go again to the grave and repeat the offering of flowers and
scented oil as before. Other feasts are given on the fortieth day,
and at the expiration of four, six and nine months, and one year from
the date of the death, and the rich sometimes spend large sums on
them. None of these observances are prescribed by the Koran but have
either been retained from pre-Islamic times or adopted in imitation of
the Hindus. For forty days all furniture is removed from the rooms and
the whole family sleep on the bare ground. Sometimes a cup of water and
a wheaten cake are placed nightly for forty days on the spot where the
deceased died, and a similar provision is sent to the mosque. When a
man dies his mother and widow break their glass bangles. The mother
can get new ones, but the widow does not wear glass bangles or a
nose-ring again unless she takes a second husband. For four months
and ten days the widow is strictly secluded and does not leave the
house. Prayers for ancestors are offered annually at the Shab-i-Barat
or Bakr-Id festival. [317] The property of a deceased Muhammadan is
applicable in the first place to the payment of his funeral expenses;
secondly, to the discharge of his debts; and thirdly, to the payment
of legacies up to one-third of the residue. If the legacies exceed
this amount they are proportionately reduced. The remainder of the
property is distributed by a complicated system of shares to those of
the deceased's relatives who rank as sharers and residuaries, legacies
to any of them in excess of the amount of their shares being void. The
consequence of this law is that most Muhammadans die intestate. [318]

15. Muhammadan sects. Shiah and Sunni.

Of the two main sects of Islam, ninety-four per cent of the Muhammadans
in the Central Province were returned as being Sunnis in 1911 and three
per cent as Shiahs, while the remainder gave no sect. Only the Cutchi,
Bohra and Khoja immigrants from Gujarat are Shiahs and practically
all other Muhammadans are Sunnis. With the exception of Persia,
Oudh and part of Gujarat, the inhabitants of which are Shiahs, the
Sunni sect is generally prevalent in the Muhammadan world. The main
difference between the Sunnis and Shiahs is that the latter think
that according to the Koran the Caliphate or spiritual headship of
the Muhammadans had to descend in the Prophet's family and therefore
necessarily devolved on the Lady Fatimah, the only one of his children
who survived