CHAPTER XIV
MOHAMMEDAN FESTIVALS: THE HOLY CARPET—THE FAST OF RAMADAN AND THE ASHURA

WOMAN so seldom figures in the history of the Mohammedan world that when she appears in the long records of the khalifs, the emirs and the vizirs, she is as welcome as a treble solo after a prolonged bass chorus. The story of the beautiful but unhappy Zohra may not be edifying in all its details, but it lifts for a moment the veil which conceals the hareem life, and gives us an insight into the tragic events occasionally enacted behind these closed doors. The curtain has but recently descended on the drama in which Zohra took a leading part. If we change the names and omit a few details referring to present times, it would be hard to believe that this was not some mediæval story such as the shoara recite in the market-places.

We have to go back to the thirteenth century to find the name of a woman who played an important part in the government of Egypt. There is something refreshing in her name, Sheger-ed-Durr, which means ‘The Spray of Pearls,’ coming as it does amongst the list of the blood-stained warriors of those stirring times. She was a slave who became the wife of the mameluke, Emir es-Salih, not of him who built the Fátimid mosque mentioned further back, but of the Salih who founded the mameluke dynasty when he usurped the throne of the last of the house of Saladin. He was killed while fighting the Crusaders shortly after Sheger-ed-Durr had become his queen. The heir to the throne was a son of es-Salih by a former wife, and some time elapsed before he could be brought from the outlying province where he also was endeavouring to hold the Crusaders in check. The widowed queen undertook the management of affairs in the meanwhile, keeping the death of her husband a secret until the succession should be established. The new khalif, Turán-Shah ibn es-Salih, was not long on the throne before he met his death in a brawl, and Sheger-ed-Durr once more took up the reins of government. She sank her identity in that of her baby son, and ruled under the title of ‘Mother of the victorious King Khalil.’

A FRUIT-STALL AT BULAK

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While this baby king’s victories were confined to the nursery, his mother’s generals were defeating the Crusaders in every part of his dominions. The battle of Mansúra decided the fate of the last Crusade, and Louis IX. was taken prisoner by the Emir Beybars. The mother of Khalil arranged the ransom which was paid to release the King of France; and, though not in name, she in fact governed the country during some seven or eight years. The baby king died, and Mohammedan prejudice could not brook a woman at the head of affairs. The khalif of Baghdád was appealed to, and a husband was chosen for her in the person of Aybek. It appears that she ruled her husband with as firm a hand as she ruled her country. But this rule was not of long duration. ‘Like a true woman,’ says Stanley-Lane Poole, ‘she could be jealous; she made him divorce another wife, and when Aybek ventured to propose a fresh marriage with a princess of Mosil, the queen gave way to a regrettable act of resentment; having lured him by fair words to the Citadel—the facts unhappily can’t be softened—she had him murdered in his bath’—not unlike Zohra’s vengeance of six centuries later. ‘Her punishment was speedy and terrible. In three days all was over. The mamelukes shut her up in the Red Tower, where she vindictively pounded her jewels in a mortar that they might adorn no other woman, and then she was dragged before the wife whom she had made Aybek divorce, and there and then beaten to death with the women’s clogs. For days her body lay in the Citadel ditch for the curs to worry, till some good Samaritan buried it. Her tomb may be seen beside the chapel of Sitta Néfisa, and a pious hand of these latter days has shrouded it with a cloth on which the Arabic name “Spray of Pearls” is worked in gold.’

The object of the present writer is not the ambitious one of attempting a history of Egypt, but to give a simple account of such things as he saw and heard while in pursuit of his work as an artist. The story of Zohra is still told in the bazaars, and the professional reciter still entertains his audience with the doings of Sheger-ed-Durr. This queen has also a bearing on that vexed question of the origin of the Holy Carpet. The departure of the Mahmal and its return from Mekka are the two events in Cairo which annually excite the greatest interest.

The hodag, or the gorgeous covered litter borne by a camel, is usually taken by the foreign sightseers to be the covering of the Holy Carpet which is destined to be placed on the Kaabah at Mekka. There is little wonder that this should be so, for it is by far the most striking object in the procession. It does not, however, contain the carpet, or for that matter anything else. Its origin dates from the pilgrimage which ‘The Spray of Pearls’ made to the Holy City six centuries and a half ago; and though she is only reported to have gone once, her camel and litter were yearly sent to represent her. The original hood of this litter has since been replaced, and the Mahmal, as it is called, has ever since been sent with the pilgrims to represent Royalty at the yearly hagg.