ABSTRACT
This anonymous account of the Festival of Muharram appears to have been written by a British observer in India. Muharran falls at the beginning of the Islamic New Year and is a festival of mourning. While most Muslims, and many non-Muslims, mark the festival, Shia and Sufi Muslims perform a specific set of mourning rituals that commemorate the death of the martyr Hussein ibn Ali during the Battle of Karbala. But there is a part of the ceremony proceeding without the courtyard infinitely more to the taste of the populace than the gloom and distress which characterize the principal actors in the funeral scene. It is a part of the religion of the Mussulman to be liberal at such a time, and not care for the cost. The wealth of the Mohammedan population of any part of India maybe safely estimated by the displays they make at Mohurrim.
