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THE PEOPLE AND THEIR CULTURE |
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MUSLIMS
MUSLIMS, ACCORDING TO THE 1951 CENSUS, are returned
as numbering 56,356 (m. 29,225; f. 27,131) in the
district of Kolhapur or 4.59 per cent, of the population. In 1881
the percentage was 4.12. Their tract-wise distribution over the
district is as follows:-
Urban tract: 30,662 (m. 15,908;
f. 14,754) - Karvir, Kagal, 3,474 (m. 1,765; f.
1,709); Hatkanangale and Shirol, 16,169 (m. 8,401; f.
7,768); Gadhinglaj, Ajra and Bhudargad, 5,041 (m. 2,585;
f. 2,456); Bavada, Radhanagari, Shahuwadi and Panhala, 5,974
(m. 3,157; f. 2,821).
Urban tract: 25,694 (m. 13,317,
f. 12,377) - Kolhapur city, 12,232 (m. 6,333;
f. 5,899); Hatkanangale, Shahuwadi and Panhala, 9,808
(m. 5,117; f. 4,691); Gadhinglaj, Kagal and Ajra,
3,854 (m. 1,867; f. 1,787).
The majority of Muslims in the district, probably
over 90 per cent, can be classified under the three family names
Saiyads, Pathans and Shaikhs. There are very few families of
Mughals. Any Muslim who is neither a Saiyad, nor a Pathan nor a
Mughal, can call himself a Shaikh and consequently Shaikhs are in
preponderant majority. Apart from these classes or families, a small
percentage of Muslims are called by their traditional occupational
names like Atars, Manyars, Nalband etc. Enumeration of these
sub-divisions among the Muslims was not effected by censuses later
than 1901.
It would appear that some Muslim classes like
Bagvan, Bhangi, Bohora, Faki, Julaha, Kalavant, Kasai or Khatik,
Mughal, Momin, Pathan, Patwekari, Pendari, Sayad, Shaikh and
unspecified - total: 38,553 were originally Hindus who on embracing
Islam took the name Shaikh or Pathan from the religious or military
leader under whom they were converted. Many of them may have some
strain of Arab, Abyssinian, Persian, Mughal or upper Indian blood.
Some of these are still engaged in their old occupations, occupying
different localities, and each leading its own community and social
life, so much so that each can be identified as a separate social
unit in the Muslim community as a whole. The educated among them are
however able to mix freely with and marry in the families of the
well-to-do classes.
Language.
Except that some men wear the beard and have the
head clean shaved, the local converts differ little in look from
local Hindus and, except Bhoras and Memans who speak Gujarati and
Cucchi at home, almost all Kolhapur Muslims among themselves speak
Hindustani with a mixture of Marathi words and Marathi with others.
The intonation and accent is peculiarly Kolhapurian. Among the
classes of foreign origin, and to a less extent among the main body
of Muslims are found men with sharp and marked features, fairer
skins and lighter eyes; but the women show fewer traces of non-local
origin and in many cases can hardly be distinguished from Hindu
women except that they do not mark their brows with vermilion or
pass the end of the sari back between the feet.
Houses.
The houses of Muslims do not differ much from those
of other communities. In towns the well-to-do live in two storeyed
houses with stone and cement walls and tiled roofs, and surrounded
by a yard. The bulk of the Muslim houses, many of which have a front
or back enclosure surrounded by a stone wall four or five feet high
so as to provide privacy. Only orthodox Muslims whose women observe
purdah live in such houses. They are like tile roofed
cottages built with rough stone and mud smeared with cowdung. The
rich houses have generally four or five rooms, the front room being
used as the dalan (men's room) with a few mats, carpets and
cushions; the middle rooms are allotted as bedrooms, one of which is
a women's sitting room, and store-rooms and the last room forms the
kitchen with a good store of metal vessels. Village houses are built
in much the same style as poor town houses, the front room being the
biggest, is used as a stable for cattle. The village houses have no
wells and the women fetch water from the village pond or river.
Food.
