed by them to the peo­ple.'[15]

This creed is taught to the chil­dren of both sex­es, in Mus­sul­maun fam­ilies, as soon as they are able to talk; and, from the dai­ly rep­eti­tion, is per­fect­ly fa­mil­iar to them at an ear­ly age.

I pro­pose de­scrib­ing the fu­ner­al ser­vice here, as the sub­stance of their par­tic­ular faith is so in­ti­mate­ly con­nect­ed with the ap­point­ed ser­vice for the dead.

The dead body of a Mus­sul­maun, in about six hours af­ter life is ex­tinct, is placed in a kuf­fin[16] (cof­fin) and con­veyed to the place of buri­al, with pa­rade suit­ed to the rank he held in life.

A tent, or the kaa­naut[17] (screen), is pitched in a con­ve­nient place, where wa­ter is avail­able near to the tomb, for the pur­pose of wash­ing and prepar­ing the dead body for in­ter­ment. They then take the corpse out of the cof­fin and thor­ough­ly bathe it; when dry, they rub pound­ed cam­phor on the hands, feet, knees, and fore­head, these parts hav­ing, in the method of pros­trat­ing at prayer, dai­ly touched the ground; the body is then wrapped neat­ly in a wind­ing-​sheet of white cal­ico, on which has been writ­ten par­tic­ular chap­ters from the Kho­raun:[18] this done, it is tak­en up with great gen­tle­ness and laid in the grave on the side, with the face to­wards Mec­ca. The of­fi­ci­at­ing Maul­vee steps solemn­ly in­to the grave (which is much deep­er and wider than ours), and with a loud voice re­peats the creed, as be­fore de­scribed; af­ter which he says, 'These were thy good and holy lead­ers, O son of Adam! (here he re­peats the per­son's names). Now when the two an­gels come un­to thee, who are the Mac­cur­rub[19] (mes­sen­gers) from thy great and mighty God, they will ask of thee, “Who is thy Lord? Who is thy Prophet? What is thy faith? Which is thy book? Where is thy Ki­blaah?[20] Who is thy Lead­er?”

'Then shalt thou an­swer the Mac­cur­rub thus:--

'"God, great­est in glo­ry, is my on­ly Lord; Mahu­mud, my Prophet; Is­laaim, my faith, (Is­laaim means true faith); the Kho­raun, my book; the Kaubah (Holy House at Mec­ca), my Ki­blaah;

'“Emaum Ali, son of Aboutal­ib, ” Hasan and Ho­sein, “ Ali, sur­named Zynool Auber­dene, ” Mahu­mud, “ Baakur, ” Jau­fur, “ Saadick, ” Moosa, “ Khaz­im, ” Ali, “ Reezah, ” Mahu­mud, “ Ul Jawaad, ” Ali, “ Ul Hoodah, ” Hasan, “ Ul Ushk­eree, ” Mhid­hie, the stand­ing proof that we are wait­ing for.[21]

'“These are all my lead­ers, and they are my in­ter­ces­sors, with them is my love, with their en­emies is my ha­tred, in the world of earth and in the world to come eter­nal.”'

Then the Maul­vee says:--

'Know ye for a truth, O man (re­peat­ing his name), that the God we wor­ship is One on­ly, Great and Glo­ri­ous, Most High and Mighty God, who is above all lords, the on­ly true God.

'Know ye al­so, That Mahu­mud is the best of the Lord's mes­sen­gers.

'That Ali and his suc­ces­sors (be­fore enu­mer­at­ed, but al­ways here re­peat­ed) were the best of all lead­ers.

'That what­ev­er came with Mahu­mud is true, (mean­ing the whole work of his mis­sion);--Death is true; the In­ter­ro­ga­tion by Moonkih and Ny­kee[22] (the two an­gels) is true; the Res­ur­rec­tion is true; De­struc­tion is true; the Bridge of Sir­raat[23] is true; the Scales are true; Look­ing in­to the Book is true; Heav­en and Earth are true; Hell is true; the Day of Judg­ment is true.

