A RARE GARMENT

Evening Star, Issue 20988, 30 December 1931, Page 9

A RARE GARMENT

MOHAMMED'S TUNIC

A relic claimed to have been the tunic of Mohammed was shown in Pans recently to a select audience at the flat of the Dayang Muda of Sarawak—the title held by the wife of the heir-pre-sumptive of the Rajah—in whose possession is the garment. It is impossible, for anyone other than a highly, competent Orientalist to form an opinion as to the validity of the claim, but nobody can examine the garment without being convinced that it is an object of great beauty, curiosity, and antiquity. .. To describe the tunic briefly (says the correspondent of the 1 Morning Post ), it is a short, wide shirt of cream colour with very short arms,'and entirely covered with inscriptions in red and black ink that in places has paled with time so as to be nearly invisible. In the belief of those who claim the garment to be in very truth Mohammed’s shirt, it is made of “ Bysus, a stuff extant in ancient Egypt, the secret of which had disappeared before the thirteenth century, but according to legend made from the hair on oyster shells. The inscriptions on the tunic are in Arabic characters, and are said to comprise the whole of the Koran, from the first verse to the last, together with the prayer of the twelve Imams. Traces of gold are also visible on the tunic. In front the inscriptions, which start on the left shoulder and run round the entire body, are formed in a senes or twenty-three rectangular or rose-shaped divisions. On the back there are twenty-six, and considered merely as an objet d’art the tunic has the appearance of a lovely Oriental carpet of which the pattern is made by the finest wilting imaginable. _ _ , In the opinion of M. Oastagne, a French Orientalist employed at’ the Quai d’Orsay as translator of Eastern languages, and of M. De Patton, a young Russian, who has worked on the subject with him, the tunic is none other than the shirt sent to Mohammed in the sixth year of the Hegira by El Macausus, the Governor of Egypt. The embassy from the Prophet to Egypt and the gifts sent from Egypt to mm are surrounded by many curious Mohammedan legends., Ali, Mohammed s favourite disciple, inherited the, tunic and bequeathed it to his son Hussein, who was killed at the Battle of Kerbela while actually, the story runs, wearing the shirt; and sure enough, as may plainly be seen, the tunic has a rent m the front of it such as. would be made by a spear thrust. After Hussein’s death the tunic became a sacred object, and was kept at Medina until the treasures there were pillaged by the Wahabites at the beginning of the nineteenth century. If M. Castagne’s reading of history is correct, the tunic was then saved from destruction by a French diplomat travelling in Persia, who brought it back to France, and in the possession of his family it has remained until our own time. Such is an outline of the report read by M. Castagno and presented by him to the International Congress of Ethnology and Arclueology at the Sorbonne. . ... Whatever the tunic may he, it is a most rare and admirable thing; and if this piece of stuff is in reality the Prophet’s own tunic, then it is. beyond' contest one of the most precious religious and historical relic? ,in the world. ______