Town Muslims take two meals a day, breakfast about
nine of millet or wheat bread, pulse, mutton and vegetables and
supper at seven or eight in the evening of boiled rice and mutton
and pulse if well-to-do, and bread and pulse with cutni
(pounded chillies) if poor. Village Muslims and some rich town
Muslims have three meals a day, villagers taking a cold breakfast
about seven before going to their fields, a midday meal in the
field, and a supper on reaching home in the evening. The rich add to
the usual two meals a cup of tea or milk with bread in the morning
immediately after rising. The staple food of villagers is millet
bread, pulse and vegetables. Though all Muslims are non-vegetarians,
few can afford meat even occasionally. A few rich villagers eat
mutton daily and almost all manage to get mutton on Bakar
Id festival. Except a few fresh settlers such as Bohoras and
Memans, who may eat beef, the bulk of the local Musalmans prefer
mutton to beef and some communities will on no occasion touch beef.
Buffalo beef is eschewed by all, and fowls, eggs, and fish are eaten
without any objection when they can afford them. The flesh of only
those animals which are butchered according to Islamic law is eaten.
The trading classes as a rule use coffee and tea every day and
husbandmen drink milk or tea with bread every morning. Tobacco
smoking, chewing and snuffing is common among all classes.
Except members of the four leading classes and
Bohoras and Memans who dress in loose trouser, a waistcoat, a shirt
and a preformed turban peculiar to the community, almost all
Kolhapur Muslim men dress in Hindu style. The transformation of
fashions in dress from the Mughal and the Peswai patterns to the
Western styles is almost complete in the younger generation.
However, some of the conservative patterns still persist. The
serwani and pyjama (a pair of loose trousers) have an
imprint of traditional. wear. Cudidar pyjama (a pair
of tight trousers) and Shalwar (a loose trouser worn by
Pathans and Panjabis) are sometimes worn. At the time of prayer a
Muslim may wear a lungi (loin-cloth) reaching down to the
ankles and pairhan (a long shirt). Generally men wear indoors
a headscarf, a waistcoat, and a waist or loin-cloth. Out of doors on
all occasions the rich and on festive occasions the middle class and
poor wear a loose Maratha turban, a coat, trousers, and shoes. Most
husbandmen while indoors dress in a napkin used as a loin-cloth and
on going out draw a coarse country blanket over their shoulders.
Indoors almost all the women wear the long Maratha sari and
coli The chief exceptione are Bohora woman who dress in a
petticoat, backless bodice and a headscarft, and Meman women who
wear, a shirt reaching to the knees and loose trousers. Townswomen
wear saris of different patterns and colours. Generally the
rich and middle class Muslims keep the zanana (seclusion
system) and their women cover their heads with one end of the sari
and wear a burqa (veil) whenever they go out in public.
Ornaments.
Men do not wear any ornaments except marriage or
engage-met rings of gold or silver often studded with green jade.
Women begin married life with a number of gold or silver ornaments
in proportion to the means of the husband or parents. The rich give
to their daughters ornaments of gold and precious stones which
consist of earrings, bangles, necklaces, bracelets and rings. The
poor give silver ornaments which often consist of ankle ornaments
such as todas, paizeb and jhanj and silver
finger rings. Necklaces of gold such as thusi and
bormal speak of better status.
Muslims in villages are mostly land owners and
husbandmen, and in towns many are craftsmen, artisans and traders
and some are "moneylenders. Village Muslims, especially husbandmen,
are thrifty. Women of the families of husbandmen, weavers, other
craftsmen and petty shopkeepers often earn almost as much as men,
women of other families generally do not work for the purpose of
earning. Except some families of Bohora who are Shias of the Ismaili
branch, all Kolhapur Muslims belong to the Sunni sect of the Hanafi
school. They respect the same kazi, pray in the same mosque
and bury in the same graveyard. Some local communities e.g. Bagwans,
Kasabs, Gavandis Pinjaris have such Hindu leanings that they do not
appear to associate much with other Muslims, are not particular
about attending the mosque, eschew beef, keep Hindu feasts, and
openly worship and offer vows to Hindu gods.
