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on the plains of Kerbela, yet even on this a number of ceremonies follow, extending over the next three days and consecrated to the memory of his burial etc.
The dances and bonfires, the ḍikrs[1] with their mourning for the martyrs' fate, a grief which though artificially excited expresses itself in wild frenzies where the mourners gash their own bodies with knives; the theatrical representations, sometimes confounded with reality by the crowds of spectators, so that the actor who takes the part of the murderer of Ḥusain becomes exposed to actual violence; the mad processions, particularly common in Hindustan, and which remind one more of a fair or carnival than of a funeral pageant; all this specially belongs to Persia and the Shiʾite portions of British India, and need not occupy our attention here.
It is however worthy of remark that even Mohammedan peoples who follow the orthodox ritual, but whose life and thought have been subjected to Shiʾite influences celebrate feasts of the above description. They recognize no impropriety in so doing, though their teachers refrain from all participation in these ceremonies, which are to a considerable extent of pagan origin.
A very noteworthy and full description of such festivals is to be found in the Qanoon-e-islam of Jaffur Shurreef (pronounced Jafar Sharif) translated into English by G. A. Herklots, (2nd ed. Madras 1863 pp. 98–149). It has especial interest for us, because the work of this writer relates to a non Shiite people, the inhabitants of the coastlands of the Southern part of British India, whence the creed of Islam would appear to have made its first advances towards the Eastern Archipelago.
The Mohammedans of the Deccan, whose manners are portrayed in this work, are Shafiʾites just like those of the Malay Archipelago, but their national ideas and customs have arisen to a great extent under strong Shiʾite influences. As is clear from a comparison of Jaffur Shurreef's book with what we actually find in Netherlands-India, these adventitious additions to their creed were adopted by the Malay and Javanese converts with just as much readiness as the fundamental truths of the Shafiʾite law or of the teaching universally accepted as orthodox.
To attain the certainty that we might desire on these points a more
- ↑ A sort of religious recitations.
