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round with it as before, in quest of alms. Presently, the master of police, who was of those who had given alms on account of the supposed dead man on the previous day, met him; so he was angered and fell on the porters and beat them and took the [supposed] dead body, saying, ‘I will bury him and earn the reward [of God].’[1] So his men took him up and carrying him to the prefecture, fetched grave-diggers, who dug him a grave. Then they bought him a shroud and perfumes[2] and fetched an old man of the quarter, to wash him. So he recited over him [the appointed prayers and portions of the Koran] and laying him on the bench, washed him and shrouded him. After he had shrouded him, he voided;[3] so he renewed the washing and went away to make his ablutions,[4] whilst all the folk departed, likewise, to make the [obligatory] ablution, previously to the funeral.
When the dead man found himself alone, he sprang up, as he were a Satan, and donning the washer’s
- ↑ i.e. the recompense in the world to come promised to the performer of a charitable action.
- ↑ i.e. camphor and lote-tree leaves dried and powdered (sometimes mixed with rose-water) which are strewn over the dead body, before it is wrapped in the shroud. In the case of a man of wealth, more costly perfumes (such as musk, aloes and ambergris) are used.
- ↑ All the ablutions prescribed by the Mohammedan ritual are avoided by the occurrence, during the process, of any cause of ceremonial impurity (such as the mentioned in the text) and must be recommenced.
- ↑ Having handled a corpse, he had become in a state of legal impurity and it behoved him therefore to make the prescribed ablution.
