[621]. This is only borne in funerals of young persons.
[622]. I give the form of prayer used by the Sháfe’ees, as being the most common in Cairo. Those of the other sects are nearly similar to this.
[623]. A “tekbeer” has been explained in a former chapter, as being the exclamation of “Alláhu Akbar” or “God is most great!”
[624]. Or, according to one of my sheykhs, “its business.”
[625]. It is believed that the body of the wicked is painfully oppressed by the earth against its sides in the grave; though this is always made hollow.
[626]. The burial-grounds of Cairo are mostly outside the town, in the desert tracts on the north, east, and south. Those within the town are few, and not extensive.
[627]. The Prophet forbade engraving the name of God, or any words of the Kur-án, upon a tomb. He also directed that tombs should be low, and built only of crude bricks.
[628]. Like that seen in the distance in the engraving here inserted.
[629]. The Málikees disapprove of this custom, the “talkeen” of the dead.
[630]. The opinions of the Muslims respecting the state of souls in the interval between death and the judgment are thus given by Sale (“Preliminary Discourse,” sect. iv.):—“They distinguish the souls of the faithful into three classes: the first, of prophets, whose souls are admitted into paradise immediately; the second, of martyrs, whose spirits, according to a tradition of Mohammad, rest in the crops of green birds, which eat of the fruits and drink of the rivers of paradise; and the third, of other believers, concerning the state of whose souls before the resurrection there are various opinions. For, 1. Some say that they stay near the sepulchres, with liberty, however, of going where-ever they please; which they confirm from Mohammad’s manner of saluting them at their graves, and his affirming that the dead heard those salutations as well as the living. Whence perhaps proceeded the custom of visiting the tombs of relations, so common among the Mohammadans. 2. Others imagine they are with Adam in the lowest heaven, and also support their opinion by the authority of their prophet, who gave out that in his return from the upper heavens in his pretended night-journey, he saw there the souls of those who were destined to paradise on the right hand of Adam, and those who were condemned to hell on his left. 3. Others fancy the souls of believers remain in the well Zemzem, and those of infidels in a certain well in the province of Hadramót, called Barahoot [so in the Kámoos, but by Sale written Borhût]; but this opinion is branded as heretical. 4. Others say they stay near the graves for seven days; but that whither they go afterwards is uncertain. 5. Others, that they are all in the trumpet, whose sound is to raise the dead. And, 6. Others, that the souls of the good dwell in the forms of white birds, under the throne of God. As to the condition of the souls of the wicked, besides the opinions that have been already mentioned, the more orthodox hold that they are offered by the angels to heaven, from whence being repulsed as stinking and filthy, they are offered to the earth; and being also refused a place there, are carried down to the seventh earth, and thrown into a dungeon, which they call Sijjeen, under a green rock, or, according to a tradition of Mohammad, under the devil’s jaw, to be there tormented till they are called up to be joined again to their bodies.” I believe that the opinion respecting the Well of Barahoot commonly prevails in the present day.