The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India
Chapter 78 : The child's birthday is known as _sal-girah_ and is celebrated by a feast. A knot

The child's birthday is known as _sal-girah_ and is celebrated by a feast. A knot is tied in a red thread and annually thereafter a fresh knot to mark his age, and prayers are offered in the child's name to the patriarch Noah, who is believed to have lived to five hundred or a thousand years, and hence to have the power of conferring longevity on the child. When a child is four years, four months and four days old the ceremony of Bismillah or taking the name of G.o.d is held, which is obligatory on all Muhammadans. Friends are invited, and the child is dressed in a flowered robe (_sahra_) and repeats the first chapters of the Koran after his or her tutor. [313]

13. Circ.u.mcision, and maturity of girls.

A boy is usually circ.u.mcised at the age of six or seven, but among some cla.s.ses of s.h.i.+ahs and the Arabs the operation is performed a few days after birth. The barber operates and the child is usually given a little _bhang_ or other opiate. Some Muhammadans leave circ.u.mcision till an age bordering on p.u.b.erty, and then perform it with a pomp and ceremony almost equalling those of a marriage. When a girl arrives at the age of p.u.b.erty she is secluded for seven days, and for this period eats only b.u.t.ter, bread and sugar, all fish, flesh, salt and acid food being prohibited. In the evening she is bathed, warm water is poured on her head, and among the lower cla.s.ses an entertainment is given to friends. [314]

14. Funeral rites.

The same word _janazah_ is used for the corpse, the bier and the funeral. When a man is at the point of death a chapter of the Koran, telling of the happiness awaiting the true believer in the future life, is read, and some money or sherbet is dropped into his mouth. After death the body is carefully washed and wrapped in three or five cloths for a male or female respectively. Some camphor or other sweet-smelling stuff is placed on the bier. Women do not usually attend funerals, and the friends and relatives of the deceased walk behind the bier. There is a tradition among some Muhammadans that no one should precede the corpse, as the angels go before. To carry a bier is considered a very meritorious act, and four of the relations, relieving each other in turn, bear it on their shoulders. Muhammadans carry their dead quickly to the place of interment, for Muhammad is stated to have said that it is good to carry the dead quickly to the grave, so as to cause the righteous person to attain the sooner to bliss; and, on the other hand, in the case of a bad man it is well to put wickedness away from one's shoulders. Funerals should always be attended on foot, for it is said that Muhammad once rebuked people who were following a bier on horseback, saying, "Have you no shame, since G.o.d's angels go on foot and you go upon the backs of quadrupeds?" It is a highly meritorious act to attend a funeral whether it be that of a Muslim, a Jew or a Christian. The funeral service is not recited in the cemetery, this being too polluted a place for so sacred an office, but either in a mosque or in some open s.p.a.ce close to the dwelling of the deceased person or to the graveyard. The nearest relative is the proper person to recite the service, but it is usually said by the family priest or the village Kazi. The grave sometimes has a recess at the side, in which the body is laid to prevent the earth falling upon it, or planks may be laid over the body slantwise or supported on bricks for the same purpose. Coffins are only used by the rich. When the body has been placed in the grave each person takes up a clod of earth and p.r.o.nouncing over it a verse of the Koran, 'From earth we made you, to earth we return you and out of earth we shall raise you on the resurrection day,' places it gently in the grave over the corpse. [315] The building of stone or brick tombs and writing verses of the Koran on them is prohibited by the Traditions, but large masonry tombs are common in all Muhammadan countries and very frequently they bear inscriptions. On the third day a feast is given in the morning and after it trays of flowers with a vessel containing scented oil are handed round and the guests pick flowers and dip them into the oil. They then proceed to the grave, where the oil and flowers are placed. Maulvis are employed to read the whole of the Koran over the grave, which they accomplish by dividing it into sections and reading them at the same time. Rich people sometimes have the whole Koran read several times over in this manner. A sheet of white or red cloth is spread over the grave, green being usually reserved for Fakirs or saints. On the evening of the ninth day another feast is given, to which friends and neighbours, and religious and ordinary beggars are invited, and a portion is sent to the Fakir or mendicant in charge of the burying-ground. Some people will not eat any food from this feast in their houses but take it outside. [316] On the morning of the tenth day they go again to the grave and repeat the offering of flowers and scented oil as before. Other feasts are given on the fortieth day, and at the expiration of four, six and nine months, and one year from the date of the death, and the rich sometimes spend large sums on them. None of these observances are prescribed by the Koran but have either been retained from pre-Islamic times or adopted in imitation of the Hindus. For forty days all furniture is removed from the rooms and the whole family sleep on the bare ground. Sometimes a cup of water and a wheaten cake are placed nightly for forty days on the spot where the deceased died, and a similar provision is sent to the mosque. When a man dies his mother and widow break their gla.s.s bangles. The mother can get new ones, but the widow does not wear gla.s.s bangles or a nose-ring again unless she takes a second husband. For four months and ten days the widow is strictly secluded and does not leave the house. Prayers for ancestors are offered annually at the Shab-i-Barat or Bakr-Id festival. [317] The property of a deceased Muhammadan is applicable in the first place to the payment of his funeral expenses; secondly, to the discharge of his debts; and thirdly, to the payment of legacies up to one-third of the residue. If the legacies exceed this amount they are proportionately reduced. The remainder of the property is distributed by a complicated system of shares to those of the deceased's relatives who rank as sharers and residuaries, legacies to any of them in excess of the amount of their shares being void. The consequence of this law is that most Muhammadans die intestate. [318]

