Kitabı oku: «The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 1», sayfa 26

17. The fast of Ramazān

The third necessary observance is the fast in the month of Ramazān, the ninth month of the Muhammadan year. The fast begins when the new moon is seen, or if the sky is clouded, after thirty days from the beginning of the previous month. During its continuance no food or water must be taken between sunrise and sunset, and betel-leaf, tobacco and conjugal intercourse must be abjured for the whole period. The abstention from water is a very severe penance during the long days of the hot weather when Ramazān falls at this season. Mr. Hughes thinks that the Prophet took the thirty days’ fast from the Christian Lent, which was observed very strictly in the Eastern Church during the nights as well as days. In ordaining the fast he said that God ‘would make it an ease and not a difficulty,’ but he may not have reflected that his own action in discarding the intercalary month adopted by the Arabs and reverting to the simple lunar months would cause the fast to revolve round the whole year. During the fast people eat before sunrise and after sunset, and dinner-parties are held lasting far into the night.

It is a divine command to give alms annually of money, cattle, grain, fruit and merchandise. If a man has as much as eighty rupees, or forty sheep and goats, or five camels, he should give alms at specified rates amounting roughly to two and a half per cent of his property. In the case of fruit and grain the rate is one-tenth of the harvest for unirrigated, and a twentieth for irrigated crops. These alms should be given to pilgrims who desire to go to Mecca but have not the means; and to religious and other beggars if they are very poor, debtors who have not the means to discharge their debts, champions of the cause of God, travellers without food and proselytes to Islām. Religious mendicants consider it unlawful to accept the zakāt or legal alms unless they are very poor, and they may not be given to Saiyads or descendants of the Prophet.

18. The pilgrimage to Mecca

The Hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca is incumbent on all men and women who have sufficient means to meet the expenses of the journey and to maintain their families at home during their absence. Only a very small proportion of Indian Muhammadans, however, now undertake it. Mecca is the capital of Arabia and about seventy miles from the Red Sea. The pilgrimage must be performed during the month Zu’l Hijjah, so that the pilgrim may be at Mecca on the festival of Id-ul-Zoha or the Bakr-Id. At the last stage near Mecca the pilgrims assume a special dress, consisting of two seamless wrappers, one round the waist and the other over the shoulders. Sandals of wood may also be worn. Formerly the pilgrim would take with him a little compass in which the needle in the shape of a dove pointed continually towards Mecca in the west. On arrival at Mecca he performs the legal ablutions, proceeds to the sacred mosque, kisses the black stone, and encompasses the Kaaba seven times. The Kaaba or ‘Cube’ is a large stone building and the black stone is let into one of its walls. He drinks the water of the sacred well Zem-Zem from which Hagar and Ishmael obtained water when they were dying of thirst in the wilderness, and goes through various other rites up to the day of Id-ul-Zoha, when he performs the sacrifice or kurbān, offering a ram or he-goat for every member of his family, or for every seven persons a female camel or cow. The flesh is distributed in the same manner as that of the ordinary Bakr-Id sacrifice.³²⁰ He then gets himself shaved and his nails pared, which he has not done since he assumed the pilgrim’s garb, and buries the cuttings and parings at the place of the sacrifice. The pilgrimage is concluded after another circuit of the Kaaba, but before his departure the pilgrim should visit the tomb of Muhammad at Medina. One who has performed the pilgrimage to Mecca thereafter has the title of Hāji.

19. Festivals. The Muharram

The principal festivals are the Muharram and the two Ids. The month of Muharram is the first of the year, and the first ten days, as already stated, are devoted to mourning for the death of Hussain and his family. This is observed indifferently by Sunnis and Shiahs in the Central Provinces, and the proceedings with the Sunnis at any rate have now rather the character of a festival than a time of sorrow. Models of the tomb of Hussain, called tāzia, are made of bamboo and pasteboard and decorated with tinsel. Wealthy Shiahs have expensive models, richly decorated, which are permanently kept in a chamber of the house called the Imāmbāra or Imām’s place, but this is scarcely ever done in the Central Provinces. As a rule the tāzias are taken in procession and deposited in a river on the last and great day of the Muharram. Women who have made vows for the recovery of their children from an illness dress them in green and send them to beg; and men and boys of the lower classes have themselves painted as tigers and go about mimicking a tiger for what they can get from the spectators. It seems likely that the representations of tigers may be in memory of the lion which is said to have kept watch over the body of Hussain after he had been buried. In Persia a man disguised as a tiger appears on the tomb of Hussain in the drama of his murder at Karbala, which is enacted at the Muharram. In Hindu mythology the lion and tiger appear to be interchangeable. During the tragedy at Karbala, Kāsim, a young nephew of Hussain, was married to his little daughter Sakīnah, Kāsim being very shortly afterwards killed. It is supposed that the cast shoe of Kāsim’s horse was brought to India, and at the Muharram models of horse-shoes are made and carried fixed on poles. Men who feel so impelled and think that they will be possessed by the spirit of Kāsim make these horse-shoes and carry them, and frequently they believe themselves to be possessed by the spirit, exhibiting the usual symptoms of a kind of frenzy, and women apply to them for children or for having evil spirits cast out.³²¹

