A STUDY IN PRIMITIVE CHEMISTRY. 33 



case of a boy, and one in the case of a girl. 1 The animals' throats are cut by the prin- 

 cipal member of the family, who says as he does so, ' Bismillah Allahu akbar,'* and after the 

 carcases have been skinned and disembowelled by a butcher, the flesh is carefully removed 

 from the bones and divided into two portions. The larger part of the uncooked meat is 

 distributed among the friends of the family. The remainder 3 is kept and cooked for the 

 evening meal ; but of this meat neither the father nor mother of the child may partake. 



The skins of the slaughtered animals are invaribly sold, and the proceeds given to the 

 poor. The offal and hoofs are thrown away. The bones — which must on no account 

 have been broken, as that would be of ill-omen for the child — are usually buried with the 

 pan-\ea£ containing the hair and precious metals in any convenient waste piece of ground. 4 

 Some Calcutta Muhammadans, however, are in the habit of burying their son's hair in a 

 hole dug in the ground within the precincts of either the Law Courts, the Legislative 

 Department, or a mosque. In the two former cases, the idea is that this procedure 

 will ensure worldly success to the boy in after-life, while if the hair is deposited in the 

 compound of a mosque 6 it is believed that the bent of the child's mind will be towards 

 religion. 6 



The first of the practices that have just been described recalls to our recollection the 



1 Robertson Smith states (Kinship and Marriage, pp. 180-182,) that according to the earliest traditions, the 'Aqiqah was only 

 performed in ancient Arab times for boys, but it is obvious from the commentary of Ibn Hajar, that there was great difference of 

 opinion on this point. Ibn Hajar quotes Abu Hurairah, one of the Companions, to the effect that in the time of the Prophet 

 only Jews omitted to perform the 'Aqiqah ceremony for their daughters. [The Lubbais — see note (3) p. 32, antea — still only 

 perform the ceremony on boys of 2 or 3 years old.] 



* Ibn 'Abidin says that the following prayer should be offered by the child's guardian, whilst the animals are being slain. " O 

 God, this is the 'Aqiqah for my child, blood of the 'Aqiqah for his blood, flesh for his flesh, bone for his bone, skin for his skin 

 and hair for his hair. O God, may it serve as a ransom of my son from hell ! " 



3 The Prophet ordered that one leg should be given to the midwife, but in modern Calcutta, where all the midwives are 

 Hindus, this injunction naturally cannot be observed. Instead, the midwife receives some dhal and rice, with a gift of money. 



* The burying of the 'Aqiqah hair does not seem to be authorised by Muhammadan tradition, and might therefore be regarded 

 as being of Indian origin (cf. Oldenberg, Sdnkhdyana Gx'ihya Sutra, (Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXIX, p. 57). A similar 

 practice, however, — the recognition of which can be traced back to the early centuries of Islam — is seen in the burying of the 

 pilgrims' hair at Mina Bazaar, near Mecca, when the ' Haj ' is complete (cf. Burton's Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Makkah, Vol, 

 III, p. 285, note). In Southern India (cf. Qanoon-e-Islam, p. 21) the hair, instead of being offered to the earth, is consigned to the 

 water, a practice which may be regarded as analogous to the Thursday evening offerings of the more ignorant Bengali Muhammadan s 

 to Al-Khidhr (' The Green One '), the deathless being who is supposed to be alluded to the Surah XXVIII of the Qur'an, and who 

 is believed to look after the well-being of devout Mussalmans. It is popularly believed that he resides in the waters of tanks and 

 rivers and, to propitiate him, lamps are lighted every Thursday at dusk on the sides of tanks, while offerings of food are 

 floated away on pieces of plantain leaf. 



The impossible and — to orthodox Muhammadans of the present day — scandalous Malay idea of endeavouring to get the 

 shorn hair thrown into the sacred well of Zamzam at Mecca (Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 342), may either be a survival of the prac- 

 tice of Southern India, or an imitation of the Siamese custom described by Young (Kingdom of the Yellow Robe, p. 79). It is 

 hardly likely to go back to the times when offerings were actually made to Zamzam and other sacred wells in Arabia (cf . Robertson 

 Smith, Religion of the Semites, pp. 168 and I77). 



5 Similar examples of the dedication of hair at shrines by the ancient Arabs are given by Robertson Smith, (op. cit., p. 331). 

 [The Lubbais — see note (3) p. 32, antea— also bury the 'Aqiqah hair near a mosque]. 



6 The references to traditional authorities that I have been able, through the assistance of Maulawl Hidayat Husain, to add 

 to the foregoing account, are chiefly drawn from (a) the Fafhu-l-Bdri fi Sharhi-l-Bu]chdri of Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalani (f 1449 A.D.). 

 This is a commentary on the Jdmi'u-x-Sahih of the celebrated traditionist Al-Bukharl (f 870 A.D.) ; (b) the Sifru-s-Sa' adah of 

 Majdu-d-din al-FIruzabadi (f 1414 A.D.]; (c) the Bahru-r-Rd'iq of Ibn Nujaim (f 1562 A.D. ). This is a commentary on the 

 Kanzu-d-Da.qd'iq of Hafidhu-d-dln an-Nasafi (f 1310 A.D.) ; (d) Ibn 'Abidin's abridgment of the Fatdwi al-Hamidiyya of Sa'di 

 Efendl Hamid al-Qonaw» (f 1577 A.D.). Ibn 'Abidin, who is much esteemed in India as a jurisconsult, died in 1836. 



Mem. A.5.B, 22-10-05, 



