OBJECTS OF RELIGIOUS CEREMONIAL 83 



In towns and villages there is a parish allotted to each mosque, and 

 the people within the section of the parish claim the services of the 

 imam at their marriages and funerals, and they pay to him the usual 

 offering made on these occasions. Many of the imams are engaged 

 in other vocations besides their service of the mosque. Persia. 

 (Cat. No. 136661, U.S.N. M.) Gift of Rev. J. L. Potter. 



36. Costume oj a Turkish imam. — Consisting of (1) trousers; (2) 

 jacket; (3) waistcoat; (4) coat; (5) turban; (6) shoes with goloshes. 

 Constantinople, Turkey. (Cat. No. 154772, U.S.N.M.) 



37. Costume of a dancing dervisTi {maulawi). — Dervishes (in Arabic, 

 falcirs), are members of a Mohammedan religious fraternity. They 

 are divided into numerous orders, each deriving its name from its 

 founder. They trace their origin to Mohammed himself, but they do 

 not appear in history before the eleventh century A. D. Many of 

 these orders have flourished and still flourish. Some dervishes live 

 in monasteries, some wander about (like the mendicant friars), some 

 retire from the world to devote themselves to meditation, with fast- 

 ing to the utmost limit and other severe ascetic practices. Each order 

 is established on different principles, and has its own rules and peculiar 

 devotions, and distinct dress as to material, shape, and color. Each 

 organization imposes on its members the obligation to recite certain 

 passages from the Koran at different times of the day. The religious 

 service or ritual common to all fraternities is the zilcr, "remembering, 

 that is, of Allah, and its object is to bring home to the worshiper the 

 thought of an unseen world and his dependence upon it. The zilcr 

 consists in the recital of such formulae as, there is no God but Allah; 

 God is great; praise to AUah; holiness to AUah; he lives; AUah lives, 

 or the 99 attributes of Allah, etc. At first the worshipers are sitting 

 on their heels or crosslegged, and the ejaculations are expressed 

 softly and slowly. As the excitement grows they rise and stand 

 upright, each placing his hand on the shoulder of his neighbor or 

 entwining their arm in one another and forming several concentric 

 rings, move from side to side of the hall, leaping and stamping and 

 shouting: Allah; He; he lives, etc. The Maulawis whirl on their heels. 

 This hypnotic ecstasis is stimulated by playing on different kiuds of 

 drums and pipes and, as travelers relate, taking red-hot iron between 

 the lips, eating glass, live serpents or scorpions, passing needles or 

 knives through their bodies, etc. 



Besides the regular dervishes there is also a large number of lay 

 members, analogous to the Franciscan and Dominican tertiaries, 

 who live in the world and have only the duty of certaiu daily prayers 

 and of attending a zikr from time to time. There are also female 

 dervishes who formerly lived in monasteries, but now can only be 

 "tertiaries." 



The different orders of dervishes are distinguished by their dress, 

 chiefly the headgear {taj, properly, crown). The most common is 