'Of these things there is no doubt--all are true; and, fur­ther, that God, the great and glo­ri­ous God, will raise all the dead bod­ies from their graves.'

Then the Maul­vee reads the fol­low­ing prayer or bene­dic­tion, which is called Dooar[24] prayer:--

'May the Lord God, abun­dant in mer­cy, keep you with the true speech; may He lead you to the per­fect path; may He grant you knowl­edge of Him, and of His prophets.

'May the mer­cy of God be fixed up­on you for ev­er. Ameen.'

This con­clud­ed, the Maul­vee quits the grave, and slow­ly moves forty mea­sured paces in a line with it; then turn­ing round, he comes again to the grave, with the same solem­ni­ty in his steps, and stand­ing on the edge, he prays,

'O great and glo­ri­ous God, we be­seech Thee with hu­mil­ity make the earth com­fort­able to this Thy ser­vant's side, and raise his soul to Thee, and with Thee may he find mer­cy and for­give­ness.'

'Ameen, Ameen,' is re­spond­ed by all present.

This ends the fu­ner­al ser­vice: the earth is closed over by the ser­vants, &c. and, ex­cept with the very poor, the grave is nev­er en­tire­ly for­sak­en day or night, dur­ing the forty days of mourn­ing; read­ers of the Kho­raun are paid for this ser­vice, and in the fam­ilies of the no­bil­ity the grave is at­tend­ed for years by those hired, who are en­gaged to read from that book per­pet­ual­ly, re­liev­ing each oth­er at in­ter­vals day and night.

They be­lieve that when the Maul­vee quits the grave, the an­gels en­ter to in­ter­ro­gate the dead body, and re­ceive the con­fes­sion of his par­tic­ular faith; this is the ob­ject of the Maul­vee's re­tir­ing forty paces, to give the an­gels time to en­ter on their mis­sion to the dead.

The Mus­sul­mauns all be­lieve that Mhid­hie, the stand­ing proof as he is called, will vis­it the earth at a fu­ture pe­ri­od; they are said to pos­sess prophe­cies, that lead them to ex­pect the twelve hun­dred and six­ti­eth year of the He­gi­rah, as the time for his com­ing. The Soonies say, this Emaum has yet to be born:--the Sheahs be­lieve that Emaum Mhid­hie is the per­son to reap­pear. Some be­lieve he is still on earth, dwelling, as they con­jec­ture, in the wilds and forests; and many go so far as to as­sert, that Mhid­hie vis­its (with­out be­ing rec­og­nized) the Holy House of Mec­ca an­nu­al­ly, on the great day of sac­ri­fice; but I can­not find any grounds they have for this opin­ion.[25]

They al­so pos­sess a prophe­cy, on which much de­pen­dance is placed, that 'When the four quar­ters of the globe con­tain Chris­tian in­hab­itants, and when the Chris­tians ap­proach the con­fines of Kaabah, then may men look for that Emaum who is to come'. And it is the gen­er­al be­lief amongst Mus­sul­mauns, found­ed on the au­thor­ity of their most revered and val­ued writ­ers, that Emaum Mhid­hie will ap­pear with Je­sus Christ at his sec­ond com­ing; and with whom, they de­clare and firm­ly be­lieve, he will act in con­cert to purge the world of sin and wicked­ness. When, they add, 'all men shall be of one mind and one faith'.

