Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/250

 the feast is robbed of its religious character by music for instance, or the presence of women in the company of males, or the employment for decorative purposes of representations of living beings or the like.

But as the adat of the worldly in all Mohammedan countries regards these forbidden things as indispensable to every feast, various methods are resorted to for effecting a compromise. Only such leubès and ulamas are invited as are content to wink at worldly display, so long as they can satisfy their scruples by abstaining from taking a direct part in it. Sometimes both aspects of the feast are maintained, but at different times, so that the ulama may with an easy conscience sanctify the walimah by his recitation of prayer, though he well knows that the festival will presently be disgraced by proceedings inspired of the Evil One.

A death also furnishes occasion for a kanduri. The holding of such a feast on the actual day of the death, though common in practice, is not altogether in conformity with the law, though it sanctions feasts being held at certain customary intervals (e. g. on the 3$d$, 7$th$ or 40$th$ day) after the decease. These are always preceded by a recitation from the Qurān or ḍikr. Such kanduris are viewed in the same light as those given on the anniversary of a saint. The reward ordained by Allah for the Qurān recitation, the ḍikr and the giving of the religious feast, is tendered to the deceased relative or to the saint, as the case may be. If the former, it is done to promote the soul's repose of the deceased by increasing his heavenly recompense, while the gift to the saint is made to gain his goodwill and intercession with Allah. In the popular superstition, which is based on the earlier worship of the dead, such kanduris are considered actual offerings of food to the deceased themselves. It is believed that they enjoy the immaterial essence of all that is set before them.

Though the sanctification by means of Qurān recitations, ḍikrs or prayer is always regarded as an embellishment of the kanduri, and one or other of the three is considered indispensable at many of these feasts, kanduris are also given which have nothing of this kind to distinguish them. There may be either simply an oral "address" to the saint or departed spirit whom it is sought to propitiate, or to the spirits of the dead in general, or else the religious object of the feast may be kept in view in thought only without any outward form.

Such kanduris or siděkahs of the simplest kind are believed to pro-