Rites.
Those who are not converts to Islam from original
Hindu communities are particular about circumcising their boys and
having their marriage and death rites conducted by their Kazi. The
bismilla (initiation) and the akika (sacrifice)
ceremonies are often neglected, owing partly to ignorance and partly
to poverty. Though as a rule they do not attend the mosque for daily
prayers, almost all are careful to be present at the special
services on Ramzam and Bakar Id days and are
careful to give alms and keep fasting during the whole month of
Ramzan. The well-to-do make special offerings on the
Bakar Id and pay the kazi his dues. Their
traditional religious officers are the kazi (judge) who now
acts chiefly as the marriage registrar, the khatib (preacher)
the mulla or maulana (priest), and the mujavar
(beedle), but these offices have now almost disappeared and the
mosque services are led by any learned layman or maulavi
(law-doctor). The bangi (crier) keeps the mosque clean,
shouts the prayer-call five times a day and calls guests to marriage
and other ceremonies. Except Bohoras all Muslims believe in pirs
(saints) to whom they pray for children or for health and offer
sacrifices and gifts. Most craftsmen and husbandmen believe in
Khandoba, Mhasoba, Mariai and Satvai, Hindu deities, to whom they
make gifts and offer vows and whom they worship either privately or
publicly. Pilgrimage to Macca is very rare but many persons visit
the fairs of local saints.
Birth.
When a woman is in labour a midwife is sent for. The
mid- wife delivers the woman, buries the naval-cord in a corner
where the mother is afterwards bathed. If the child is a boy the
midwife is paid higher than if it were a girl. Village Muslims,
particularly husbandmen, worship on the fifth day the goddess Satvai
(Mother Sixth), who is supposed to register the destiny of the child
on the sixth night after birth. A silver human tooth and a small
silver sickle are the objects of worship. The tooth and the sickle
are laid in a winnowing basket with a platter containing the heart
and head of a goat and boiled rice, half a dry cocoakernel, two
betel leaves and a betelnut and a marking-nut with a needle through
it. Before these things the mother burns incense and bows. The
ceremony is marked with a feast given to friends and relations. In
some families mutton is served at this feast while in other families
rice and split pulse sauce are served. After the birth of a child,
the members of the family are ceremonially unclean for forty days
during which the house images of saints are not worshipped.
The mother is given a ceremonial bath that day and
is dressed in a new sadi dnd bodice. She is also made to put
on new glass bangles. Friends and relations are treated to
pulac (rice and mutton cooked together) or banga (rice
and mutton cooked separately). In the evening the child is dressed
in a cap and a frock, and its hands and feet are adorned with silver
ornaments. The women gather near the cradle, put the child into it
and sing songs as they rock the cradle. Before naming the child a
piece of sandlewood is wrapped in a handkerchief, waved about the
cradle, and is passed from one woman to another with the words,
"Take this moon and give the sun". After repeating this several
time, they lay the piece of wood in the cradle by the side of the
child and name the child. The child's name is often chosen by the
kazi according to the position of its birth stars.
Circumcision.
Sunta (circumcision) is performed any time
between the boy's third and twelfth year, the younger age being
always preferred. The ceremony when elaborately performed may extend
over three or four days. A booth with a muhurtmedh (lucky
post) is raised in front of the house and the boy to be circumcised
is rubbed with turmeric paste for two days. A biyapari feast
is held on the second day when women friends and relations are asked
and five unwidowed women observing a fast are treated to a special
dinner. On the third day the boy, after a ceremonial bath, dresses
in a jama and a sultani shera (a veil made of a
network of flowers) and goes in a procession on horseback to the
mosque to say the prayers. On return home after dinner in the
evening the boy is seated on a chaurang (stool) and the
barber who is called nabi (Prophet) or Khalifa (ruler) calles
out "Din, Din", and performs dextrously the
circumcision. To dull the pain sometimes ganja (hempseed) or
some such drug is administered to the boy. Next day the barber
washes the wound, turns up the prepuse (foreskin) with a
ghodi (wooden instrument), applies oil to the wound and
receives payment for his services from the father or relations of
the boy. In poor families the ceremony is finished in a day. Instead
of going to the mosque the boy's father brings the kazi to
his house, the barber circumcises the boy in the kazi's
presence, and the ceremony ends with a feast to friends and
relations. The wound heals in ten to fifteen days. In honour of the
recovery, a grand dinner is given to friends and relations. There is
however now a tendency to reduce all this elaborate ceremony to a
considerable extent.
