Funeral Rites of North Africa, 1906
From The Moors: A Comprehensive Description by Budgett Meakin, 1906.
From: 1906 C.E. To: 1906 C.E.
Location: Morocco
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
Funeral Rites
From The Moors: A Comprehensive Description by Budgett Meakin, 1906.
Approaching death has no fears for the Moor, who is content to rely on God's mercy to those who have accepted Mohammed as His apostle, and who have attended to at least the more important ceremonial precepts of his system. If they have doubts as to the side on which their conscience account stands, they and their friends take care to lay in a precautionary stock of merit by the distribution of alms, and the recital of prayers or extracts from the Kor'an.
The name of a deceased Moor is never mentioned by those who knew him without the addition of the ejaculation "May God have mercy on him!" but this in no sense casts a reflection upon his character.
When death becomes imminent, it is customary to moisten the lips of the dying person, and to remove the pillows, covering the face with a cloth, and as soon as life appears to be extinct the fact is announced by the cries of those present. This makes it quickly known in the street, bringing to the door such friends as can come to condole with the bereaved, and spend from half an hour to two hours repeating prayers for blessings on the departed, and fortitude for the survivors. As they leave, they enquire what time the funeral (ginazah) will be, as, if death has occurred in the morning, it usually takes place the same afternoon, or else next day. No other announcement is made.
Hired mourners are not employed by the Moors and the signs of bereavement are here less marked than in most Oriental countries. The women of a family which has lost its head give way, however, to piercing shrieks, and in some parts behave like the demented, tearing their cheeks with their nails, rending their garments, and placing ashes upon their faces, hands and clothes. These customs are mostly confined to the Arabs and Shlûh, who sometimes also attire themselves in old clothes (sack-cloth), and throw old pots and pans out after the deceased has been carried forth. In the case of virgins, bachelors, or women who have died in child-birth, cries of joy are sometimes uttered as the corpse is carried out of the door. The men do not mourn, though for a near relative it is customary to abstain from feasting for a period of "ukar" which may last as long as a year.
Except in the case of widows, no change is made in the dress of either sex, but the women abstain for a time from adornment and finery, even from washing their clothes, and weddings or feasts are very quietly celebrated. On the death of her husband a widow is at once rolled up in a háïk until new calico garments can be brought to her, as she must wear this material exclusively for four months, eleven and a half days, and must do her own washing apart from that of others on Saturdays, when alone she is permitted to use the steam bath, taking care to be back home by the time of afternoon prayers. Although she may visit her friends, she may attend no festivities, and must take particular care not to go bare-foot.
Immediately after death, the body of the deceased is washed with warm water and rose-water, sometimes also with soap, usually by some taleb or 'arîfah accustomed to the task, who binds up the jaws with a strip of selvedge, inserting; cotton wool into the ears and nostrils, also under the arm-pits, and between the legs; and ties the big toes together. This is performed on a special board called a maghsil, kept for public use.
Shirt, drawers, socks and sash having been put on, with turban or kerchief according to sex, all new, the body is laid in the shroud or k'fin, a white cotton sheet which is knotted at head and feet. Sometimes the body is placed in the mortuary chapel adjoining the mosque, to have once more the privilege of hearing prayers. If the body remains in the house overnight, it is left in a room alone with candles and incense burning. Often it is sprinkled with water of orange-flower, cloves, marjoram or musk. The clothes worn at death are usually given to the poor, or to a taleb who assists in the funeral rites. Some carry shrouds with them when travelling, and in the army these are furnished by the government.
One of the biers called na'ash—kept at the mortuary chapel for free use—being brought, or else a new one having been made which will afterwards be presented to the mosque for free use, the body is laid therein, generally after sprinkling it with saffron water, and sometimes the shroud also with water from the well of Zemzem, and a blanket—háïk—is thrown over, or sometimes the flag from a saint's shrine, or the girdle of the widow, if she has been left enceinte.
The bier of a woman is distinguished by an arched erection of cane, over which are thrown a blanket and a light white curtain, if married, or a coloured handkerchief if unmarried, the bier being decorated exactly as the bridal cage, 'ammarîá. Occasionally, in the towns, coffins called tabût are employed, especially for women—plain boxes with bottoms of open lath-work. The bearers are commonly the friends or admirers of the deceased, or merely such as desire to perform a good work, and relieve one another at frequent intervals; but sometimes they are paid, especially in the large cities, when they are called zarzayah.
If possible the procession includes a slave or two freed by the will of the deceased, or purchased and manumitted by his heirs, holding the certificates of freedom aloft in a cleft stick. At times the talebs go first, but at times the bier, because it is said in the Hadeeth or sayings of Mohammed that the Angels led the way.
The bodies of children are carried by a man in his arms, wrapped up, or in a small bier on his head. As they slowly march with little attempt at order, someone strikes up the profession of faith in GOD and Mohammed, which is weirdly chanted, sometimes with too much of a nasal stress to be agreeable at close quarters, but exceedingly effective at a distance, especially in the case of one or two really magnificent tunes. In most the chant is antiphonal, one half singing the first part of the creed, the others commencing the second simultaneously with the last syllable of the first; or the whole is gone through first by one half and then by the second, so that no pause or break occurs the whole length of the march, or till the interment is over. This chant or dhikr is not, however, always used, and unless someone strikes it up, the funeral proceeds in silence. The following is one of the best; but the effect can only be produced by voice or violin.
From the house the procession makes for the mortuary chapel,—beït el gináïz—where the bier is placed on the ground with the face towards Mekka, while a muedhdhin proclaims at the door leading into the mosque, the prayer for burial, "and he a man; may GOD have mercy on him, and all Muslimin have mercy on him!" (Or "and she a woman.")A fokîh then leads the congregation in the prayer for the dead.