20. Id-ul-Fitr

The Id-ul-Fitr, or the breaking of the fast, is held on the first day of the tenth month, Shawwal, on the day after the end of the fast of Ramazān. On this day the people assemble dressed in their best clothes and proceed to the Id-Gāh, a building erected outside the town and consisting of a platform with a wall at the western end in the direction of Mecca. Here prayers are offered, concluding with one for the King-Emperor, and a sermon is given, and the people then return escorting the Kāzi or other leading member of the community and sometimes paying their respects in a body to European officers. They return to their homes and spend the rest of the day in feasting and merriment, a kind of vermicelli being a special dish eaten on this day.

21. Id-ul-Zoha

The Idu-l-Azha or Id-ul-Zoha, the feast of sacrifice, also called the Bakr-Id or cow-festival, is held on the tenth day of the last month, Zu’l Hijjah. It is the principal day of the Muhammadan year, and pilgrims going to Mecca keep it there.³²² At this time also the Arabs were accustomed to go to Mecca and offer animal sacrifices there to the local deities. According to tradition, when Abraham (Ibrahim) founded Mecca the Lord desired him to prepare a feast and to offer his son Ishmael (Ismail). But when he had drawn the knife across his son’s throat the angel Gabriel substituted a ram and Ishmael was saved, and the festival commemorates this. As already stated, the Arabs believe themselves to be descended from Ishmael or Ismail. According to a remarkable Hadīs or tradition, related by Ayesha, Muhammad said: “Man hath not done anything on the Id-ul-Zoha more pleasing to God than spilling blood in sacrifice; for, verily, its blood reacheth the acceptance of God before it falleth upon the ground, therefore be joyful in it.”³²³ On this day, as on the other Id, the people assemble for prayers at the Id-Gāh. On returning home the head of a family takes a sheep, cow or camel to the entrance of his house and sacrifices it, repeating the formula, ‘In the name of God, God is great,’ as he cuts its throat. The flesh is divided, two-thirds being kept by the family and one-third given to the poor in the name of God. This is the occasion on which Muhammadans offend Hindu feeling by their desire to sacrifice cows, as camels are unobtainable or too valuable, and the sacrifice of a cow has probably more religious merit than that of a sheep or goat. But in many cases they abandon their right to kill a cow in order to avoid stirring up enmity.

22. Mosques

The entrance to a Muhammadan mosque consists of a stone gateway, bearing in verse the date of its building; this leads into a paved courtyard, which in a large mosque may be 40 or 50 yards long and about 20 wide. The courtyard often contains a small tank or cistern about 20 feet square, its sides lined with stone seats. Beyond this lies the building itself, open towards the courtyard, which is on its eastern side, and closed in on the other three sides, with a roof. The floor is raised about a foot above the level of the courtyard. In the back wall, which is opposite the courtyard to the west in the direction of Mecca, is an arched niche, and close by a wooden or masonry pulpit raised four or five feet from the ground. Against the wall is a wooden staff, which the preacher holds in his hand or leans upon according to ancient custom.³²⁴ The walls are bare of decorations, images and pictures having been strictly prohibited by Muhammad, and no windows are necessary; but along the walls are scrolls bearing in golden letters the name of the Prophet and the first four Caliphs, or a chapter of the Korān, the Arabic script being especially suitable for this kind of ornamental writing.³²⁵ The severe plainness of the interior of a mosque demonstrates the strict monotheism of Islam, and is in contrast to the temples and shrines of most other religions. The courtyard of a mosque is often used as a place of resort, and travellers also stay in it.

