On each of the two festivals it is also customary, especially with the women, to visit the tombs of relations. The party generally take with them a palm-branch, and place it, broken in several pieces, or merely its leaves, upon the tomb or monument; or some, instead of this, place sweet basil or other flowers. They also usually provide themselves with sweet cakes, bread, dates, or some other kind of food, to distribute to the poor. But their first duty on arriving at the tomb is to recite the Fátiḥah (the opening chapter of the Ḳur-án), or to employ a person to recite previously a longer chapter, generally the thirty-sixth (Soorat Yá-Seen), or even the whole of the book: sometimes the visitors recite the Fátiḥah, and, after having hired a person to perform a longer recitation, go away before he commences. The women often stay all the days of the festivals in the cemeteries, either in tents or in houses of their own erected there for their reception on these and other occasions. The tent of each party surrounds the tomb which is the object of their visit. In the outskirts of the cemeteries, swings and whirligigs are set up, and story-tellers, jugglers, and dancers amuse the populace.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See below, [25] ff.

[2] An Apostle is distinguished from a mere Prophet by his having a book revealed to him.

[3] I use two words (perhaps the best that our language affords) to express corresponding Arabic terms, which some persons regard as synonymous, but others distinguish by different shades of meaning. On what I consider the best authority, the word which I render "fate" respects the decrees of God in a general sense; while that which I translate "destiny" relates to the particular applications of those decrees. In such senses these terms are here to be understood when separately employed.

[4] Ḳur-án, xiii. 39.

[5] El-Insán el-Kámil, by ´Abd-El-Kereem El-Jeelee, quoted by El-Isḥáḳee in his account of Ibráheem Pásha el-Maḳtool.

[6] Mishkát el-Maṣábeeḥ, i. 26-34, 373. [Cp. S. Lane-Poole, "The Speeches and Tabletalk of the Prophet Moḥammad" (1882), 180-182.]

[7] Nuzhet el-Mutaämmil wa-Murshid el-Mutaähhil, section 7.

[8] Mishkát el-Maṣábeeḥ, ii. 381.