Many Of The
Maliki School, However, Make The Ceremony Of Ziyarat To Precede The
Prayer To The Deity.
[FN#23] The Sujdah Is A Single "Prostration" With The Forehead Touching
The Ground.
It is performed from a sitting position, after the Dua or
supplication that concludes the two-bow prayer.
Some of the Olema,
especially those of the Shafe'i school, permit this "Sujdah of thanks"
to be performed before the two-bow prayer if the visitor have any
notable reason to be grateful.
[FN#24] The candles are still sent from Cairo.
[FN#25] These windows are a present from Kaid-Bey, the Mamluk Sultan of
Egypt.
[FN#26] These oil lamps are a present from the Sultan.
[FN#27] The five daily liturgies are here recited by Imams, and every
one presses to the spot on account of its peculiar sanctity.
[FN#28] In Moslem theology "Salat" from Allah means mercy, from the
angels intercession for pardon, and from mankind blessing. The act of
blessing the Prophet is one of peculiar efficacy in a religious point
of view. Cases are quoted of sinners being actually snatched from hell
by a glorious figure, the personification of the blessings which had
been called down by them upon Mohammed's head. This most poetical idea
is borrowed, I believe, from the ancient Guebres, who fabled that a
man's good works assumed a beautiful female shape, which stood to meet
his soul when winding its way to judgment. Also when a Moslem blesses
Mohammed at Al-Madinah, his sins are not written down for three
days,-thus allowing ample margin for repentance,-by the recording
angel. Al-Malakayn (the two Angels), or Kiram al-Katibin (the Generous
Writers), are mere personifications of the good principle and the evil
principle of man's nature; they are fabled to occupy each a shoulder,
and to keep a list of words and deeds. This is certainly borrowed from
a more ancient faith. In Hermas II. (command. 6), we are told that
"every man has two angels, one of godliness, the other of iniquity,"
who endeavour to secure his allegiance,-a superstition seemingly
founded upon the dualism of the old Persians. Mediaeval Europe, which
borrowed so much from the East at the time of the Crusades, degraded
these angels into good and bad fairies for children's stories.
[FN#29] Burckhardt writes this word Hedjra (which means "flight"). Nor
is M. Caussin de Perceval's "El Hadjarat" less erroneous. At Madinah it
is invariably called Al-Hujrah-the chamber. The chief difficulty in
distinguishing the two words, meaning "chamber" and "flight," arises
from our only having one h to represent the hard and soft h of Arabic,
???? [Arabic text] and ???? [Arabic text]. In the case of common
saints, the screen or railing round the cenotaph is called a "Maksurah."
[FN#30] Yet Mohammed enjoined his followers to frequent graveyards.
"Visit graves; of a verity they shall make you think of futurity!" And
again, "Whoso visiteth his two parents' grave, or one of the two, every
Friday, he shall be written a pious child, even though he might have
been in the world, before that, a disobedient."
[FN#31] The truth is no one knows what is there.
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