Marriage.
Among Kolhapur Muslims, offers of marriage come from
the boy's parents. The boy's father first sees the girl and then the
girl's father, the boy and if both the fathers are satisfied they
consult the kazi and maulana over the birth stars of
the boy and the girl. Finding the stars favourable they settle as to
what sum the boy's father is to pay the girl's father as dowry for
the girl. This sum is spent by the girl's father in the marriage,
and the boy's father may spend very little. When both parties are
rich enough to bear the costs, no sum is paid by the boy's father to
the girl's father. Girls of poor and middle class families marry
earlier than those from rich families who are often obliged to marry
late on account of the want of suitable match. Caste endogmy and
observation of some Hindu marriage customs still prevail in rural
areas among the uneducated. Otherwise, during the last thirty years
the Muslim ceremonies have been much simplified.
The well-to-do families have a betrothal a year or
six months before marriage. At the betrothal which takes place on a
lucky day fixed by the kazi, the bridegroom sends to the
bride a present of a green sari and a bodice and ornaments
such as sari, colis and todas, and in return
receives from the bride's father a turban, a silver ring and a
handkerchief.
When the marriage day draws near a booth is built in
front of the house with the muhurtmedh (lucky post) planted
in the ground at a lucky moment. At night the rajjaka, in
which songs in the praise of Allah are sung to the music of drums,
is performed by women of the family and in rich families by
Dombins (professional female singers and drummers). While the
singing and music go on, gulgulas (small stuffed wheat cakes)
and rahims (boiled rice flour balls made with milk, sugar and
rosewater) are heaped in the name of the Allah in two miniature
pyramids, one for the bride and the other for the bridegroom. After
offering red cotton cord, flowers and burnt incense to the heaps
they are broken and the cakes and balls are handed to women. Next
day, without his knowing it, a woman (with her husband alive) [Like
Hindus, the Muslims of Kolhapur, consider it inauspicious for widows
to attend festal meetings.] marks the bridegroom's clothes with
turmeric paste. This is called corhalad (secret turmeric)
which is followed in evening by savhalad (public turmeric)
ceremony in which the bride and bridegroom are rubbed with turmeric
paste each separately and one after the other. This is followed by
the biyapari feast at which incense is burnt in the name of
Allah and the bride and bridegroom bow to him. Friends and relations
make presents of clothes to the parents of the bride and bridegroom.
A feast of pulav (rice cooked with mutton) is given to all
male guests.
The ceremony of turmeric-rubbing is followed by that
of tel mendi (oil and henna). The henna paste is
brought from the bride's house by her sister who sitting behind a
curtain rubs it on the bridegroom's palms and gets a money present.
The henna is then applied to the palms and soles of the bride.
[Where Hindu customs prevail it is customary at this time to tie
round the neck of the bride a necklace of glass beads and adorn her
hands and fingers with glass bangles and silver rings.]
About ten o'clock at night the bridegroom's friends
and kinsmen seat him on horseback and escort him to the brides in a
large procession. The bridegroom is dressed in a jama (long
coat) and a mandil (turban) and over the dress a cloak of
jasmine or other flowers covers the body from head to foot.
The bridegroom and his party then arrive at the
marriage porch or hall where they are received and seated by bride's
kinsmen. The kazi is then called to register the marriage.