Of the three prin­ci­pal Roots of the Mus­sul­mauns' faith, lit­tle need be fur­ther said in ex­pla­na­tion. I have had var­ious op­por­tu­ni­ties of learn­ing their undis­guised thoughts, and wish on­ly to im­part what the peo­ple are, who are so lit­tle known to the world in gen­er­al. All per­sons hav­ing had the op­por­tu­ni­ty of study­ing the pe­cu­liar­ities of their par­tic­ular faith, will, I think, give them due cred­it, that rev­er­ence for, and be­lief in God, forms a promi­nent trait in their char­ac­ter and faith: 'The En­glish trans­la­tion of the Kho­raun by Sale, (im­per­fect as all works must be, where the two lan­guages are in­ad­equate to speak each oth­er's mean­ing,) will tell with­out a com­men­tary, that the wor­ship of God was the foun­da­tion on which Mahu­mud built his code of laws; and that the prophets were all ac­knowl­edged by him as mes­sen­gers sent from God to His peo­ple, in ev­ery age of the world; and, last­ly, that Mahu­mud was the Prophet, who came when the peo­ple of the earth, vi­cious and pro­fane, had fall­en in­to the most dis­so­lute habits, wor­ship­ping idols in­stead of God.' This pas­sage is the sen­ti­ment ex­pressed to me by a wor­thy man, and a true Mus­sul­maun; I have traced it out for the sake of ex­plain­ing what is in the hearts of the Mus­sul­mauns of the present day.

When I have con­versed with some of them on the im­prob­abil­ity of Mahu­mud's prophet­ic mis­sion, I have been si­lenced by a few words, 'How many prophets were sent to the Is­raelites?'--'Many.'--'You can­not enu­mer­ate them? then, is it too much to be prob­able that God's mer­cy should have been gra­cious­ly ex­tend­ed to the chil­dren of Ish­mael? they al­so are Abra­ham's seed. The Is­raelites had many prophets, in all of whom we be­lieve; the Ish­maelites have one Prophet on­ly, whose mis­sion was to draw men from idol­atry to the true God. All men, they add will be judged ac­cord­ing to their fi­deli­ty in the faith they have pro­fessed. It is not the out­ward sign which makes a man the true Mus­sul­maun; nei­ther is it the mere pro­fes­sion of Chris­tian­ity which will clear the man at the last day. Re­li­gion and faith are of the heart.'

In their col­lec­tion of writ­ings, I have had ac­cess to a vo­lu­mi­nous work, en­ti­tled 'Hyaa­tool Kaaloob'[26] (En­light­en­er of the Heart). My hus­band has trans­lat­ed for me, oc­ca­sion­al­ly, por­tions of this valu­able work, which bears a strik­ing sim­ilar­ity to our Holy Scrip­tures, though col­lect­ed af­ter a dif­fer­ent man­ner; I have ac­quired, by this means, a more in­ti­mate ac­quain­tance with the gen­er­al char­ac­ter of the Mus­sul­maun's be­lief. This book con­tains all the prophets' lives, at ev­ery age of the world. It was com­piled by Mahu­mud Baakur, first in Ara­bic, and af­ter­wards trans­lat­ed by him in­to the Per­sian lan­guage, for the ben­efit of the pub­lic; and is of great an­tiq­ui­ty--I can­not now as­cer­tain the ex­act date.

The Mus­sul­maun be­lief on the sub­ject of the res­ur­rec­tion is, 'When the ful­ness of time cometh, of which no man knoweth, then shall the earth be de­stroyed by fire--and af­ter this will be the res­ur­rec­tion of the dead'.

The branch­es em­anat­ing from the roots of the Mus­sul­maun faith will re­quire fur­ther ex­pla­na­tion which shall fol­low in due course. I will in this let­ter mere­ly add what is meant by the Bridge of Sir­raat,[27] the Scales,[28] and Look­ing in­to the Book as not­ed in the buri­al ser­vice.

