Their language, then, seems to show that the Fellahîn are a people well worthy of study, because apparently of a very ancient stock, which is still preserved comparatively pure; and we may therefore naturally expect their religion, habits, and customs to have an interesting bearing on the graphic accounts of peasant life which are found in the Bible. By their religious peculiarities, still further light is thrown on the history of the modern Fellahîn. The professed religion of the country is Islam, the simple creed of “one God, and one messenger of God;” yet you may live for months in the out-of-the-way parts of Palestine without seeing a mosque, or hearing the call of the Muedhen to prayer. Still the people are not without a religion which shapes every action of their daily life, a religion of most complex growth, requiring the utmost patience to enable us to trace it to its various original sources. In almost every village in the country a small building surmounted by a whitewashed dome is observable, being the sacred chapel of the place; it is variously called Kubbeh, “dome;” Mazâr, “shrine;” or Mukâm, “station,” the latter being a Hebrew word used in the Bible for the “places” of the Canaanites, which Israel was commanded to destroy “upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree” (Deut. xii. 2). Just as in the time of Moses, so now, the position chosen for the Mukâm is generally conspicuous. On the top of a peak, or on the back of a ridge, the little white dome gleams brightly in the sun; under the boughs of the spreading oak or terebinth; beside the solitary palm, or among the aged lotus-trees at a spring, one lights constantly on the low building, standing isolated, or surrounded by the shallow graves of a small cemetery. The trees beside the Mukâms are always considered sacred, and every bough which falls is treasured within the sacred building.