NO. 1667. COLLECTION OF ROSARIES— ^CASANOWICZ. 349 



Mohammedan rosaries are frequently made of date stones. Special 

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

 sacred cities of IMecca and Medina. 



It is generally assumed that the Mohammedans borrowed the rosary 

 full-grown from the Buddhists. The Mohammedan tradition 

 (/i(((h'f/t) pushes back the use of some mechanical contrivance for 

 counting prayers to the time of Mohammed. It is related that the 

 ]n-ophet reproached some women for using pebbles in repeating the 

 fa.shi/i, t((1d)i)\ 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 calif, who died about 53 A. H. (073 A. D.), see- 

 ing in the mosque groups of worshipers, reciting under a leader 100 

 fa/ilh-s, 100 tal-hlUs, and 100 tashihs by means of small pebbles, re- 

 proached them with the words, " Rather count your sins, and I shall 

 guarantee you that nothing of your good works will be lost." Ab- 

 dallah, son of the calif 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 appear- 

 ance 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.) the use of the subha, as an instrument of 

 jirayer, was in vogue only among the lower classes and looked down 

 upon by the theologians and higher classes. \Vlien the pious ascetic 

 Abu-1-kassim al-Gunejd (died 279 A. H.— 909 A. D.) was found 

 with a rosary and expostulated with, since he " belonged to the better 

 world," he apologized with the Avords, " I could not renounce an 

 object which was the means of bringing me nearer to God." Even 

 in the seventh century A. H. (thirteenth A. D.) Abu Abdallah Mani- 

 med al-Abdari, called Ibn al-Hajj (died 737 A. H.— 1336 A. D.), 

 complains over the exaggerated use and esteem of the suhha as being 

 contrary to the primitive simplicity of Islam. 



The Wahabis, followers of the reformer Abd al-Wahhab (1691- 

 1787 A. D.), who opposed all practices not sanctioned by the Koran 

 and tradition, regard the rosary as an abomination and count the 

 names of God on their fingers. 



72. Mohammedan rosary. — Consisting of 100 globular beads made 

 of olive wood, divided into three sections by two vase or bottle- 



