lustration of the hands, the face,
and the body, which was practised of old by the Arabs, is solemnly
enjoined by the Koran; and a permission is formally granted to
supply with sand the scarcity of water. The words and attitudes of
supplication, as it is performed either sitting, or standing, or
prostrate on the ground, are prescribed by custom or authority; but the
prayer is poured forth in short and fervent ejaculations; the measure of
zeal is not exhausted by a tedious liturgy; and each Mussulman for
his own person is invested with the character of a priest. Among the
theists, who reject the use of images, it has been found necessary
to restrain the wanderings of the fancy, by directing the eye and the
thought towards a kebla, or visible point of the horizon. The prophet
was at first inclined to gratify the Jews by the choice of Jerusalem;
but he soon returned to a more natural partiality; and five times every
day the eyes of the nations at Astracan, at Fez, at Delhi, are devoutly
turned to the holy temple of Mecca. Yet every spot for the service of
God is equally pure: the Mahometans indifferently pray in their chamber
or in the street. As a distinction from the Jews and Christians, the
Friday in each week is set apart for the useful institution of public
worship: the people is assembled in the mosch; and the imam, some
respectable elder, ascends the pulpit, to begin the prayer and pronounce
the sermon. But the Mahometan religion is destitute of priesthood or
sacrifice; and the independent spirit of fanaticism looks down with
contempt on the ministers and the slaves of superstition. [1011]

II. The voluntary [102] penance of the ascetics, the torment and glory
of their lives, was odious to a prophet who censured in his companions
a rash vow of abstaining from flesh, and women, and sleep; and firmly
declared, that he would suffer no monks in his religion. [103] Yet
he instituted, in each year, a fast of thirty days; and strenuously
recommended the observance as a discipline which purifies the soul and
subdues the body, as a salutary exercise of obedience to the will of
God and his apostle. During the month of Ramadan, from the rising to the
setting of the sun, the Mussulman abstains from eating, and drinking,
and women, and baths, and perfumes; from all nourishment that can
restore his strength, from all pleasure that can gratify his senses. In
the revolution of the lunar year, the Ramadan coincides, by turns, with
t