23. The Friday service

A service is held in the principal mosque on Fridays about midday, at which public prayers are held and a sermon or khutbak is preached or recited. Friday is known as Jumah, or the day of assembly. Friday was said by Muhammad to have been the day on which Adam was taken into paradise and turned out of it, the day on which he repented and on which he died. It will also be the day of Resurrection. The Prophet considered that the Jews and Christians had erred in transferring their Sabbath from Friday to Saturday and Sunday respectively.³²⁶

24. Priests, Mulla and Maulvi

The priest in charge of a mosque is known as Mulla. Any one can be a Mulla who can read the Korān and say the prayers, and the post is very poorly paid. The Mulla proclaims the call to prayer five times a day, acts as Imām or leader of the public prayers, and if there is no menial servant keeps the mosque clean. He sometimes has a little school in the courtyard in which he teaches children the Korān. He also sells charms, consisting of verses of the Korān written on paper, to be tied round the arm or hung on the neck. These have the effect of curing disease and keeping off evil spirits or the evil eye. Sometimes there is a mosque servant who also acts as sexton of the local cemetery. The funds of the mosque and any endowment attached to it are in charge of some respectable resident, who is known as Mutawalli or churchwarden. The principal religious officer is the Maulvi, who corresponds to the Hindu Guru or preceptor. These men are frequently intelligent and well-educated. They are also doctors of law, as all Muhammadan law is based on the Korān and Traditions and the deductions drawn from them by the great commentators. The Maulvi thus acts as a teacher of religious doctrine and also of law. He is not permanently attached to a mosque, but travels about during the open season, visiting his disciples in villages, teaching and preaching to them, and also treating the sick. If he knows the whole of the Korān by heart he has the title of Hāfiz, and is much honoured, as it is thought that a man who has earned the title of Hāfiz frees twenty generations of his ancestors and descendants from the fires of hell. Such a man is much in request during the month of Ramazān, when the leader of the long night prayers is expected to recite nightly one of the thirty sections of the Korān, so as to complete them within the month.³²⁷

25. The Kāzi

The Kāzi was under Muhammadan rule the civil and criminal judge, having jurisdiction over a definite local area, and he also acted as a registrar of deeds. Now he only leads the public prayers at the Id festivals and keeps registers of marriages and divorces. He does not usually attend marriages himself unless he receives a special fee, but pays a deputy or nāib to do so.³²⁸ The Kāzi is still, however, as a rule the leading member of the local Muhammadan community, the office being sometimes elective and sometimes hereditary.

26. General features of Islām

In proclaiming one unseen God as the sole supernatural being, Muhammad adopted the religion of the Jews of Arabia, with whose sacred books he was clearly familiar. He looked on the Jewish prophets as his predecessors, he himself being the last and greatest. The Koran says, “We believe in God, and that which hath been sent down to us, and that which was sent down unto Abraham, and Ishmael and Isaac, and Jacob, and the tribes, and that which was delivered unto Moses, and Jesus and the prophets from the Lord, and we make no distinction between any of them.” Thus Muhammad accepted the bulk of the Old but not of the New Testament, which the Jews also do not receive. His deity was the Jewish Jehovah of the Old Testament, though called Allah after the name of a god worshipped at Mecca. The six prophets who brought new laws were Adam, the chosen of God; Noah, the preacher of God; Abraham, the friend of God; Moses, one who conversed with God; Jesus, the Spirit of God; and Muhammad, the Messenger of God. His seven heavens and his prophecy of a Messiah and Day of Judgment were Jewish beliefs, though it is supposed that he took the idea of the Sirat or narrow bridge over the midst of hell, sharper than the edge of a sword, over which all must pass, while the wicked fall from it into hell, from Zoroastrianism. Muhammad recognised a devil, known as Iblis, while the Jinns or Genii of pagan Arabia became bad angels. The great difference between Islām and Judaism arose from Muhammad’s position in being obliged continually to fight for his own existence and the preservation of his sect This circumstance coloured the later parts of the Korān and gave Islām the character of a religious and political crusade, a kind of faith eminently fitted to the Arab nature and training. And to this character may be assigned its extraordinary success, but, at the same time, probably the religion itself might have been of a somewhat purer and higher tenor if its birth and infancy had not had place in a constant state of war. Muhammad accomplished most beneficent reforms in abolishing polytheism and such abuses as female infanticide, and at least regulating polygamy. In forbidding both gambling and the use of alcohol he set a very high standard to his disciples, which if adhered to would remove two of the main sources of vice. His religion retained fewer relics of the pre-existing animism and spirit-worship than almost any other, though in practice uneducated Indian Muhammadans, at least, preserve them in a large measure. And owing to the fact that the Muhammadan months revolve round the year, its festivals have been dissociated from the old pagan observances of the changes of the sun and seasons and the growth of vegetation. At the same time the religious sanction given to polygamy and slavery, and the sensual nature of the heaven promised to true believers after death, must be condemned as debasing features; and the divine authority and completeness ascribed to the Korān and the utterances of the Prophet, which were beyond criticism or question, as well as the hostility towards all other forms of religion and philosophy, have necessarily had a very narrowing influence on Muhammadan thought. While the formal and lifeless precision of the religious services and prayers, as well as the belief in divine interference in the concerns of everyday life, have produced a strong spirit of fatalism and resignation to events.

