C. F. Gordon Cumming

“ One of the mosques to which unbelievers are not admitted, is the Mosque of Flowers, where a carpet of superb embroidery of gold and silks is annually worked with infinite reverence, and is sent to Mecca as a covering for the tomb of the Prophet. Though commonly called "the holy carpet," this Kiswet e' Nebbee is really a curtain. It is a hanging of rich silk, on which sacred sentences in Arabic are embroidered in gold, and it is designed as a lining for the Káaba, which is the temple of Mecca, the holy of holies of the Mahommedan world. ”

“ Then, amid dead silence, the great dervish, riding a powerful horse, surrounded by about a dozen followers, passes over the prostrate bodies, and as the pain of that heavy tread is added to the previous excitement, some writhe in agony, some swoon, some are in fits, while still with foaming lips they strive to murmur the praise of Allah. ”

“ Rapidly they bend the knee a thousand times, still shouting the holy name; then resume the grunting; and still the white twirlers go on calmly rotating like some sleepy humming-top in a fairy dream. After an hour of this wild work the howlers have wrought themselves into a state of frenzied insanity, amounting to positive madness, and as they are by this time quite irresponsible, and the smallest excuse might rouse their fanatical rage, it was judged unsafe for us infidels to remain longer in the mosque. The evening's excitement sometimes ends by producing cataleptic fits. ”

“ Love in a hut, on water and a crust, Is (Love, forgive us!) cinders, ashes, dust, what must life be in an Egyptian mud hut, with blows and bickerings to increase the amenities of poverty! It is a home of the earth earthy. ”

“ Their dress is hideous, and their worship, to which they admit spectators, consists of a fearful species of dancing, in which the whole of them engage, going round and round their vast hall or temple of prayer, shaking their hands like the paws of a dog sitting up to beg, and singing a deplorable psalm tune in brisk jig time the men without their coats, in their shirt-sleeves, with their lank hair hanging on their shoulders; the women without a single hair escaping from beneath their hideous caps ”

“ We had all gone "to see the dervishes," rather inclined to laugh; only expecting to see some men "valsing heavenlily," as a damsel told me her favorite partner did; but there was an intense earnestness in the whole scene that quelled all sense of the ludicrous, and sent us away subdued and sad, only filling us with deepest pity for the strange beings of whose unsatisfying and unprofitable daily worship we had had this glimpse. ”

“ There is still the old Bedouin honor in observing the wild rule of the desert. Should a wayfarer's camel sink and die beneath its burden, the owner need only draw a circle round the dead beast and go on his way, secure of finding his goods untouched when able to return and remove them. And not only is the inviolable reverence for the hospitality of the tent, when once granted, fully maintained, but we are even told by travellers that they have occasionally left a tent in the desert for upwards of a twelvemonth, and returned to find that not one cord or one peg had been touched. ”

“ While good old Mahommed Sheik (my dragoman) solaced his hunger by a little gossip with the Bedouins, I wandered on over those mountains of broken crockery and rubbish of every species, which have been accumulating for centuries till they form a natural feature in the landscape Here, too (where all things worn and worthless find their last haven) , among broken crockery and cast-away raiment, are laid the poor, worn-out human machines that have finished their hard lifework. ”

“ Still, the self-indulgent mortal who would infringe the law would be held in sore contempt by men whose minds so thoroughly rule the poor body, and with such tyrannous empire. Imagine how they must despise our easy-going, comfort-loving lives. Imagine, too, how sore it must be for Mahommedan servants, under a burning Indian sun, to minister to our luxuries, while they themselves are keeping such a fast as this. The only exception to their law is in favor of travellers and young children, the latter being allowed to eat fruit, such as dates, or sugarcane. ”

“ This is the only occasion on which all Egyptian women, however high their station, are suffered to appear in public, a permission of which a vast number take advantage, and come out in their festival robes and yashmaks, all of white.
The returning pilgrims bring back to Cairo the doubly sacred hangings which have adorned the Káaba for the last year, and which are eventually cut up into shreds for distribution among the faithful.
The great dervish who leads the procession is held to be a person of such wondrous sanctity, that even a blow from his horse's hoof is an honor worthy to be desired ”

“ In this instance, even the building of the great mosque was a work of oppression and wrong. Among the hundreds of hard-worked and unpaid fellahs, there were bands of young girls of from nine to thirteen years of age, divided into companies of about thirty, each marshalled by a brutal fellow carrying a heavy koorbash with which he dealt cruel blows right and left, whenever the weary, jaded creatures paused for a moment. ”

“ First a dervish lays down a sheepskin on a praying carpet. This is emblematic of the founder of the order, and is reverenced accordingly, so each in turn bows to the carpet. Then enters the sheik—a sort of lord abbot, dressed in black and green—and kneels on the carpet, whilst his followers also kneel in silent prayer. A plaintive chaunt is now raised, after which a villanous brass instrument commences to play, whereupon the sheik rises, and heading the procession, each in turn again bows to the carpet—to the man in front of him—to the man behind him. ”

“ Certainly, if we may judge of a creed by the lives of those who profess it, mercy and justice are not prominent features in Mahommedan faith. The Arab proverb says, "The worshipper will become like what he worships," and the hard, unloving belief in a God who guides relentless, pitiless fate, is reflected in the hard, unbending character of the followers of the Prophet. ”

“ As the music quickens, so does the rate of rotation, but apparently without any consciousness on the part of the silent twirlers, whose pale, solemn faces wear a strange supernatural look of ecstasy. At the end of thirty minutes, at a given signal, the majority suddenly halt only two or three, extra devout, continue their strange, giddy turning, like silent white moths, all the time that the howling dervishes are going through their performances. ”

