Note (return) — PLAN

The bodies of the dead are never laid in the mosques or near them, but are invariably carried out of the town, to some coba 181 in the vicinity. The bodies of the dead are washed, and covered with lawn, and placed on an oblong wooden machine, resembling a box without a cover, called a kiffen; it has four legs about six inches long, to uphold it from the ground, and two horizontal projections at each end, to place on the shoulders of four men, generally the nearest relations of the deceased, who thus carry the body to the grave, chaunting with the whole company, amounting sometimes to some hundreds, La Allah, ila Allah wa Muhamed Rassule Allah, "There is no God but God, and Muhamed is the prophet of God." This repetition may appear extraordinary to the English reader; but let it be observed that the Muhamedans never use the pronoun for the name of the Omnipotent, but invariably the noun. The body is taken out of the bier, and laid in the ground, the face upwards, without any coffin or box, the legs towards Mecca, and then covered with earth, so that it might, at the resurrection, rise with its eyes towards (El Kaaba) Muhamed's mausoleum. No money is paid for the ground, nor is any expense paid for a monument: a stick or a stone stands erect at the head, and another at the feet. If the deceased lived a moral, inoffensive, and exemplary life, the public, at its own expense, oftentimes erects (kaba) a cubical building with a dome at the top to the departed, and he is thence denominated (fakeer) a saint.