27. The Korān

The word Kurān is derived from kuraa, to recite or proclaim. The Muhammadans look upon the Koran as the direct word of God sent down by Him to the seventh or lowest heaven, and then revealed from time to time to the Prophet by the angel Gabriel. A few chapters are supposed to have been delivered entire, but the greater part of the book was given piecemeal during a period of twenty-three years. The Korān is written in Arabic prose, but its sentences generally conclude in a long-continued rhyme. The language is considered to be of the utmost elegance and purity, and it has become the standard of the Arabic tongue. Muhammadans pay it the greatest reverence, and their most solemn oath is taken with the Korān placed on the head. Formerly the sacred book could only be touched by a Saiyad or a Mulla, and an assembly always rose when it was brought to them. The book is kept on a high shelf in the house, so as to avoid any risk of contamination, and nothing is placed over it. Every chapter in the Korān except one begins with the invocation, ‘Bismillah-nirrahmān-nirrahīm,’ or ‘In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful’; and nearly all Muhammadan prayers and religious writings also begin with this. As the Korān is the direct word of God, any statement in it has the unquestioned and complete force of law. On some points, however, separate utterances in the work itself are contradictory, and the necessity then arises of determining which is the later and more authoritative statement.³²⁹

28. The Traditions

Next to the Korān in point of authority come the Traditions of the sayings and actions of the Prophet, which are known as Hadīs or Sunnah. These were eagerly collected as the jurisdiction of Islam was extended, and numerous cases arose for decision in which no ruling was provided by the Korān. For some time it was held necessary that a tradition should be oral and not have been reduced to writing. When the necessity of collecting and searching for the Traditions became paramount, indefatigable research was displayed in the work. The most trustworthy collection of traditions was compiled by Abu Abdullah Muhammad, a native of Bokhara, who died in the Hijra year 256, or nearly 250 years after Muhammad. He succeeded in amassing no fewer than 600,000 traditions, of which he selected only 7275 as trustworthy. The authentic traditions of what the Prophet said and did were considered practically as binding as the Korān, and any case might be decided by a tradition bearing on it. The development of Moslem jurisdiction was thus based not on the elucidation and exposition of broad principles of law and equity, but on the record of the words and actions of one man who had lived in a substantially less civilised society than that existing in the countries to which Muhammadan law now came to be applied. Such a state of things inevitably exercised a cramping effect on the Moslem lawyers and acted as a bar to improvement. Thus, because the Korān charged the Jews and Christians with having corrupted the text of their sacred books, it was laid down that no Jew or Christian could be accepted as a credible witness in a Moslem lawsuit; and since the Prophet had forbidden the keeping of dogs except for certain necessary purposes, it was ruled by one school that there was no property in dogs, and that if a man killed a dog its owner had no right to compensation.³³⁰

29. The schools of law

After the Korān and Traditions the decisions of certain lawyers during the early period of Islām were accepted as authoritative. Of them four schools are recognised by the Sunnis in different countries, those of the Imāms Abu Hanifa, Shafei, Malīk, and Hambal. In northern India the school of Abu Hanifa is followed. He was born at Kufa, the capital of Irāk, in the Hijra year 80, when four of the Prophet’s Companions were still alive. He is the great oracle of jurisprudence, and with his two pupils was the founder of the Hanifi code of law. In southern India the Shafei school is followed.³³¹ The Shiahs have separate collections of traditions and schools of law, and they say that a Mujtahid or doctor of the law can still give decisions of binding authority, which the Sunnis deny. Except as regards marriage, divorce and inheritance and other personal matters, Muhammadan law is of course now superseded by the general law of India.