15. Muhammadan sects. s.h.i.+ah and Sunni.

Of the two main sects of Islam, ninety-four per cent of the Muhammadans in the Central Province were returned as being Sunnis in 1911 and three per cent as s.h.i.+ahs, while the remainder gave no sect. Only the Cutchi, Bohra and Khoja immigrants from Gujarat are s.h.i.+ahs and practically all other Muhammadans are Sunnis. With the exception of Persia, Oudh and part of Gujarat, the inhabitants of which are s.h.i.+ahs, the Sunni sect is generally prevalent in the Muhammadan world. The main difference between the Sunnis and s.h.i.+ahs is that the latter think that according to the Koran the Caliphate or spiritual heads.h.i.+p of the Muhammadans had to descend in the Prophet's family and therefore necessarily devolved on the Lady Fatimah, the only one of his children who survived him, and on her husband Ali the fourth Caliph. They therefore reject the first three Caliphs after Muhammad, that is Abu Bakr, Omar and Othman. After Ali they also hold that the Caliphate descended in his family to his two sons Hasan and Hussain, and the descendants of Hussain. Consequently they reject all the subsequent Caliphs of the Muhammadan world, as Hussain and his children did not occupy this position. They say that there are only twelve Caliphs, or Imams, as they now prefer to call them, and that the twelfth has never really died and will return again as the Messiah of whom Muhammad spoke, at the end of the world. He is known as the Mahdi, and the well-known pretender of the Soudan, as well as others elsewhere, have claimed to be this twelfth or unrevealed Imam. Other sects of the s.h.i.+ahs, as the Zaidiyah and Ismailia, make a difference in the succession of the Imamate among Hussain's descendants. The central incident of the s.h.i.+ah faith is the slaughter of Hussain, the son of Ali, with his family, on the plain of Karbala in Persia by the sons of Yazid, the second Caliph of the Umaiyad dynasty of Damascus, on the 10th day of the month Muharram, in the 61st year of the Hijra or A.D. 680. The martyrdom of Hussain and his family at Karbala is celebrated annually for the first ten days of the month of Muharram by the s.h.i.+ahs. Properly the Sunnis should take no part in this, and should observe only the tenth day of Muharram as that on which Adam and Eve and heaven and h.e.l.l were created. But in the Central Provinces the Sunnis partic.i.p.ate in all the Muharram celebrations, which now have rather the character of a festival than of a season of mourning. The s.h.i.+ahs also reject the four great schools of tradition of the Sunnis, and have separate traditional authorities of their own. They count the month to begin from the full moon instead of the new moon, pray three instead of five times a day, and in praying hold their hands open by their sides instead of folding them below the breast. The word s.h.i.+ah means a follower, and Sunni one proceeding on the _sunnah_, the path or way, a term applied to the traditions of the Prophet. The two words have thus almost the same signification. Except when otherwise stated, the information in this article relates to the Sunnis.