'The Bridge of Sir­raat', they un­der­stand, is to be passed over by ev­ery per­son in their pas­sage to eter­ni­ty, and is rep­re­sent­ed sharp as the keen­est sword.[29] The righ­teous will be gift­ed with pow­er to pass over with the ra­pid­ity of light­ning, nei­ther harm nor in­con­ve­nience will at­tend them on the pas­sage. The wicked, on the con­trary, will be with­out help, and must be many times in­jured and cut down in the at­tempt. An idea has crept in­to the minds of some, that who­ev­er of­fers up to God, at dif­fer­ent pe­ri­ods of his life, such an­imals as are deemed clean and fit­ting for sac­ri­fice, the same num­ber and kind, on their day of pass­ing Sir­raat, shall be in readi­ness to as­sist them on the pas­sage over.

On this sup­po­si­tion is ground­ed the ob­ject of princes and no­bles in In­dia of­fer­ing camels in sac­ri­fice on the day of Buck­rah Eade.[30] This event an­swers our Scrip­ture ac­count of Abra­ham's of­fer­ing, but the Mus­sul­mauns say, the son of Abra­ham so of­fered was Ish­mael, and not Isaac. I have dis­put­ed the point with some of their learned men, and brought them to search through their au­thor­ities; in some one or two there is a doubt as to which was the son of­fered, but the gen­er­al writ­ers and most of the Mus­sul­mauns them­selves be­lieve Ish­mael was the of­fer­ing made by Abra­ham.

'The Scales are true;' the Mus­sul­mauns be­lieve, that on the day of judg­ment, the good and the bad deeds of ev­ery mor­tal will be sub­mit­ted to the scales pre­pared in Heav­en for that pur­pose.

'Look­ing in­to the Book is true;' the Mus­sul­mauns be­lieve that ev­ery hu­man be­ing from their birth is at­tend­ed by two an­gels,[31] one rest­ing on the right shoul­der the oth­er on the left, con­tin­ual­ly; their busi­ness is to reg­is­ter ev­ery ac­tion of the in­di­vid­ual they at­tend; when a good ac­tion is to be record­ed, they be­seech the Almighty in His mer­cy to keep the per­son in the good and per­fect way; when evil ways are to be reg­is­tered, they mourn with in­ter­ces­sions to God that His mer­cy may be ex­tend­ed, by grant­ing them re­pen­tant hearts, and then, His for­give­ness. Thus they ex­plain 'Look­ing in­to the Book is true', that what­ev­er is con­tained in this book will be looked in­to on the day of judg­ment, and by their deeds there­in reg­is­tered shall they be judged.

In the 'Hyaa­tool Kaaloob' is to be found the lives of the Emaums, from which is gleaned the fol­low­ing re­marks:--

The Emaum Mhid­hie was an or­phan at nine years old. Al­rouschid,[32] the King of Bag­dad, ad­vised by his wicked min­is­ter, re­solved on de­stroy­ing this boy (the last of the Emaums), fear­ing as he grew in­to favour with the peo­ple, that the pow­er of his sovereign­ty would de­crease.

The King sent cer­tain sol­diers to seize Mhid­hie, who was at prayers in an in­ner room when they ar­rived. The sol­diers de­mand­ed and were re­fused ad­mit­tance they then forced an en­trance and pro­ceed­ed to the room in which the Emaum was sup­posed to be at prayers, they dis­cov­ered him im­mersed to the waist in a tank of wa­ter; the sol­diers de­sired him to get out of the wa­ter and sur­ren­der him­self, he con­tin­ued re­peat­ing his prayer, and ap­peared to take no no­tice of the men nor their de­mand. Af­ter some de­lib­er­ations amongst the sol­diers, they thought the wa­ter was too shal­low to en­dan­ger their lives, and one en­tered the tank in­tend­ing to take the Emaum pris­on­er, he sank in­stant­ly to rise no more, a sec­ond fol­lowed who shared the same fate; and the rest, de­terred by the ex­am­ple of their broth­er sol­diers, fled from the place, to re­port the fail­ure of their plan to the King at Bag­dad.

