Mohammedan saints and sanctuaries in Palestine

160 J ournal of tile P alestin e Oriental Sooiety
,i brahim el-Halil (in 'H ebi'on) may be offered in J eru salem, and one
" for en-nabi Dahiid (Jerusalem) in N ublus. In such a case btinilW~
'ala ismuh,.. "it is slain in his na me (i. e., that of the saint)." This
may happen when nobody , can go to the shrine in question. A
.Bedouin of th e tribe el-T dwan told me th at most of the sacrifices
mad e for Moses are killed in their camp (Transjordania) and not at
the shr ine. But it is considered more cor rect to offer the animal in
the sanctuary, for a visit to such a place is in itself a barakeh,
,"blessing."
When a sheep is taken.to a shrine it is sometimes decorated with
flowers and .t0loured ribbons. A small rou nd mirror (mray) sometim
es is suspended from its fore head and the horn s are dyed with
.z~inna . In the mOs"am of Nebi Miisft one finds many sheep whose forehead
s, backs and tails are dyed with siraqim and maijhab. 1
Anyone who knows how to slaughter a sheep may do it. Generally
it is done by 'the people who 'take th e offering. I n exceptional cases
it is done ' by the 1.Jaddam of the shrine. I n important places of
.pilgrimagewith well-kn own' mawasim there are butchers, who usually
slaughter 'the ilWwh, rec eiving a quarter or half a madjidi for their
work. 'But nobody is obliged to hand over his sheep to such a
person. Women never perform this act. Doutte's 2 observa tion that
a muqaddisn. (offerer) slays the' ijbibah ' in most shrines has its-parallel
only once' in . Palestine, the Maghrebine eiuoieh. of Ab ii Mad ian.s
. Tn a large maqiun, like Nebi Miisa"j there 'is a special place for
slaughtering.s In smaller ones. with a kitchen the animal is slai n in
or in front . of this room (en-N abi $al e1)., in the village of en-N abi
$alel.l). There' are ' sanctuaries, which have no re al kitchen but have
adjacent to the wall of the 1naqam an open enclosure or rwUq which
serves . as a kitchen and where the ijabay~i are slain an d th e food is
cooked (er-Rfa'I, Rdjal Sufeh), Not infrequently especially in 'I'ransjordania
. the animals are slain on the roo f of the maqam, so that
some of the ' blood runs over the front wall. In all-oth er shrines the