OBJECTS OF RELIGIOUS CEREMONIAL 87 



{ar-rdhman) ; "the loving" (al-wadud); "the forgiver" (al-ghafar) , etc. 

 A hundredth bead of larger size, called the imam, "leader," or a 

 tassel in its place, is frequently added for the essential name of God, 

 Allah. ^^ Other devotional formulas recited by means of the rosary 

 are the ejaculations known as the tashih: "I extol God," {suhhana 

 illah); the takJiir, "God is very great" {Allahu akhar)-, the taJimid, 

 "God be praised" (al-hamdu-VillaTii); and the taMil, "there is no 

 deity but God" (la illaJia ilia illah). Great merit, according to tradi- 

 tion, is attributed by the prophet to the recital of the hundred names 

 of God, or to the repetition of these formulae. " Verily," he is reported 

 to have said, " there are 99 names of God, and whoever recites them 

 shall enter into paradise," and "Whoever recites this sentence (the 

 tashih and tahmid), a hundred times, morning and evening, will have 

 all his sins forgiven." 



Mohammedan rosaries are frequently made of dark stones. Special 

 value is attached to beads, the material of which originated in the 

 holy cities of Mecca and Medina. 



It is generally assumed that the Mohammedans borrowed the 

 rosary full-grown from the Buddhists. The Mohammedan tradi- 

 tion Qtadith), as usual, pushes back the use of some mechanical 

 contrivance for counting prayers to the time of Mohammed. It is 

 related that the prophet reproached some women for using pebbles 

 in repeating the tashih, talchir, etc., and recommended that they 

 should count them on their fingers. In a tradition, collected in the 

 third century A. H. — ninth century A. D. — is related that Abu Abd 

 al-Rahman, son of Abu Bekr, the first caliph, who died about 53 

 A. H. — 673 A. D. — seeing in the mosque groups of worshippers 

 reciting under a leader 100 talchirs, 100 talchlils, and 100 tashihs by 

 means of small pebbles, reproached them with the words, "Rather 

 count your sins, and I shall guarantee you that nothing of your good 

 works will be lost." Abdallah, son of the caliph Omar, who died 73 

 A. H. — 692 A. D. — seeing one picking up pebbles while praying, said 

 to him, "Do not do that, for this comes from Satan." All this may 

 point to the adoption of some counting device at the time when the 

 recitation of the above-mentioned formulas became a practice, the 

 date of which, however, can not be fixed with certainty. The use 

 of pebbles in the repetition of these litanies would seem to mark a 

 primitive form of the suhha, the point of departure in the evolution 

 which resulted in the rosary, that is, in threading beads on a string, 

 which may have been copied from the Buddhists. It also shows that 

 the rosary at the time of its appearance met with some opposition 

 from the conservatives and the rigorists of the religious discipline. 

 In fact, as late as the third century A. H. — ninth century A. D. — 



" According to Mr. R. A. Stewart Macallister, in the Palestine Exploration Quarterly Statement for 

 July, 190S, p. 172, " There is another variety of rosary less commonly used, with 101 pellets corresponding 

 to the 101 names of the Prophet." 



