Mughal Administration c10.s6.2

c10.s6.2

Tash-hir or public degradation was a popularly-devised punishment of universal currency throughout the Muslim world and even Hindu India and Mediæval Europe. It is neither recognised nor condemned in the law-books of Islam, but was inflicted by all Muslim qazis and kings, and even by the lay public, as it was a mild form of lynching. In India, the offender’s head was shaven, and he was mounted on an ass with his face turned towards its tail, covered with dust, sometimes with a garland of old shoes placed round his neck, paraded through the streets with noisy music, and turned out of the city. "The judge may blacken the face of the culprit, cut his hair or have him led through the streets, &c." [*Encyclo. Islam*, i. 132.] This last refers to the Arabian practice.