ish composed of boiled rice and pulse mixed with clarified
butter and spices. A Fatiha in the name of Husain and of those who were
martyred with him is then said. The food is disposed of as usual in such
cases. A Namaz of some nafl rak'ats is said and sometimes a Du'a is added.
On this day also they go to the burial grounds and place flowers on, and
say Fatiha over the graves of their friends.

Indian Musalmans have copied in their feast many Hindu ceremonies. The
procession of the Tazias, and the casting of them into the water is very
similar to the procession at the Hindu feast of the Durga Puja,[250] when
on the tenth day the Hindus cast the idol Durga, the wife of Siva, into the
Ganges. The oblations offered at different shrines are similar to those
offered by the Hindus, such as rice, clarified butter and flowers.

The Muhammadan form of worship was too simple for a country, in which an
allegorical and idolatrous religion predominated, addressing itself to the
senses and the imaginations rather than to the understanding and the heart;
consequently the Musalman festivals have borrowed from it a variety of
pagan rites, and a pompous and splendid ceremonial. While this has done
much to add to the superstition of the Musalmans in India, it has no doubt
softened their intolerant spirit. Though the Sunnis consider the Shia'h
observances as impious, they look on with the contempt of indifference. The
fact that the British Government punishes all who break {243} the peace may
have something to do with this. Still the Sunni and the Shia'h in India
live on much better terms, and have more respect for each other than the
Turk has for the Persian, or the Persian for the Turk. Some Musalman poets,
indeed, are both Sunnis and Shia'hs. Thus Wali, begins his poem with a
brief encomium on the four first Khalifs, and then bestows an eulogy on
'Ali and his sons Hasan and Husain whom he calls "Imams of the world."

The following is a prayer used in a Fatiha for 'Ali:--

I pray, "That God may deign for the sake of that pure soul, the
ornament of the book of nature, the first of mortals after the Prophet,
the star of mortals, the most precious jewel of the jewel-box of
virtue, the lord of the high and the low, he who occupies a
distinguished place on the bridge of eternity, the mihrab[251] of the
faith, he who sits upon the throne of the palace of the law, the ship
of the sea of religion, the sun of the firm