This writ­er re­ports that Emaum Mhid­hie was se­cret­ly con­veyed away, sup­posed by the in­ter­po­si­tion of Di­vine Prov­idence, and was not again seen, to be rec­og­nized, on earth; yet it is be­lieved he still lives and will re­main for the ful­fil­ment of that prophe­cy which sayeth:--'When Mec­ca is filled with Chris­tian peo­ple Emaum Mhid­hie will ap­pear, to draw men to the true faith; and then al­so, Je­sus Christ will de­scend from heav­en to Mec­ca, there will be great slaugh­ter amongst men; af­ter which there will be but one faith--and then shall there be per­fect peace and hap­pi­ness over all the world.'

The Mus­sul­mauns of the present age dis­course much on the sub­ject of that prophe­cy--par­tic­ular­ly dur­ing the con­test be­tween the Greeks and Turks, of which how­ev­er they had no very cor­rect in­for­ma­tion, yet they fan­cied the time must be fast ap­proach­ing, by these lead­ing events, to the fuller ac­com­plish­ment; of­ten, when in con­ver­sa­tion with the most re­li­gious men of the coun­try, I have heard them de­clare it as their firm be­lief that the time was fast ap­proach­ing when there should be but one mind amongst all men. 'There is but lit­tle more to fin­ish;' 'The time draws near;' are ex­pres­sions of the Mus­sul­mauns' be­lief, when dis­cours­ing of the pe­ri­od an­tic­ipat­ed, as proph­esied in their sa­cred writ­ings;--so per­suad­ed are they of the near­ness of that time. In re­lat­ing the sub­stance of my last se­ri­ous con­ver­sa­tion with the de­vout Meer Had­jee Shaah, I shall dis­close the re­al sen­ti­ments of most, if not ev­ery re­li­gious re­flect­ing, true Mus­sul­maun of his sect in In­dia.

Meer Had­jee Shaah de­light­ed in re­li­gious con­ver­sa­tions; it was his hap­pi­est time when, in the qui­et of night, the Meer, his son, trans­lat­ed, as I read, the Holy Bible to him. We have of­ten been thus en­gaged un­til one or two, and even to a lat­er hour in the morn­ing; he re­mem­bered all he heard, and drew com­par­isons, in his own mind, be­tween the two au­thor­ities of sa­cred writ­ings--the Kho­raun and Bible; the one he had stud­ied through his long life, the oth­er, he was now equal­ly sat­is­fied, con­tained the word of God; he re­ceived them both, and as the 'two wit­ness­es' of God. The last se­ri­ous con­ver­sa­tion I had with him, was a very few days be­fore his death; he was then near­ly in as good health as he had been for the last year; his great age had weak­ened his frame, but he walked about the grounds with his staff, as erect as when I first saw him, and evinced noth­ing in his gen­er­al man­ner that could ex­cite a sus­pi­cion that his hours had so near­ly run their course.

We had been talk­ing of the time when peace on earth should be uni­ver­sal; 'My time, dear bait­tie[33] (daugh­ter), is draw­ing to a quick con­clu­sion. You may live to see the events fore­told, I shall be in my grave; but re­mem­ber, I tell you now, though I am dead, yet when Je­sus Christ re­turns to earth, at His com­ing, I shall rise again from my grave; and I shall be with Him, and with Emaum Mhid­hie al­so.'

This was the sub­stance of his last se­ri­ous con­ver­sa­tion with me, and with­in one short week he was re­moved from those who loved to hear his voice; but he still lives in the mem­ory of many, and those who knew his worth are rec­on­ciled by re­flect­ing on the 'joy that awaits the righ­teous'.

'Oth­er sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them al­so I must bring, and they shall hear My voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shep­herd.' Al­so, 'In My Fa­ther's house are many man­sions'. These were par­tic­ular­ly pleas­ing pas­sages to him, and of­ten re­ferred to in our scrip­tural con­ver­sa­tions.

