Egypt : handbook for travellers : part first, lower Egypt, with the Fayum and the peninsula of Sinai . ope. There are also many other orders which it is unnecessary to ceremony of the admission of members to all these orders is a verysimple matter. The candidate (el-murid) performs the customary ablutionlsits down on the ground beside the superior (el-murshid, or spiritua,leader), gives him his hand, and repeats after him a set form of words,in which he expresses penitence for his sins and his determination toreform, and calls Allah to witness that he will never quit the order. T
Egypt : handbook for travellers : part first, lower Egypt, with the Fayum and the peninsula of Sinai . ope. There are also many other orders which it is unnecessary to ceremony of the admission of members to all these orders is a verysimple matter. The candidate (el-murid) performs the customary ablutionlsits down on the ground beside the superior (el-murshid, or spiritua,leader), gives him his hand, and repeats after him a set form of words,in which he expresses penitence for his sins and his determination toreform, and calls Allah to witness that he will never quit the order. Theceremony terminates with three recitals of the confession of faith by themurid, the joint repetition of the fatha (p. 148), and a kissing of hands. The religious exercises of all the dervishes consist chiefly in theperformance of Zikrs ( pious devotions, or invocations of Allah; seebelow, and p. 239). Almost all the dervishes in Egypt are small trades-men, artizans, or peasants. Most of them are married, men, and they takepart in the ceremonies peculiar to their order at stated seasons LDancing Dervishes. Some of them, however, make it their business to attend festivals andfunerals for the purpose of exhibiting their zikrs. These last are calledfukara (sing, fakir}, i. e. poor men. Others again support themselves bydrawing water (hemaU; see p. 248). Those who lead a vagrant life andsubsist on alms are comparatively few in number. The dervishes of thisclass usually wear a kind of gown (dilk) composed of shreds of rags ofvarious colours sewn together, or a shaggy coat of skins, and carry astick with strips of cloth of various colours attached to the upper considerable number of them are insane, in which case they are highlyrevered by the people, and are regarded as specially favoured by God, 152 DOCTRINES OF EL-ISLAM. who lias taken their spirits to heaven, while he has loft their earthlytabernacle behind. i. to which the traveller will must conveniently ohlai,
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