16. Leading religious observances. Prayer.

The five standard observances of the Muhammadan religion are the Kalima, or creed; Sula, or the five daily prayers; Roza, or the thirty-day fast of Ramazan; Zakab, the legal alms; and Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, which should be performed once in a lifetime. The Kalima, or creed, consists simply in the sentence, 'There is but one G.o.d and Muhammad is His prophet,' which is frequently on the lips of Muhammadans. The five periods for prayer are Fajr ki namaz, in the morning before sunrise; Zohar, or the midday prayer, after the sun has begun to decline; Asur, or the afternoon prayer, about four; Maghrib, or the evening prayer, immediately after sunset; and Aysha, or the evening prayer, after the night has closed in. These prayers are repeated in Arabic, and before saying them the face, hands and feet should be washed, and, correctly speaking, the teeth should also be cleaned. At the times of prayer the Azan or call to prayer is repeated from the mosque by the _muezzan_ or crier in the following terms: "G.o.d is great, G.o.d is great, G.o.d is great, G.o.d is great! I bear witness that there is no G.o.d but G.o.d! (twice). I bear witness that Muhammad is the Apostle of G.o.d! (twice). Come to prayers! Come to prayers! Come to salvation! Come to salvation! G.o.d is great! There is no other G.o.d but G.o.d." In the early morning the following sentence is added, 'Prayers are better than sleep.' [319]

17. The fast of Ramazan.

The third necessary observance is the fast in the month of Ramazan, the ninth month of the Muhammadan year. The fast begins when the new moon is seen, or if the sky is clouded, after thirty days from the beginning of the previous month. During its continuance no food or water must be taken between sunrise and sunset, and betel-leaf, tobacco and conjugal intercourse must be abjured for the whole period. The abstention from water is a very severe penance during the long days of the hot weather when Ramazan falls at this season. Mr. Hughes thinks that the Prophet took the thirty days' fast from the Christian Lent, which was observed very strictly in the Eastern Church during the nights as well as days. In ordaining the fast he said that G.o.d 'would make it an ease and not a difficulty,' but he may not have reflected that his own action in discarding the intercalary month adopted by the Arabs and reverting to the simple lunar months would cause the fast to revolve round the whole year. During the fast people eat before sunrise and after sunset, and dinner-parties are held lasting far into the night.

It is a divine command to give alms annually of money, cattle, grain, fruit and merchandise. If a man has as much as eighty rupees, or forty sheep and goats, or five camels, he should give alms at specified rates amounting roughly to two and a half per cent of his property. In the case of fruit and grain the rate is one-tenth of the harvest for unirrigated, and a twentieth for irrigated crops. These alms should be given to pilgrims who desire to go to Mecca but have not the means; and to religious and other beggars if they are very poor, debtors who have not the means to discharge their debts, champions of the cause of G.o.d, travellers without food and proselytes to Islam. Religious mendicants consider it unlawful to accept the _zakat_ or legal alms unless they are very poor, and they may not be given to Saiyads or descendants of the Prophet.

18. The pilgrimage to Mecca.

The Hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca is inc.u.mbent on all men and women who have sufficient means to meet the expenses of the journey and to maintain their families at home during their absence. Only a very small proportion of Indian Muhammadans, however, now undertake it. Mecca is the capital of Arabia and about seventy miles from the Red Sea. The pilgrimage must be performed during the month Zu'l Hijjah, so that the pilgrim may be at Mecca on the festival of Id-ul-Zoha or the Bakr-Id. At the last stage near Mecca the pilgrims a.s.sume a special dress, consisting of two seamless wrappers, one round the waist and the other over the shoulders. Sandals of wood may also be worn. Formerly the pilgrim would take with him a little compa.s.s in which the needle in the shape of a dove pointed continually towards Mecca in the west. On arrival at Mecca he performs the legal ablutions, proceeds to the sacred mosque, kisses the black stone, and encompa.s.ses the Kaaba seven times. The Kaaba or 'Cube' is a large stone building and the black stone is let into one of its walls. He drinks the water of the sacred well Zem-Zem from which Hagar and Ishmael obtained water when they were dying of thirst in the wilderness, and goes through various other rites up to the day of Id-ul-Zoha, when he performs the sacrifice or _kurban_, offering a ram or he-goat for every member of his family, or for every seven persons a female camel or cow. The flesh is distributed in the same manner as that of the ordinary Bakr-Id sacrifice. [320] He then gets himself shaved and his nails pared, which he has not done since he a.s.sumed the pilgrim's garb, and buries the cuttings and parings at the place of the sacrifice. The pilgrimage is concluded after another circuit of the Kaaba, but before his departure the pilgrim should visit the tomb of Muhammad at Medina. One who has performed the pilgrimage to Mecca thereafter has the t.i.tle of Haji.

