DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11448#0109
chap, xii.] FUNERAL RITES—THE EGYPTIAN.
79
none, moves on, and his death is inevitable: the sufferer then
performs the ablution with sand, clothes himself with his shroud,
and exercises his remaining strength in scraping a grave, with a
heap of sand on the windy side. Then, trusting to the desert
blast to cover him, he quietly lies down to die, with a parting
prayer that his lonely grave may not be forgotten by the Resur-
rection Angel at the last day.*
The Moslem of the cities, also, when his last hour is come,
turns himself in the direction of Mecca, and dies with as much
resignation as if he did it on purpose ; then his family raise cries
of lamentation, such as " Oh, my camel !" " Oh, my lion!"
" Oh, my only one !" These ejaculations become more striking
as they proceed : " Oh, my buffalo !" does not sound pathetic,
though it means simply that the dead was their support; and
" Oh, my jackass !" sounds ambiguous, until the addition of
" bearer of my burdens " turns it to eloquence. The wailing,
women and the grave-men now arrive; and, laid upon a bier,
he is carried, all coffmless, to his last resting-place, and laid lite-
rally on the shelf, in the vault of his family.
In Paradise he finds the extreme of sensual enjoyment, as a
reward for the mortification of the senses in this life; so that
his self-denial on earth is only an enlargement of the heroic ab-
stinence of an alderman from luncheon on the day of a city
feast. His heavenly hareem consists of three hundred Houris,
all perfect in loveliness. What chance has his poor wife of be-
ing required under such circumstances!—it is supposed she
has a heaven of her own, in some place or other, but as to her
substitute for Houris the Koran is discreetly silent. In Paradise
is to be found every luxury of every appetite, with every con-
comitant, except satiety and indigestion.
Such is the life, death, and heaven of a modern Egyptian.
The description has, I fear, trespassed largely on the patience
of the reader, but, fortunately, it applies almost equally to the
Syrian and the Constantinopolitan, so that the subject is nearly
* The angel Gabriel is the minister of divine vengeance. Azrael receives
the narting soul. Israfil sounds the judgment trumpet, and opens the grav6.
79
none, moves on, and his death is inevitable: the sufferer then
performs the ablution with sand, clothes himself with his shroud,
and exercises his remaining strength in scraping a grave, with a
heap of sand on the windy side. Then, trusting to the desert
blast to cover him, he quietly lies down to die, with a parting
prayer that his lonely grave may not be forgotten by the Resur-
rection Angel at the last day.*
The Moslem of the cities, also, when his last hour is come,
turns himself in the direction of Mecca, and dies with as much
resignation as if he did it on purpose ; then his family raise cries
of lamentation, such as " Oh, my camel !" " Oh, my lion!"
" Oh, my only one !" These ejaculations become more striking
as they proceed : " Oh, my buffalo !" does not sound pathetic,
though it means simply that the dead was their support; and
" Oh, my jackass !" sounds ambiguous, until the addition of
" bearer of my burdens " turns it to eloquence. The wailing,
women and the grave-men now arrive; and, laid upon a bier,
he is carried, all coffmless, to his last resting-place, and laid lite-
rally on the shelf, in the vault of his family.
In Paradise he finds the extreme of sensual enjoyment, as a
reward for the mortification of the senses in this life; so that
his self-denial on earth is only an enlargement of the heroic ab-
stinence of an alderman from luncheon on the day of a city
feast. His heavenly hareem consists of three hundred Houris,
all perfect in loveliness. What chance has his poor wife of be-
ing required under such circumstances!—it is supposed she
has a heaven of her own, in some place or other, but as to her
substitute for Houris the Koran is discreetly silent. In Paradise
is to be found every luxury of every appetite, with every con-
comitant, except satiety and indigestion.
Such is the life, death, and heaven of a modern Egyptian.
The description has, I fear, trespassed largely on the patience
of the reader, but, fortunately, it applies almost equally to the
Syrian and the Constantinopolitan, so that the subject is nearly
* The angel Gabriel is the minister of divine vengeance. Azrael receives
the narting soul. Israfil sounds the judgment trumpet, and opens the grav6.