Park, Also, In Western Africa, Conformed To The
Example Of His Companions, In Adding A Charm Or Shred Of Cloth On A
Tree (At The Entrance Of The Wilderness), Which Was Completely Covered
With These Guardian Symbols.
And, finally, the Tarikh Tabari mentions
it as a practice of the Pagan Arabs, and talks of evil spirits residing
in the date-tree.
May not, then, the practice in Al-Islam be one of the
many debris of fetish-worship which entered into the heterogeneous
formation of the Saving Faith? Some believe that the Prophet permitted
the practice, and explain the peculiar name of the expedition called
Zat al-Rika'a (place of shreds of cloth), by supposing it to be a term
for a tree to which the Moslems hung their ex-voto rags.
[FN#26] The saint lies under a little white-washed dome, springing from
a square of low walls-a form of sepulchre now common to Al-Hijaz,
Egypt, and the shores and islands of the Red Sea. As regards his name
my informants told me it was that of a Hijazi Shaykh. The subject is by
no means interesting; but the exact traveller will find the word
written Takroore, and otherwise explained by Sir Gardner Wilkinson.
[FN#27] Called by the Arabs Shih [Arabic text], which the dictionaries
translate "wormwood of Pontus." We find Wallin in his works speaking of
Ferashat al-shih, or wormwood carpets.
[FN#28] We are told in verse of "a cocoa's feathery shade," and sous
l'ombre d'un cocotier.
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