For This Act, The Lieutenant Of Mu’Awiyah Was Reproved And Blamed By Pious Moslems. [FN#11] It Ought To

Be high enough for the tenant to sit upright when answering the interrogatory angels. [FN#12] Because of this superstition,

In every part of Al-Islam, some contrivance is made to prevent the earth pressing upon the body. [FN#13] This blessing is in Mohammed’s words, as the beauty of the Arabic shows. Ayishah relates that in the month Safar, A.H. 11, one night the Prophet, who was beginning to suffer from the headache which caused his death, arose from his couch, and walked out into the darkness; whereupon she followed him in a fit of jealousy, thinking he might be about to visit some other wife. He went to Al-Bakia, delivered the above benediction (which others give somewhat differently), raised his hands three times, and turned to go home. Ayishah hurried back, but she could not conceal her agitation from her husband, who asked her what she had done. Upon her confessing her suspicions, he sternly informed her that he had gone forth, by order of the Archangel Gabriel, to bless and to intercede for the people of Al-Bakia. Some authors relate a more facetious termination of the colloquy.—M.C. de Perceval (Essai, &c., vol. iii. p. 314.) [FN#14] “Limping Osman,” as the Persians contemptuously call him, was slain by rebels, and therefore became a martyr according to the Sunnis. The Shi’ahs justify the murder, saying it was the act of an “Ijma al-Muslimin,” or the general consensus of Al-Islam, which in their opinion ratifies an act of “lynch law.” [FN#15] This specifying the father Affan, proves him to have been a Moslem. Abu Bakr’s father, “Kahafah,” and Omar’s “Al-Khattab,” are not mentioned by name in the Ceremonies of Visitation. [FN#16] The Christian reader must remember that the Moslems rank angelic nature, under certain conditions, below human nature. [FN#17] Osman married two daughters of the Prophet, a circumstance which the Sunnis quote as honourable to him: the Shi’ahs, on the contrary, declare that he killed them both by ill-treatment. [FN#18] These men are generally descendants of the Saint whose tomb they own: they receive pensions from the Mudir of the Mosque, and retain all fees presented to them by visitors. Some families are respectably supported in this way. [FN#19] This woman, according to some accounts, also saved Mohammed’s life, when an Arab Kahin or diviner, foreseeing that the child was destined to subvert the national faith, urged the bystanders to bury their swords in his bosom. The Sharifs of Meccah still entrust their children to the Badawin, that they may be hardened by the discipline of the Desert. And the late Pasha of Egypt gave one of his sons in charge of the Anizah tribe, near Akabah. Burckhardt (Travels in Arabia, vol. i. p. 427) makes some sensible remarks about this custom, which cannot be too much praised. [FN#20] Al- “Sadiyah,” a double entendre; it means auspicious, and also alludes to Halimah’s tribe, the Benu Sa’ad. [FN#21] Both these words are titles of the Prophet. Al-Mustafa means the “Chosen”; Al-Mujtaba, the “Accepted.” [FN#22] There being, according to the Moslems, many heavens and many earths. [FN#23] See chapter xx. [FN#24] The Shafe’i school allows its disciples to curse Al-Yazid, the son of Mu’awiyah, whose cruelties to the descendants of the Prophet, and crimes and vices, have made him the Judas Iscariot of Al-Islam. I have heard Hanafi Moslems, especially Sayyids, revile him; but this is not, strictly speaking, correct. The Shi’ahs, of course, place no limits to their abuse of him. You first call a man “Omar,” then “Shimr,” (the slayer of Al-Hosayn), and lastly, “Yazid,” beyond which insult does not extend. [FN#25] Ukayl or Akil, as many write the name, died at Damascus, during the Caliphate of Al-Mu’awiyah. Some say he was buried there, others that his corpse was transplanted to Al-Madinah, and buried in a place where formerly his house, known as “Dar Ukayl,” stood. [FN#26] Some are of opinion that the ceremonies of Ziyarat formerly did, and still should begin here. But the order of visitation differs infinitely, and no two authors seem to agree. I was led by Shaykh Hamid, and indulged in no scruples. [FN#27] Burckhardt makes a series of mistakes upon this subject. “Hassan ibn Aly, whose trunk only lies buried here (in El Bakia), his head having been sent to Cairo, where it is preserved in the fine Mosque called El-Hassanya.” The Mosque Al-Hasanayn (the “two Hasans”) is supposed to contain only the head of Al-Hosayn, which, when the Crusaders took Ascalon, was brought from thence by Sultan Salih or Beybars, and conveyed to Cairo. As I have said before, the Persians in Egypt openly show their contempt of this tradition. It must be remembered that Al-Hasan died poisoned at Al-Madinah by his wife Ja’adah. Al-Hosayn, on the other hand, was slain and decapitated at Kerbela. According to the Shi’ahs, Zayn al-Abidin obtained from Yazid, after a space of forty days, his father’s head, and carried it back to Kerbela, for which reason the event is known to the Persians as “Chilleyeh sar o tan,” the “forty days of (separation between) the head and trunk.” They vehemently deny that the body lies at Kerbela, and the head at Cairo. Others, again, declare that Al-Hosayn’s head was sent by Yazid to Amir bin al-As, the governor of Al-Madinah, and was by him buried near Fatimah’s Tomb. Nor are they wanting who declare, that after Yazid’s death the head was found in his treasury, and was shrouded and buried at Damascus. Such is the uncertainty which hangs over the early history of Al-Islam[.] [FN#28] The names of the fifth and sixth Imams, Mohammed al-Bakia and Ja’afar al-Sadik, were omitted by Hamid, as doubtful whether they are really buried here or not. [FN#29] Moslem historians seem to delight in the obscurity which hangs over the lady’s last resting-place, as if it were an honour even for the receptacle of her ashes to be concealed from the eyes of men.

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