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Ali was assassinated near Nejef, which city is sacred to his memory, and his son Husein was killed at Kerbela; so these two cities are the greatest of the Shiah shrines. The Turks belong almost without exception to the Sunni sect, whereas the Persians and a large percentage of the Arabs inhabiting Mesopotamia are Shiahs.

When an official inventory was taken in Abdin Palace at the accession of the late Sultan Husein, it was ascertained that the famous inlaid and begemmed coffee-service, which, like our Crown jewels, was not supposed to leave the country, had been sent after the ex-Khedive to his new address truly a man of parts.

Then turning to the Mahomedan who stopped him, the bridegroom of Husein cries: "Sheikh Muhammad, thou art possessed by a jinn come to my shrine on Thursday next," and with these words sets forth again upon his wanderings.

The former city was founded by Sultana Zobeide, wife of the celebrated Haroun-al-Raschid. Ransacked and destroyed by the Afghans in the eighteenth century, it was again restored, or rather rebuilt, by Haji Husein Khan. Perhaps the most interesting thing the city contains is a leaning minaret which dates from the thirteenth century. It is ascended by a rickety spiral staircase.

The two main sects of Moslems are the Sunnis and the Shiahs; the former regard the three caliphs who followed Mohammed as his legitimate successors, whereas the latter hold them to be usurpers, and believe that his cousin and son-in-law, Ali, husband of Fatimah, together with their sons Husein and Hasan, are the prophet's true inheritors.

There is a certain tendency just now to overrate Hejazi prowess in war and policy; in fact, King Husein is often alluded to vaguely as the "King of Arabia," and there is a sporadic crop of ill-informed articles on this and other Arabian affairs in the English Press.

This party in turn yields place to a band of pipers and drummers, accompanying men who whirl torches round their head so skilfully that the eye sees nought but a moving circle of flame; and they are succeeded by Musulman men and boys, disguised as Konkani fishermen and fishwives, who chant elegies to Husein and keep the rhythm by clapping their hands or by swinging to and fro small earthen pots pierced to serve as a lamp.

This was carried off by the Amir Husein Ali Khan, in 1720, as part of his share of the spoil of Agra. The total expenditure, according to native accounts, amounted to nearly 185 lakhs of rupees. It is said that Shah Jahan had intended to construct a mausoleum for himself opposite to the Taj, on the other side of the Jumna and to connect the two by a great bridge.

After his death disputes between various claimants to the throne led to Agra Fort being besieged and captured by Husein Ali Khan, a partisan of one of them, who looted the treasury of all the valuables deposited there during three centuries. "There were the effects of Nur Jahan Begum and Mumtaz Mahal, amounting in value, according to various reports, to two or three crores of rupees.

It is difficult to see the connection between these brawling street-companies and the lamentation for Hasan and Husein; but the rivalry of the mohollas recalls the free-fighting which used once to take place between the various quarters of Gujarat and Kathiawar towns during the Holi festival, while the beating, shouting and general pandemonium evoked by the Tolis are probably akin to the extravagance once practised at the beating of the bounds in England and Scotland and are primarily designed to scare away evil-spirits from the various quarters of the city.