# Gujarát and the Gujarátis/The Mo'haram

The Mo'haram.
"Hai Hassan, Hai Hussein," are the wails of genuine grief that pierce the dense air of Imámbara, on Mo'haram night. "Hai Hassan, Hai Hussein," form the interlude to the touching national elegy, recited to the echo of frantic breast-beating by sturdy hard-favoured Moguls and Seedies (African Mussulmans), who abandon themselves for the nonce to uncontrollable woe. It is the last night of the Passion week throughout Islam, when the Shehá Moslem enacts his Passion Play, and the Sooni Mahomedan keeps up his High Carnival. In the month of Mo'haram, "holiest of the holy," eight days are sacred to the memory of Hassan and Hussein, grandsons of the Prophet by his beloved daughter Fátimá, and his no less beloved disciple Ali. The youthful heroes are said to have fallen victims to partisan fury. The Shehás, by all accounts the true believers, who acknowledge Ali as heir and successor to the Founder of Islam, spend the early part of the week in erecting the taboot, the paper mausoleum which is supposed to hold the murdered hopes of the Prophet's house, in reading the fáthiá, the initial verses of the ​Korán, before it, and in other religious rites. On a raised seat squats the venerable Mohla, surrounded by the Hadjees and other dignitaries and eldersof the Moslem Church; and at a distancesquat vast multitudes of the faithful. To the breathless audience the voice of the Mohla is "more than the miraculous harp." In tones of intense anguish does he recite the tale of woe—how one of the heroes was poisoned by the foul assassin at Yezd, how the other was slaughtered by the dastard soldiery of Damasens, on the field of Kerbalá. In the course of the recital, the High Priest lays solemn emphasis on an incident here and there, swaying his portly person backward and forward. At such times his deep-drawn sigh generally makes itself heard at a distance—a sigh that seems "to shatter his bulk." This prolonged inspiration is taken up by the audience, converted into a loud sob, aunited but discordant groan, decidedly more striking to the ear than harmonious. Here the agonised spirit finds vent in moans of "Hai Hassan, Hai Hussein." Here ply the brawny hands on the livid breast—a cruel torture unfelt, owing to the self-abandonment of the hour, though to the onlooker the breast is a piece of raw flesh be sprinkled with the vital fluid. ​Then supervenes a simultaneous hush as the Mohla's lips are observed quivering in a painful effort to speak. The sigh is subdued, the pain endured in silence. The grief surging up the breast empties itself at the eyes. It is not the hired lip-homage of the Hindu mourner, this Marsia song of the Moslem. The cold philosophy of the fatalist is nowhere this evening. His emotion has usurped the seat of reason. Here are no external "trappings and suits of woe"—the grief is genuine, of and in the heart.
Given the time, the place, the frantic enthusiasm of the Moslem nature, and the awfulness of the tale of murder and assassination, and the veriest day-drudge will develop into a hero and a patriot, the most arrant coward will raise himself into a sympathising martyr. Wonderful is the influence of Islam on the believer's mind; and a faith that has such a hold on men's minds will endure with the sun. It was years ago I first witnessed the Marsiá, and in other place than the Imámbárá of Bombay. It was in Gujarát, in the season of early youth, but the impression still remains, in spite of the assertion of the half-true poet, that "youth holds no fellowship with woe."
The Soonis, that is, the Indian converts to ​Islam, get up a frightful caricature of the proceeding. They look upon Hussan and Hussein (Anglicè, Hobson, Dobson) as pretenders. If you speak to the Sooni of the premature death of the brother-heroes, he will reply in mock sympathy "Pity they died not earlier." This is mortal offence to the parties concerned, but as "the dead feel no resentment," their friends the Moguls and other Shehás take up the cudgels for them. Hence bleeding noses, broken pates, and other paraphernalia of carnage. The hatred the two sects bear each other is imperishable. The Sooni's idea of the holiday is to make merry at his rival's expense. He keeps up mad revels all these days exactly in proportion to the intensity of the Shehá's mourning. He will become a monkey, a bear, a tiger, an old hag, a mock Mohlá, a pious dust-begrimed Darvish, a street dancer, a bairági, and anything and everything, in fact, except a respectable human being. If he is well-to-do, and middle-aged, he enters on a career of indiscriminate hospitality, where the invitation to the guest is in the golden language of the ancients, "Drink or depart." I need not say many prefer the former alternative. When he comes out into the street with his very much ​mixed following, he looks "a thing of shreds and patches." Altogether, the Sooni makes a most discreditable figure during the sacred season which he converts into a perfect Saturnalia. But he is little to blame, poor fellow. Government don't seem so anxious to dispel his mental fog, his own people won't wash and clean him. There is no Jamsetjee Jejibhoy institution for him. He has contrived to earn a bad name; and he can no easier get rid of it than can the dog in the proverb. He won't respect law, because he looks upon law as a hocus-pocus. Who interprets the law to him? It is rather unjust, therefore, to think Kasam is always rife for treason. Why, he cannot commit treason even if he wished, because he has no soul. I am quoting political philosophy. And as for judgment, why, sir, Kásam has not the judgment of a "malt horse." Sir, he has not so much as "a thought in his belly," so utterly barren he is. He will chat and strut bravely. I allow he will "pluck the moon out of her sphere if she let him."