A History of the Mahrattas v2.c48.8

v2.c48.8

² This festival, termed the Hoossein Hosyn, should only commemorate the death of Hosyn, whose fall is nowhere so well related as by Gibbon, volume 9th. [The festival is known as the Muharram from the name of the first month of the Muhammadan year, and takes place during the first ten days of the month. ‘Alī, the cousin of Muhammad, was married to the Prophet’s daughter Fātima, and, according to the Shīa sect, must be regarded as the lawful successor of Muhammad, who died in June, A.D. 632. But, as a matter of fact, Omar, Abu Bakr and Othmān (Usmān) in turn succeeded to the Khalifate, and Alī did not take possession of the office till A.D. 655. After five and a half years’ reign he was assassinated in January, A.D. 661, and his son Hasan, who for a few months had held the vacant office, was poisoned in A.D. 670. Husein, the younger son of Alī, strove to assert his rights by force of arms, but was slain on the tenth day of the month Muharram (October 10, A.D. 680), in a great battle fought at Karbalā, near the Euphrates. These events are commemorated yearly by noisy funeral processions. Properly, the proceedings ought to be altogether mournful, and confined to the Shīa sect, but in practice, Sunni Muhammadans, and even Hindus, take part in the ceremonies, which are regarded by many of the populace as no more solemn than a Lord Mayor’s Show.’ (Sleeman’s Rambles, ed. V. A. Smith (1915), footnote, pp. 482-3.) See also Meer Hassan Ali’s Observations on Mussulmauns, ed. Crooke (1917), chs. ii, iii.