DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4669#0070
48 THE LAND OF THE MONUMENTS
form a determinative of friendship or brotherhood.
It is a custom alluded to in Scripture. "Can two
walk together [i.e., hand in hand] except they be
agreed."* " Thou hast holden me by my right
hand."+ " Is thine heart right, as my heart is with
thy heart? ... if it be so give me thine hand."l
Last in the procession come the women, their faces
concealed as usual by the long black yashmak or veil
which leaves the eyes alone visible. The wailing for
the dead takes place at the house of the deceased
immediately after death, and this we frequently
heard and witnessed. Sometimes the bearers will
run rapidly forward under the supposed influence of
the spirit of the deceased. On one such occasion it
is said that the bearers were unable to carry the body
of a distinguished sheik through the Bab-el-Nasr
towards the cemetery. They tried again and again,
but the will of the dead man was too powerful for
them. At last the chief mourner, getting tired of the
delay, proposed that they should turn the bier round
and round a few times. This evidently dispelled the
charm, as the sheik was then quietly borne to his
last home in the cemetery. The bier is carried to
one of the mosques, preference being given to one
of especial sanctity, containing the tomb of a
Mahometan saint, from a belief that prayers repeated
in such a place are more efficacious, the bier being
placed as near to the tomb of the saint as possible,
and facing the east in the direction of Mecca. The
officiating priest then offers up certain prayers, in one
of which a petition occurs that the deceased may be
spared in "the trial of the grave," that it may be
made wide to him, that the earth may not press upon
• Amos iii. 3. I I'sa. lxxiii. 23. } 2 Kings X. 13
form a determinative of friendship or brotherhood.
It is a custom alluded to in Scripture. "Can two
walk together [i.e., hand in hand] except they be
agreed."* " Thou hast holden me by my right
hand."+ " Is thine heart right, as my heart is with
thy heart? ... if it be so give me thine hand."l
Last in the procession come the women, their faces
concealed as usual by the long black yashmak or veil
which leaves the eyes alone visible. The wailing for
the dead takes place at the house of the deceased
immediately after death, and this we frequently
heard and witnessed. Sometimes the bearers will
run rapidly forward under the supposed influence of
the spirit of the deceased. On one such occasion it
is said that the bearers were unable to carry the body
of a distinguished sheik through the Bab-el-Nasr
towards the cemetery. They tried again and again,
but the will of the dead man was too powerful for
them. At last the chief mourner, getting tired of the
delay, proposed that they should turn the bier round
and round a few times. This evidently dispelled the
charm, as the sheik was then quietly borne to his
last home in the cemetery. The bier is carried to
one of the mosques, preference being given to one
of especial sanctity, containing the tomb of a
Mahometan saint, from a belief that prayers repeated
in such a place are more efficacious, the bier being
placed as near to the tomb of the saint as possible,
and facing the east in the direction of Mecca. The
officiating priest then offers up certain prayers, in one
of which a petition occurs that the deceased may be
spared in "the trial of the grave," that it may be
made wide to him, that the earth may not press upon
• Amos iii. 3. I I'sa. lxxiii. 23. } 2 Kings X. 13