234 REV. G. E. WHITE, ON THE SHIA TURKS. 
from those powers, seen or unseen, that are always so ready to 
work unexpected harm. No child or tender plant or animal 
should be praised without the utterance of some charm, like the 
words “ wonder of God,” to forefend the danger of a spell being 
thrown over it by some baleful being jealous of the praise. 
Perhaps the very air of the Orient stimulates the growth of 
such notions. I have been entertained in his home by an 
Englishman long resident in the Orient, a man of classic 
learning, concerning whose beautiful baby boy I uttered a few 
words of appreciation. The father immediately spoke the 
Turkish charm designed to avert the evil eye, and added that in his 
household they had often seen some favourite plant or pet animal 
bewitched by the expression of praise, and destroyed, unless the 
preventive charm was also used. 
Easting is prescribed by all Eastern rules for religious 
conduct, but our Shia friends render only eye-service during 
the month of Ramazan, when the orthodox Mohammedan 
world spends the days in fasting and the nights in feasting. 
Shias keep ten or twelve days, the more devout even thirty 
days, before the tenth of the month Mouharrem, especially 
refraining during that period from the use of water. They say 
that Ali or one of his sons was put to death by being deprived 
of water, and so they drink none in memory of his suffering. 
They supply the needs of the body, however, by the use of milk, 
soup, and drinks of water mixed with fruit juices. When the 
tenth of Mouharrem comes there are sad scenes in the Persian 
part of the Shia world. White-shirted men form in processions 
that march through the streets, beating themselves over the 
head and shoulders with whips, until their persons and their 
garments are clotted with blood, while they wail “ Hassan, 
Husseyn, Hassan, Husseyn,” in their annual lament for the 
untimely death of their favourites. In Turkey such Passion 
Plays are not seen ; on the contrary your good Alevi, having 
denied the flesh to a perceptible degree and mourned with real 
regret for the heroes of his faith, feels in a satisfied mood with 
himself and with things generally. They make at this season 
a soup coloured red, and send portions from house to house, for 
as much as three days in succession. This soup is called 
Ashoura, and even Christians and other outsiders are welcomed 
to a share in it if circumstances admit. It is regarded as 
sacrificial, and it brings the greatest festival of all the year to 
Shias. The Hadji Bek Tashi tekye in this city, a Shia 
foundation, serves red soup at Ashoura to all comers, and I 
partook of it a year or two ago, in response to the invitation 