“ They describe the generosity of their taskmasters by saying that "it is easy to cut broad thongs from other men's leather;" a proverb which always reminds me of that charming definition of benevolence as "the feeling which prompts A, on seeing B in trouble, to ask C to help him"! The procrastinating Turks say, that he who lingers by the way, and he who hastens, alike meet at the ferry; but I believe that to the more diligent Arabs we owe the proverb that "by the lane of by-and-by, one comes to the gate of never." ”

“ Some recent spectators of their worship describe how men and women form in lines facing each other down the chapel, all dressed in a sort of conventual uniform. All join in most fervent hymns, and take it by turns to exhort one another. Then commences the mystic dance. All hold out their hands with the palms upturned as if waiting to catch a blessing. ”

“ The streets were hushed and silent—and, as we dived down all manner of short cuts, there seemed no end to the intricate, countless windings of those narrow, overhanging streets; often pitch dark from end to end—perhaps one man carrying a hand-lantern, affording the only glimmer of light—along dead walls of dark mosques and dark gateways. ”

“ The sheik of each village contrives by dint of cruel beatings to extract the utmost farthing from the wretched fellahs under his rule, keeping for himself as much as he dare, though he, in turn, suffers the naboot at the hands of the nazir, another petty officer, of peasant origin like himself, and for that very cause all the more ruthless. ”

“ Thousands of humblest tombs lie here, half hidden by the shifting sand, and countless thousands of those too poor to raise the simplest monument have here buried their dead in the shallow sand—out of their sight indeed, but by no means beyond reach of the prowling pariahs, always on the scent for hid treasure, seeking what they may devour. ”

“ Meanwhile their Arab guide, Hussein, himself a Bedouin, though of another tribe, addressed a pathetic appeal to the robber chief. "Arabs," said he, "you have stripped a man entrusted to my protection, and for whose safety I will stake my life; a man with whom I have eaten, who has slept in my tent, and has become my brother! ”

“ The "La Alāh-el-AIIāh " (There is no God but God) which greets your ear so often, is said to express to their mind a summary of all his absolute supremacy and resistless will; together with the utter passiveness of all created beings as mere instruments for good or evil; tools utterly helpless in the hands of an omnipotent and utterly unsympathizing power. ”

“ It was strange to see an educated man seeking favor of God by this frenzied "bodily exercise." Favor of men is abundantly gained, as the reputed sanctity of the dervish secures him admission wherever he may please to enter. ”

“ Another, referring to the custom of bribery, says, that "to seek for wealth without wealth, is like carrying water in a sieve;" an expression of striking force to any one who has watched their primitive method of irrigation, when, in order to raise water from a lower to a higher level, two men stand, one on each side of the lower ditch, swinging backwards and forwards, by means of two ropes, a frail wicker basket which allows about three-fourths of the water to run out, before it can possibly reach the upper ditch. ”

“ Suddenly they all stop and throw themselves flat on their faces; a living pavement, which, however, twitches convulsively while the miserable enthusiasts go on violently rubbing their noses in the dust, as their heads jerk from side to side, while they continue to reiterate the name of God. ”

“ The city is enclosed by battlemented walls, outside of which lie great tracts of desolate suburbs—vast mounds of city refuse, and countless ruined tombs and minarets standing in the desert; the mosques having in many cases disappeared, as if destroyed by violence, while these more fragile minarets remain. Even those that remain are allowed to crumble away piecemeal, no modern Egyptians caring to prop up their fine old ancestral temples, or finding in them any interest either as works of art or matters of history ”

“ It is never pleasant to see your countrymen assuming an utterly false position, and certainly no more perfect type of dignity and impudence could well be found, than occasionally shocks both eye and ear, when a wretched little Briton (too often possessed of snub features, and clad in ill-cut broadcloth) presumes to give himself consequential airs with these stately Orientals, who invariably treat him with the courtesy of conscious superiority. ”

“ Then we bethought us of still stranger excrescences of a purer faith—of Christian sects who pervert Scriptural injunctions to new meanings—of so-called "Jumpers," who testify the gladness of the Christian life by jumping, because they say that of old "men leaped for joy;" while others twirl like the dervishes, because Ezekiel said, "Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die?" ”

“ To the former, the medley of Mahommedans and Jews, Copts, Armenians, Greeks, and all other Christian varieties, seems so strangely incongruous—while to the latter, the absence of idolatry, and the knowledge that all these nations are worshippers of one God, seems to raise them to one broad level; and though, practically, we know too well how they hate one another, and wrestle, and jostle, and fight for the corpse of truth, still, we remember that one golden thread does run through all their creeds ”

“ But if a third disagreement arise, the wife may not return till she has actually married another husband, after which she may, if she chooses, leave him and return to number one! Of course, this easy state of law leads to very rapid varieties in domestic establishments, more especially as four wives at a time are the prescribed allowance. ”

“ The dervishes rapidly sway from side to side, rolling themselves and their unlucky heads in wondrous style; every feature writhes, the eyes roll wildly, while with deep sepulchral groan they grunt out Al-Iāh! ”

“ As you wander about in Cairo every new turn brings you to the door of one of the four hundred mosques, which seem to take up a vast proportion of every street; their domes and minarets are all more or less diverse in form and decoration ”

“ Those who possess camels are wealthy enough, as these supply them with all things needful—milk, cheese, fuel, raiment, tents; even meat when they can afford to slaughter one of the herd. But many of the tribe are often miserably poor, and find enough to test their faith in the struggle for daily bread—a faith, however, which rarely seems to fail. ”