19. Festivals. The Muharram.

The princ.i.p.al festivals are the Muharram and the two Ids. The month of Muharram is the first of the year, and the first ten days, as already stated, are devoted to mourning for the death of Hussain and his family. This is observed indifferently by Sunnis and s.h.i.+ahs in the Central Provinces, and the proceedings with the Sunnis at any rate have now rather the character of a festival than a time of sorrow. Models of the tomb of Hussain, called _tazia_, are made of bamboo and pasteboard and decorated with tinsel. Wealthy s.h.i.+ahs have expensive models, richly decorated, which are permanently kept in a chamber of the house called the Imambara or Imam's place, but this is scarcely ever done in the Central Provinces. As a rule the _tazias_ are taken in procession and deposited in a river on the last and great day of the Muharram. Women who have made vows for the recovery of their children from an illness dress them in green and send them to beg; and men and boys of the lower cla.s.ses have themselves painted as tigers and go about mimicking a tiger for what they can get from the spectators. It seems likely that the representations of tigers may be in memory of the lion which is said to have kept watch over the body of Hussain after he had been buried. In Persia a man disguised as a tiger appears on the tomb of Hussain in the drama of his murder at Karbala, which is enacted at the Muharram. In Hindu mythology the lion and tiger appear to be interchangeable. During the tragedy at Karbala, Kasim, a young nephew of Hussain, was married to his little daughter Sakinah, Kasim being very shortly afterwards killed. It is supposed that the cast shoe of Kasim's horse was brought to India, and at the Muharram models of horse-shoes are made and carried fixed on poles. Men who feel so impelled and think that they will be possessed by the spirit of Kasim make these horse-shoes and carry them, and frequently they believe themselves to be possessed by the spirit, exhibiting the usual symptoms of a kind of frenzy, and women apply to them for children or for having evil spirits cast out. [321]

20. Id-ul-Fitr.

The Id-ul-Fitr, or the breaking of the fast, is held on the first day of the tenth month, Shawwal, on the day after the end of the fast of Ramazan. On this day the people a.s.semble dressed in their best clothes and proceed to the Id-Gah, a building erected outside the town and consisting of a platform with a wall at the western end in the direction of Mecca. Here prayers are offered, concluding with one for the King-Emperor, and a sermon is given, and the people then return escorting the Kazi or other leading member of the community and sometimes paying their respects in a body to European officers. They return to their homes and spend the rest of the day in feasting and merriment, a kind of vermicelli being a special dish eaten on this day.

21. Id-ul-Zoha

The Idu-l-Azha or Id-ul-Zoha, the feast of sacrifice, also called the Bakr-Id or cow-festival, is held on the tenth day of the last month, Zu'l Hijjah. It is the princ.i.p.al day of the Muhammadan year, and pilgrims going to Mecca keep it there. [322] At this time also the Arabs were accustomed to go to Mecca and offer animal sacrifices there to the local deities. According to tradition, when Abraham (Ibrahim) founded Mecca the Lord desired him to prepare a feast and to offer his son Ishmael (Ismail). But when he had drawn the knife across his son's throat the angel Gabriel subst.i.tuted a ram and Ishmael was saved, and the festival commemorates this. As already stated, the Arabs believe themselves to be descended from Ishmael or Ismail. According to a remarkable Hadis or tradition, related by Ayesha, Muhammad said: "Man hath not done anything on the Id-ul-Zoha more pleasing to G.o.d than spilling blood in sacrifice; for, verily, its blood reacheth the acceptance of G.o.d before it falleth upon the ground, therefore be joyful in it." [323] On this day, as on the other Id, the people a.s.semble for prayers at the Id-Gah. On returning home the head of a family takes a sheep, cow or camel to the entrance of his house and sacrifices it, repeating the formula, 'In the name of G.o.d, G.o.d is great,' as he cuts its throat. The flesh is divided, two-thirds being kept by the family and one-third given to the poor in the name of G.o.d. This is the occasion on which Muhammadans offend Hindu feeling by their desire to sacrifice cows, as camels are un.o.btainable or too valuable, and the sacrifice of a cow has probably more religious merit than that of a sheep or goat. But in many cases they abandon their right to kill a cow in order to avoid stirring up enmity.

