MOHAMMEDAN CUSTOMS.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 317, 2 October 1908, Page 3

MOHAMMEDAN CUSTOMS.

One of tlio objects of the most anxious solicitude for Mahomedan parents (says an English paper) is the shielding of their children from tho evil eyo; any person expressing admiration of a child except by pious ejaculation or tho invocation of blessings upon tho Prophet, fills the heait of. tho parent with apprehension. When children are to be taken into tho street their faces are oftentimes even smeared with mud or greasy substances lest their comeliness should attract attention, and in order that the person of the child itself should escape attention gaudy and glittering ornaments are hung about it, and written charms sown into leather medallions suspended from its neck. ' One of the best of Arab characteristics is that of filial piety, sons and daughtres of deceased parents taking upon themselves all sorts of irksome tasks accounted as expiatory of tho minor faults, committed by the departed ones during their, lifetime, and discharging faithfully every payment or obligation left unfulfilled by dead parents, for has not the Prophet. said that martyrdom even will not atone for an unpaid debt. I There is acouplet that gives a quaint though adequate reason for the observance of part of one's duty to ono's neighbour: "Op-, press not even when it is, in thy-, power to do so, for oppression will eventually bring theo repentance, for thine eye will sleep, while, the oppressed wakeful calls for .vengeance upon tlieo, and the eye of God sleepeth not."