Of This Nature Are The Hijazi’S
Pagan Oaths, His Heathenish Names (Few Being Moslem Except “Mohammed”), His
Ordeal Of
Licking red-hot iron, his Salkh, or scarification,—proof of
manliness,—his blood revenge, and his eating carrion (i.e.
, The body of
an animal killed without the usual formula), and his lending his wives
to strangers. All these I hold to be remnants of some old
[p.110] creed; nor should I despair of finding among the Badawin
bordering upon the Great Desert some lingering system of idolatry.
The Badawin of Al-Hijaz call themselves Shafe’i but what is put into the
mouths of their brethren in the West applies equally well here. “We pray
not, because we must drink the water of ablution; we give no alms,
because we ask them; we fast not the Ramazan month, because we starve
throughout the year; and we do no pilgrimage, because the world is the
House of Allah.” Their blunders in religious matters supply the citizens
with many droll stories. And it is to be observed that they do not,
like the Greek pirates or the Italian bandits, preserve a religious
element in their plunderings; they make no vows, and they carefully
avoid offerings.
The ceremonies of Badawi life are few and simple—circumcisions,
marriages, and funerals. Of the former rite there are two forms,
Taharah, as usual in Al-Islam, and Salkh, an Arab invention, derived
from the times of Paganism.[FN#46] During Wahhabi rule it was forbidden
under pain of death, but now the people have returned to it.
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