Arrived at the grave-side, the bier is deposited on the ground at the head, in a line with the trench, which is fairly wide, but only three or four feet deep, with a narrower trough at the bottom into which the body can be almost slid by the nearest friends. In the case of a woman two or three relatives stand round with out-stretched háïks, while the father, brother, or in default of them some man of piety and standing, lowers the body. This having been laid on the right side, with the face towards Mekka, the shroud is opened at head and foot, lest at the resurrection the deceased should find himself in the same predicament as Lazarus. Two are never placed in the same grave, from a fear that they might mistake one another's bones on that occasion. Boards or stones—called lahd—having been placed across the ledges formed by the lower trough, the earth is filled in, water being poured on if it is very dry, in order to make it solid, as it is believed that the wicked suffer torment from the pressure of the earth. Sometimes palm or myrtle leaves are strewed on the bottom, or a light mat. The same procedure takes place whether there is a coffin or not.
The graves of the Moors differ considerably in different parts of the country, the most common practice being merely to surround the heap of displaced earth with a circle of stones which are seldom cut, but in the case of a reputed saint are often whitewashed, when a white flag on a cane will probably be set up at the head. A more elaborate style is a low, whitewashed wall all round, lower on the side towards Mekka, which is often made to include a number of graves of one household. At other times a dome is erected, especially when there is a hope of receiving ziarah, the offerings of pious visitors.
Elsewhere head and foot stones are in vogue, or the former only, but inscriptions are rare. The only common sign is an upright stone at one end or both, not a flat one, called a mish'had or “witnesser." A woman's grave may be distinguished by one or two saw cuts in the top of that at the foot.
The dhikr having ceased, a muedhdhin utters his cry, and the *talebs *or scribes who have attended sit down to recite certain chapters of the Kor'an for a consideration, while alms are distributed to the assistants, especially to the poor, who consequently are not slow to get word of an important funeral.
In Algeria, even in European dress, I was once included in the distribution at a funeral I had attended to obtain a closer view than I could attempt in more bigoted Morocco. The alms include bread and water, but never meat, which would be considered of an unpropitious resemblance to the dust returned to dust, and even the national dish, kesk'soo, is not in the best of favour, as so many have helped to make it. The idea is to purchase merit, for which dried fruits such as figs and raisins are more highly esteemed, the former specially so, as every seed contained in them is believed to earn its own blessing.
Each subsequent morning for three days the males of well-to-do families gather with scribes at the grave and distribute more bread with figs and dates, and after they have retired the women, who have waited at a short distance, approach with branches of myrtle and palm, and flowers which they lay on the grave, then paying many times its value to a water-carrier to pour out a skin-full of water thereon.
Sometimes the whole family gathers on the fortieth day, when more eatables are distributed and scriptures read, flowers and branches strewn, and water poured out, after which, the materials being ready, if a tomb-stone or enclosure is to be erected, the work is at once put in hand.
Women do not attend the funerals in towns, though they do so among the Arabs and Shluh, who often disregard Mohammed's objection to wailing at the grave, or even to praising the deceased.
In Fez it is considered a disgrace for a woman to weep thus, and some think that unless their tears are caught by their veils they injure the deceased. But the elder women may visit the grave next morning, called the ṣ'bah el kubûr, or "tomb morning," and on Friday afternoons it is customary for them to repair to the graveyards with sprigs of myrtle to lay on the graves which being almost their only outing except to the bath, gives frequent occasion for scandal.
If the funeral has been delayed over night, fokîhs will have been employed to recite a portion, if not the whole, of the Kor'an, either on the spot or at their own homes, the latter being cheaper and costing from three dollars upwards, according to the social position of the deceased. The figure quoted is at the rate of a real vellon (billion)for each of the sixty sections into which that book is divided, but to perform this sulkah or "passing through" as it should be, all the fokîhs should sit together, each taking up the recital where his predecessor leaves off.
So essential is some form of this recitation considered, that for the penniless it is done in the morstán at the charge of the Government, which in that case meets all expenses, but if possible breakfast is provided for the fokîhs, when the recitation has been by night. In the house, too, is often repeated part of a poem in praise of Mohammed, called the "Bordah," consisting of 165 verses by the Sheikh el Buseeri, buried in Alexandria.
Frequently the whole Kor'an is repeated again at the grave, and also portions of the Surahs "Ahli I'mran," "En-Nisa," and the whole of the Sûrahs "Ya Seen," "Tabarkah," or the last fourteen short Sûrahs. Commonly these recitations are prolonged for three days—the third day being the most important,—and sometimes even for six months or a year.
The proven cases in which voices have been heard issuing from the ground after burial, and those in which bodies unearthed have been found contorted, are accounted for on the best of Islamic authorities by the belief that the two angels Munkir and Nakir come on the night after the funeral to examine the dead (whose spirits return for the ordeal)and cast up their conscience accounts. But into the details of that superstition it would be out of place here to enter, as they may be found in full in any work on the tenets of Islam.
Most of the grave-yards are unenclosed spaces outside the towns, though saints are frequently buried within, but ordinary corpses are not allowed to be brought inside the walls, so are taken first to one of the shrines which almost invariable stand in such localities, their sanctity forming a strong attraction. Whenever the Moors see a funeral pass, of whatever creed, they stand and repeat the takbeer thrice, but they never attend Jewish or Christian funerals.
Meakin, Budgett. The Moors: A Comprehensive Description. Swan Sonnenschein & Co, 1906.
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