Two male vakils (agents) and two witnesses, one for the bride
and other for the bridegroom, stand before the kazi and
declare that they have agreed to this marriage and are ready to hear
evidence. Before this, the witnesses should have directly approached
the bride, and after repeating the name of the bridegroom and his
age should have asked her whether she was willing to accept him in
marriage or not. After hearing personally what the bride has to say
they declare all that before the kazi and the assembled
guests. The kazi thereupon makes the bridegroom and the
bride's father sit facing each other, and making each hold the
other's right hand, registers the marriage. After the marriage is
registered and the sum stipulated for the girl's dowry is entered,
the bridegroom says before all present that he has chosen her as his
wife with the said sum of dowry. The bride's father declares that he
gives his daughter to the bridegroom in marriage with all lawful
ceremonies and with a certain sum as dowry. After this the
bridegroom embraces his father-in-law and shakes hands and bows low
to all present. Till two or three in the morning the bridegroom sits
in the hall listening to singing and dancing girls. About dawn the
bride's brother calls the bridegroom to the women's room. There the
bride and bridegroom are made to sit on a cot side by side and
allowed to see each other's face. As they sit the kazi. takes
a little sugar into his hand, puts it on the bride's right shoulder
and asks the bridegroom whether he thinks sugar sweet or his wife
sweet; he answers the Kuran is the sweetest. The couple look
at each other's face in a looking glass and each placing a hand on
other's back they bow five times to the Almighty. [If the couple is
literate they together read the chapter of Peace from Kuran.] The
bride goes into the house and the bridegroom stays in the booth till
noon when the varat (home-taking) procession starts. In this
procession the bride sits in a carriage while the bridegroom rides a
horse and escorts his bride to his house. On reaching the front gate
he is met by his sisters and cousins who, before letting him in,
make him promise to give his daughters in marriage to their sons.
Death and Funeral.
Musalmans bury their dead. When a Musalman dies some
near relation with the Maulana goes to the market and buys a shroud
seventy-five feet long for a man and ninety feet long for a woman
and other things required for the funeral. These are rose-water,
scents, sulphuret of antimony, aloe-lights, frankincense, and yellow
earths; and in addition, frankincense oil and a flower-net when the
dead is a woman. The dead is washed first with water boiled with
bor and pomegranate leaves and then with soap-nut water, and
laid on the back on a wooden board. The Maulana writes the creed, '
there is No God but Allah and Mohammad is the prophet of Allah' in
aloe-powder on the chest and forehead of the dead and puts pieces of
camphor at all the joints of the dead body. The body is then wrapped
in shroud and placed in janaza (bier) and carried to the
graveyard. As the body is borne to the graveyard, the funeral party,
all of whom are men, accompany the dead body calling
Kalma-i-Shahadat as they walk and recite verses from the
Kuran. Every now and then on the way the bearers are relieved and at
the idga (prayer place), they fall on their knees and pray to
the Almighty. From this the corpse is carried to the grave and
buried. As the grave is being filled all present go round the grave
and throw in handfuls of earth. They close the grave and retiring
forty paces fall on their knees and offer prayers to the Almighty
for the dead. These prayers are called khatmas. All then
return to the house of the deceased person, and offer khatmas
on the spot where the dead body was washed and return to their
homes. On the first day after the funeral the mourners are fed by
their relations and friends on food dressed at their own houses. On
the morning of the third day a ceremony called ziyarat is
held in the house of mourning. The mourners go to the burial ground,
white-wash the tomb and lay flowers, subja (basil Ocymum
pilosum) and sweatmeats beside it. Feasts in memory of the dead are
held on the tenth and twentieth day and a grand feast on the
fortieth day. On this day a garland of flowers is kept hanging from
the centre of the roof on a large platter filled with a number of
savoury dishes and the mourners burn incense before the platter and
offer prayers for the soul of the dead. They then partake of the
funeral feast, sometimes smoke tobacco but do not receive pan
and return to their houses. In the evening is held the maulud
(Koran reading) and the maulana. is paid for all his services
in respect of the funeral. The only form of mourning laid down by
Muhammadan law is in the case of the death of the head of the house,
the strict seclusion of his widow. This lasts for four months and
ten days.
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