Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/257

 an occasional kanduri with his prayers. This is called simply "having recitations made over rice" (yuë beuët bu), and the prayer most in use on such occasions is called duʾa beuët bu—"prayer to be offered over rice". This is called in Java the prayer of tombs, since it begins with the words "Oh Allah, let mercy descend on the dwellers in the tombs". An artistic reciter varies this, when the feast is celebrated with unusual éclat, by a more elaborate and longer prayer, whilst the most ignorant recite in its place the fatihah or first chapter of the Qurān, which every child knows by heart.

Thus each family has its "recitation over the rice" during the month kanduri bu on whatever day best suits its convenience. This is done for the benefit of the dead (the ureuëng chiʾ or ancestors as they are called) and also for that of the living, whose prosperity is according to the popular belief directly dependent on the respect they pay to the dead. It is said for example that anyone who had his worldly wealth increased by the inheritance of a dead man's property, would quickly lose this profit if he neglected to celebrate the kanduri bu with the requisite pomp and circumstance in the same year.

The adat requires that the teungku meunasah be invited to this feast. He can either recite the prayer himself or empower another to do so.

The Javanese custom of clearing the graves of ancestors and rehabilitating their exterior during the month of Shaʿbān is unknown in Acheh, where the resting places of the dead are neglected to such a degree that it is difficult to find them in the third generation. In Acheh too, the feasts of all souls are always held at home, while in Java people assemble for this purpose at the burial-places.

The special sanctity of the "night of the middle of Shaʿbān", called malam beureʾat in Acheh (in the Deccan Shab-i-barat) is believed in by all Mohammedans. It is supposed that on that particular night Allah determines the fate of mortals during the forthcoming year. The most popular idea is that there is a celestial tree of symbolic import, on which every human being has a leaf to represent him. This tree is shaken during the night preceding the 15$th$ of Shaʿbān, causing the leaves of all those who are to die during the coming year to fall.

In Arabia many watch through a part or the whole of this night, and offer up a prayer, invoking Allah’s mercy, and beseeching him to