22. Mosques.

The entrance to a Muhammadan mosque consists of a stone gateway, bearing in verse the date of its building; this leads into a paved courtyard, which in a large mosque may be 40 or 50 yards long and about 20 wide. The courtyard often contains a small tank or cistern about 20 feet square, its sides lined with stone seats. Beyond this lies the building itself, open towards the courtyard, which is on its eastern side, and closed in on the other three sides, with a roof. The floor is raised about a foot above the level of the courtyard. In the back wall, which is opposite the courtyard to the west in the direction of Mecca, is an arched niche, and close by a wooden or masonry pulpit raised four or five feet from the ground. Against the wall is a wooden staff, which the preacher holds in his hand or leans upon according to ancient custom. [324] The walls are bare of decorations, images and pictures having been strictly prohibited by Muhammad, and no windows are necessary; but along the walls are scrolls bearing in golden letters the name of the Prophet and the first four Caliphs, or a chapter of the Koran, the Arabic script being especially suitable for this kind of ornamental writing. [325]

The severe plainness of the interior of a mosque demonstrates the strict monotheism of Islam, and is in contrast to the temples and shrines of most other religions. The courtyard of a mosque is often used as a place of resort, and travellers also stay in it.

23. The Friday service.

A service is held in the princ.i.p.al mosque on Fridays about midday, at which public prayers are held and a sermon or _khutbak_ is preached or recited. Friday is known as Jumah, or the day of a.s.sembly. Friday was said by Muhammad to have been the day on which Adam was taken into paradise and turned out of it, the day on which he repented and on which he died. It will also be the day of Resurrection. The Prophet considered that the Jews and Christians had erred in transferring their Sabbath from Friday to Sat.u.r.day and Sunday respectively. [326]

24. Priests, Mulla and Maulvi.

The priest in charge of a mosque is known as Mulla. Any one can be a Mulla who can read the Koran and say the prayers, and the post is very poorly paid. The Mulla proclaims the call to prayer five times a day, acts as Imam or leader of the public prayers, and if there is no menial servant keeps the mosque clean. He sometimes has a little school in the courtyard in which he teaches children the Koran. He also sells charms, consisting of verses of the Koran written on paper, to be tied round the arm or hung on the neck. These have the effect of curing disease and keeping off evil spirits or the evil eye. Sometimes there is a mosque servant who also acts as s.e.xton of the local cemetery. The funds of the mosque and any endowment attached to it are in charge of some respectable resident, who is known as Mutawalli or churchwarden. The princ.i.p.al religious officer is the Maulvi, who corresponds to the Hindu Guru or preceptor. These men are frequently intelligent and well-educated. They are also doctors of law, as all Muhammadan law is based on the Koran and Traditions and the deductions drawn from them by the great commentators. The Maulvi thus acts as a teacher of religious doctrine and also of law. He is not permanently attached to a mosque, but travels about during the open season, visiting his disciples in villages, teaching and preaching to them, and also treating the sick. If he knows the whole of the Koran by heart he has the t.i.tle of Hafiz, and is much honoured, as it is thought that a man who has earned the t.i.tle of Hafiz frees twenty generations of his ancestors and descendants from the fires of h.e.l.l. Such a man is much in request during the month of Ramazan, when the leader of the long night prayers is expected to recite nightly one of the thirty sections of the Koran, so as to complete them within the month. [327]

25. The Kazi.

The Kazi was under Muhammadan rule the civil and criminal judge, having jurisdiction over a definite local area, and he also acted as a registrar of deeds. Now he only leads the public prayers at the Id festivals and keeps registers of marriages and divorces. He does not usually attend marriages himself unless he receives a special fee, but pays a deputy or _naib_ to do so. [328] The Kazi is still, however, as a rule the leading member of the local Muhammadan community, the office being sometimes elective and sometimes hereditary.