TUNIC OF MOHAMMED.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 December 1931, Page 13

TUNIC OF MOHAMMED.

HAIR ON OYSTER SHELLS. A relic claimed to have been the tunic of Mohammed was shown in Paris recently to a select audience at the flat of the Dayang Muda of Sarawak—the title held by the wife of the heir-presumptive of the Rajah—in whose possession the garment is. 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 th® tunic briefly, says the correspondent of the 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 12 Imams. Traces of gold are also visible on the tunic.