[1] The Shi'ahs on­ly wipe or rub the feet, in­stead of wash­ing them, as do the Sun­nis. In the stand­ing pos­ture (_qiyam_) in prayer, the Sun­nis place the right hand over the left be­low the navel; the Shi'ahs keep their hands hang­ing on both sides of the body.

[2] I have met with the creed of the mod­ern Jews, some time in the course of my life, in Hurd's _His­to­ry of all Re­li­gions_; the be­lief of the Mus­sul­mauns, as re­gards the uni­ty of God, strict­ly co­in­cides with that of the Jews, de­scribed in the first four ar­ti­cles of their creed. [_Au­thor_.]

[3] _Na­maz_, litur­gi­cal prayer, as con­trast­ed with _du'a_, or­di­nary prayer.

[4] _Ramzan, Ra­mazan_.

[5] _Ha­jj_.

[6] _Za­kat_.

[7] Khal­ifah, 'suc­ces­sor,' 'lieu­tenant,' 'vicere­gent.'

[8] 'Umar, Abu Bakr, 'Us­man.

[9] No son named Ish­mail is record­ed. Ibrahim, his son from his slave girl, Mary the Copt, died A.D. 631, and was buried at Med­ina. The daugh­ter of Abu Bakr was 'Ay­ishah.

[10] The Prophet mar­ried Haf­sah, daugh­ter of 'Umar, as his third wife.

[11] Khadi­jah.

[12] 'Whoso is the en­emy of Gabriel--for he has by God's leave caused to de­scend on thy heart the con­fir­ma­tion of pre­vi­ous rev­ela­tions.'--_Ko­ran_, ii. 91.

[13] 'The sto­ry of the de­struc­tion of the li­brary at Alexan­dria is first told by Bar-​he­braeus (Ab­ul­farag­ius), a Chris­tian writ­er who lived six cen­turies lat­er: it is of very doubt­ful au­thor­ity.'--_En­cy­clopae­dia Bri­tan­ni­ca_, i. 570.

[14] This is in­cor­rect, Sun­nis very large­ly pre­pon­der­at­ing over Shi'ahs. Ac­cord­ing to the lat­est in­for­ma­tion there were in the Unit­ed Provinces of Agra and Oudh, near­ly 6-1/2 mil­lion Sun­nis and 183,000 Shi'ahs (_Im­pe­ri­al Gazetteer_ (1908), xxiv. 172). This in­for­ma­tion was not col­lect­ed in re­cent cen­sus re­ports. In the whole of In­dia, in 1881, there were 46-3/4 mil­lion Sun­nis, as com­pared with 809,561 Shi'ahs.

[15] The cor­rect list of the Imams rec­og­nized by the Imamiya or or­tho­dox Shi'ahs is as fol­lows: 'Ali, son-​in-​law of the Prophet; Al-​Hasan, son of 'Ali, Al-​Hu­sain, sec­ond son of 'Ali; 'Ali Zain-​ul-'Abidin, son of Al-​Hu­sain; Muham­mad Al-​Baqir, son of Zain-​ul-'Abidin; Ja'afar as-​Sadiq, son of Muham­mad Al-​Baqir; Ar-​Raza, son of Musa; Muham­mad At-​Taqi, son of Ar-​Raza; 'Ali-​an Naqi, son of Muham­mad At-​Taqi; Al-​Hasan Al-​Askari, son of 'Ali-​an Naqi; Muham­mad, son of Al-​Hasan Al-​Askari, or the Imam Al-​Mah­di, who is be­lieved to be still alive, and will ap­pear in the last days as the Mah­di.

[16] _Kafn_, prop­er­ly 'a wind­ing-​sheet'.

[17] _Qanat_.

