One month in every year Muhammadans have to fast.

Persian boys begin to fast at twelve years old, but the girls have to begin at nine. Sometimes they begin sooner if they want to store up merit early. But even little four-year-old Ibrahim, who is considered too young to join in the fast, shares it to a certain degree. For no one is going to cook anything for him or make him his usual cup of tea when they may not share it. He gets a bit of dry bread and a drink of water when he wants it, but little more all through the day.

“It makes me hungry to see him eating,” his mother said.

The name of the fast-month is Ramazan, and through Ramazan it is often difficult to get eggs, because the sweetmakers buy them up to make sweets. It is a great month for sweets, and there are several kinds that are only made in Ramazan; and, so far from having “self-denial boxes,” as many Christians do in Lent, the more devout Muhammadan servants ask for an advance of wages to buy better food in Ramazan.This all seems strange in a fast-month, but a Muhammadan fast only lasts from dawn to dark. At night people may eat what they like, and they take full advantage of the permission and have nightly feasts, ending up with a great feast on the last night.

Boys and girls are not late for supper in Ramazan. They gather round the tablecloth as the time draws near, ready to start directly the signal is given that it is dark. In towns there is generally a gun fired, and at the sound of the gun the meal is begun in every house.

One day such a party was waiting round the supper, listening for the gun, and they got hungrier and hungrier, but they heard no gun and waited on. At last they realised that the wind had carried the sound away from them, and they had fasted far longer than they need have done. This was bad enough, but another family fared worse, for they overslept themselves in the morning, and woke to find they had missed their breakfast and must eat nothing till night.

People might differ as to when it was dark, so a test has been appointed—as long as you can distinguish a black thread from a white one it is light, and you must fast.

It does not sound a very difficult fast, and in winter, when the days are short, it is not so bad, but on a long summer day it is very hard. No food, no drink, and a blazing sun all day. It takes a plucky boy or girl to get through it without complaining. It is no wonder that in Ramazan “bed-time” is forgotten and all the children sit up half the night and sleep half the day—the longer they can sleep in the day the better, poor little things. Towards evening tempers are apt not to be very good, but everyone enjoys the night.

No one wants to work in Ramazan; they do not want to get more hungry than they need; and, of course, the schools are all closed.

The dispensaries and hospitals are nearly empty, for the taking of medicine, or the use of drops for the eyes or ears, would be a breaking of the fast, and there was a great discussion once as to whether having a tooth out would have the same effect. It seems curious to have to tell the people to take their medicine twice a night instead of twice a day.

After Ramazan the dispensaries are full of patients who have made themselves ill by fasting all day and overeating themselves at night.

Besides the younger children there are a good many other people who get off the fast. Opium-eaters need not fast; travellers need not fast on a journey; sick people can get a dispensation from a mulla. A great many people take advantage of this, and make a small ailment an excuse for not fasting, but they are supposed to make it up at some other time of year.

If anyone forgets and thoughtlessly breaks his fast no great harm is done, but he must fast an extra day in the year to make up for it. Some people “forget” every day, but such people do not usually make it up at any other time.

Just before Ramazan a good many people are fasting, having put off to the last minute the making-up of the fast days for the previous Ramazan.People who want to be very good sometimes fast on Saints’ Days too, and one old lady always fasted on the day when Muhammadan tradition says that our Lord Jesus Christ was born.

Another way in which Muhammadans think they can gain merit is by making a pilgrimage to some holy place.

Pilgrimages may be made to any place where a Muhammadan saint is buried, but there are four special places to which the Persians go—Qum, Meshed, Kerbela, and Mecca. Mecca is considered far the greatest place of pilgrimage, because it is the place where Muhammad was born. A pilgrimage to Qum gives the pilgrim no commonly used title, but if he goes to Meshed he becomes Meshedi; if to Kerbela, Kerbelai; and, if to Mecca, Haji; and a Haji always uses his title. In accosting a working-class stranger it is polite to call him Meshedi, and more polite to call him Kerbelai, but Haji is too important a title to be used in this way. Quite little boys and girls are sometimes Hajis—they have been taken to Mecca by their parents.

But the people who most frequently go are the business men and the old people. The business men manage to make a business journey, which will include Mecca, and the old people, old women especially, are often sent as a polite way of getting rid of them when they are cranky and ill-tempered. If they die on the way, they are supposed to go straight to Heaven. A good many do die on the road, which is a very rough one. It reminds one of the man who said of his enemies that he should like to convert them and send them to Heaven before they had time to backslide.One day in a caravansarai, or native inn, I met a young woman who told me a friend who was going on a pilgrimage had passed through her village and had persuaded her to come too. She was going to walk all the way and trust to charity for food, as many pilgrims do, for it is considered a greater work of merit to give to a pilgrim than to an ordinary beggar. The journey would take several months.

I asked her a few questions.

Yes, she said, she had a husband and children.

“And are they with you?”

“No, they are in my village.”

“Are the children grown-up then?”

“Oh no, they are quite little.”

“Then who is going to take care of them while you are away?”

“I do not know. There was no time to make arrangements. I had not even time to tell my husband I was going. He was at work. My friends tell me it will be a very great work of merit if I go. What do you think?”

We had a long talk, and I believe she went back the same evening to her home. If so, she would get back within twenty-four hours of having left it.

The Muhammadans themselves generally allow that they are no more agreeable or kind or truthful or good after their pilgrimages—at least those who do not go say so freely. They even have a proverb: “If your friend has been to Mecca, trust him not. If he has been there twice, avoid him. But if he has made the pilgrimage the third time, flee from him as you would from Satan.”Even dead people make pilgrimages, generally to Qum, or, if they are very important people, to Kerbela. I have not been to Kerbela, but I have been to Qum, and we met quite a number of corpses going to the burying-ground outside the big mosque. Sometimes the relations bring them, but often they cannot afford the journey and pay a muleteer to take them, and to pay the fees, which are very large. Sometimes the muleteers bury the bodies elsewhere and pocket the fees.

Qum itself is considered such a holy city that they do not allow dogs inside it.