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THE
CHAPTER XXII
The Ashura and its Mutilations
world would be dull without its
loss would fall more heavily on
religions—and the
Cairo than most
places, for its races are as mixed as a resurrection-pie, and
the Government places no restrictions upon their religious
exercises, except that the English, who are always interfering,
will not allow fanatics to lie on their faces for the Descendant
of the Prophet to ride over them at the Molid-en-Nebbi
any longer. The Molid-en-Nebbi, I should explain, is the
Festival of the Birthday of the Prophet.
I am glad to have been in Cairo before the abolition of
the Ashura, which can be only a matter of time, and ought
to have taken place long ago. Now that the dervishes are
no longer allowed to dance or howl themselves into epileptic
fits, let alone hang themselves up on meat-hooks stuck
between their shoulder joints, there would not seem to the
ordinary mind any reason why the Shia, or unorthodox
Mohammedans, should be allowed to go about the streets
on the night of the Ashura slashing their heads with swords
and scourging their backs with chains until the blood spurts
over them in small fountains.
But to the Egyptian mind the affair presents a different
aspect. The Shia Mohammedans are mostly Persians, and
the Persians are the capitalists of the Bazar, and somebody
receives two thousand pounds for allowing the Ashura to go
on. I cannot say whether the two thousand pounds go in
fees to the authorities or in bakshish, but it is a perfectly
well-known thing that the Persians are allowed to indulge
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