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The Ashura and its Mutilations 245
in this anachronism for the definite payment of this large
sum.
I think that if I was a Persian I should like to be relieved
of the responsibility ; it would be worth coming to Egypt
for this only, not to mention the advantages of trading in a
country where the taxation is low and fixed, and the English
are present to prevent rich men being squeezed.
The AsJmra is the tenth day of Muharram, the first
month of the Mohammedan year. The Shia Mohammedans
observe all ten days as days of lamentation. But the Sun-
nite Mohammedans observe the tenth day only as being
the day on which it is said that God created Adam and
Eve, Heaven and Hell, the Tablet of Decree, the Pen, Fate,
Life, and Death. The Ashura procession takes place on
the tenth day, because on that day the Imam Hoseyn, the
son of Ali, the nephew and son-in-law of the Prophet, was
assassinated on the Field of Kerbela. His head is supposed
to be kept at the Mosque of the Hassaneyn in Cairo, where
immense crowds used to assemble to see the dervishes
shouting and whirling, eating glass and fire, and wagging
their heads for hours to the name of Allah. The women
used to go in large numbers on that night.
In Queer Things Abotit Persia, the book in which I colla-
borated with M. Eustache de Lorey, there is an elaborate
account of the miracle play which is acted in Persia with so
much ceremony on that day.
In Persia, which is the principal seat of the Shia Mohammedans,
the feeling against the foreigner's watching this holy
procession used to be so strong that he had to sit back in a
room to look at it if he was on the line of route, or betake
himself to a distant roof, but now the presence of foreigners
is rather encouraged if they keep out of the crowd.
The Egyptian can be dangerously fanatical on occasion,
but, to do him justice, he is quite large-minded about allowing
infidels who are interested, to watch the Moslem processions
and ceremonials and even to photograph them, and if any
amusing incident occurs, he is generally ready to share a
laugh about it. I think that the Egyptian has a real appre-