With the pilgrims to Mecca: The great pilgrimage of A.H. 1319; A.D. 1902Khan, Hadji (Gazanfar Ali)
Religion
With the pilgrims to Mecca: The great pilgrimage of A.H. 1319; A.D. 1902
Khan, Hadji (Gazanfar Ali)
Mecca (Saudi Arabia); Pilgrims and pilgrimages
As the sense of sight gives rise to devotional exercises, so also does
the sense of hearing. The holy Muslim should lend a prayerful ear to
the cries of the muezzin during the first two sentences of the summons,
and when the call to prayer is over he should rub his eyes with his
fingers, in order to produce the signs of weeping--a mark of contrition
and of emotional recrudescence in the matter of piety. The true
Believer, whenever he hears the Sureh Sújdeh read in the Kurán, should
prostrate himself and repeat the words after the reader. If he hear
a Muslim sneeze he should say, “May peace be with thee!” and if the
sneeze be repeated, “Mayest thou be cured!” But, if a Kafir sneeze, the
response must be expressed in the wish to see him tread “the straight
path.”
Every child of Islám, before going to bed, should perform his ablutions
and say his prayers. If he wish to be delivered from nightmare and
all its terrors let him say to Allah: “I take refuge in Thee from the
evil of Satan,” and if he is afraid of being bitten by a scorpion let
him appeal to Noah, saying, “May peace be with thee, O Noah!” One
day Eshagh-ben-Ammar asked Imám Jafar how he could protect himself
against the attack of that malignant arachnidan. The Imám replied:
“Look at the constellation of the Bear; therein you will find a small
star, the lowest of all, which the Arabs call Sohail. Fix your eyes in
the direction of that star, and say three times, ‘May peace be with
Muhammad and with his people: O Sohail, protect me from scorpions,’ and
you will be protected from them.” Eshagh-ben-Ammar goes on to relate
that he read the formula every evening before going to bed, and that it
proved successful; but one evening he forgot to repeat it, and, as a
consequence, was bitten by a black scorpion.
Prayers are also said against mosquitoes and other insects. This
cleanses the conscience of the irate Muslim, if it fail in preserving
his skin. The Eastern peoples in general and the Muhammadans in
particular are early risers. Sleep after morning prayers, which are
said before sunrise, is sure to cause folly; sleep in the middle of
the day is believed to be necessary and suitable to work; while sleep
before evening prayers has precisely the same effect as after the
devotions of the early morning. A traditionist says that the prophets
slept on their backs, so as to be able to converse with the angels at
any hour of the night; that the faithful must sleep on their right
sides, and the Kafirs on their left; and that the deves take their rest
on their stomachs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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