We glorify and praise Thee, Lord!
May the angels of mercy show their grace to us!
May our humble supplications be acceptable to Thee!
We glorify and praise Thee, Lord!
At first the pilgrims held their breath, afraid of missing a word; but as the prayers and psalms and exhortations proceeded, their enthusiasm grew more and more unrestrained. No longer content with repeating the Kazi’s words, line by line, they burst into tears, and from tears into shrieks. They beat their breasts, sobbing from sheer excess of joy; they could be seen, on the plain, whirling round and round, as they sang the Labbaik. Some swooned, partly from delirium of religious emotion, and partly from the effect of the sun’s excessive heat. One moment—and your blood seemed to boil and your brain to swim in liquid fire; then came relief: you were drenched in sweat, reduced to liquid that alternately evaporated and gushed out of every pore. I was wedged so tight in a compact mass of pilgrims, within a stone’s throw of the preacher, that there was no chance of my reaching the haven of my one desire—the cooling spring where I had slaked my thirst at noonday. And so one hour wore on.
What had happened among the pilgrims out there in the dancing glare of the sunlit plain, I cannot say; but the least said about the reports of the behaviour of some of them, the better. No good purpose can be served by emphasising the exceptional and parading the obscene. Where I stood, longing for the sound of running water, there, at least, the solemnity and the fervour of the congregation were of a sort to take one’s reason captive, overcoming, by sheer repetition of appeal, even the craving I had to swill my gullet with a draught of water.
Another hour went by: the sun was sinking in the west: the eastern horizon turned colour, passing from a purple shade to a tone of deepest crimson. The green flag on the mountain-top still floated high in air; still the preacher gave out his message, to the ever-increasing excitement of his people; and then at last, just as the sun dipped in a pool of red, the signal of Essraf was given. The sermon was over, and the night of another day begun. We were now entitled to call ourselves Hájís.
“Aydákum Ghebúl (May your festival be accepted),” cried Seyyid ’Alí, kissing me three times on the cheeks, in accordance with the practice.
And I returned the kisses, saying—
“Tebarik-Allah! (May God be glorified).”