[18] The re­li­gious man gen­er­al­ly pre­pares his own wind­ing-​sheet, keep­ing it al­ways ready, and oc­ca­sion­al­ly tak­ing out this mon­itor to add an­oth­er verse or chap­ter, as the train of thought may have urged at the time. I have seen this done by the Meer Had­jee Shaah, who ap­pro­pri­at­ed a piece of fine white cam­bric muslin, he had re­ceived from me, to this sa­cred pur­pose. I have of­ten been a silent ob­serv­er of my revered friend whilst he was en­gaged in writ­ing pas­sages from the book whose rules he lived by. The an­tic­ipat­ed mo­ment when he should re­quire this his kuf­fin dress, was nev­er cloud­ed by dread, but al­ways looked for­ward to with cheer­ful­ness and fer­vent hope; for he trust­ed in the mer­cy of God whom he loved and wor­shipped. [_Au­thor_.] [Many pil­grims buy at Mec­ca the shroud in which they de­sire to be buried, and wash it in the well Za­mzam, sup­pos­ing that the holy wa­ter will se­cure the re­pose of the soul af­ter death.]

[19] Mac­cur­rub means those an­gels who are at all times priv­ileged to ap­pear in the pres­ence of God;--they are sup­posed to have eyes of great bril­liance. In or­der that the Mus­sul­mauns may have the re­ply ready for that aw­ful mo­ment, they have a cus­tom of re­peat­ing the re­spons­es to the an­gel ev­ery evening, when the lamp is first light­ed, as they say this sud­den light re­sem­bles the an­gels' eyes. I had no­ticed the cus­tom for some time, and fan­cied the Mus­sul­maun peo­ple wor­shipped light, un­til I was made ac­quaint­ed with the re­al mo­tive for this gen­er­al ob­ser­vance both with the men and wom­en. [_Au­thor._] [_Muqarrab_, 'those al­lowed to come near'.]

[20] Ki­blaah is the holy place to which men turn their face when of­fer­ing up their prayer to God, as the Jews face Jerusalem. Lit­er­al­ly, 'wor­ship­ping place'. [_Au­thor._] [_Qi­blah_: the di­rec­tion of prayer was changed by the Prophet from Jerusalem to Mec­ca (_Ko­ran_, ii. 138-9, with Sale's note).]

[21] See p. 72.

[22] Munkir, or Munkar, and Nakir are the two record­ing an­gels.

[23] See p. 78.

[24] _Du'a_.

[25] Al-​Mah­di, 'the di­rect­ed one', who will ap­pear in the last day. Ac­cord­ing to the Shi'ahs, he has al­ready ap­peared in the per­son of Muham­mad Abu'l-​Qasim, the 12th Imam. Lat­er claimants are Sayyid Ah­mad, who fought against the Sikhs in 1826; Muham­mad Ah­mad ibn Sayyid Ab­dul­la, who fled af­ter the fa­tal day of Om­dur­man, and was killed in bat­tle in 1899.

[26] _Hay­at[u']l-​Qu­lub_ com­piled by Muham­mad Baqir, whose last work was pub­lished A.D. 1627. It has been part­ly trans­lat­ed in­to En­glish by J.L. Mor­rick, Boston, 1850.

[27] Sir­at, the bridge over which the soul must cross on its way to Par­adise.

[28] Mizan, the Bal­ance, with which the deeds of the dead man are weighed.--_Ko­ran_, xxi. 47.

[29] May not this be a po­et­ical sym­bol, sim­ilar to the scythe? [_Au­thor._]

[30] Baqarah 'Id, 'cow fes­ti­val,' held on the 10th of the month Zu'l-​Hi­jjah, the month of pil­grim­age, the at­tempt­ed sac­ri­fice of Ish­mael hav­ing, it is said, oc­curred at Mount Mi­na, near Mec­ca.

[31] Ki­ra­mu'l-​Kat­ib­in, one record­ing the good, the oth­er the evil ac­tions of the dead.

[32] Harun-​al-​Rashid, 'Aaron the Or­tho­dox', fifth Ab­basid Caliph, of Bagh­dad (A.D. 763 or 776-809), best known from _The Ara­bi­an Nights_.

[33] _Beti_.