Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/265

 a cocoanut-shell or a small basin to contain their share. When the sunset prayer, during which those who take no part therein remain seated at the back, is finished, all return home to satisfy their hunger.

After 7 the men, especially the younger ones, reassemble by ones and twos in the meunasah to celebrate the ʿicha or evening prayers, and in particular to be present at the trawèh which succeeds them.

The trawèh (Arab tarāwīḥ) are ordinary prayers of the kind classified as voluntary but recommended by the law. Most seumayangs, whatever their special appeliations may be, differ from one another only in the number of their subdivisions (rakʿats) and some trifling distinctions in the form of the ritual. Thus the trawèh are composed of 20 subdivisions, each pair of which is separated from the rest by a taslimah, which consists in sitting with the head turned first to the right and then to the left and invoking a blessing on all believers. This as a general rule takes place at the end of the whole seumayang. The trawèh may be held only in the fasting month, on every evening and night between the ʿicha and the morning, i. e. from about 7.30 to 3  The usual time is immediately after the ʿicha or about 8

The practice of Mohammedans in regard to the division of religious works into obligatory and meritorious differs in many particulars from the teaching of the law. Many things which the law treats as imperative obligations, as very pillars of the creed of Islam, are neglected by the great majority, whilst other observances which may be passed by without any risk of incurring divine punishment, are esteemed indispensable by the mass of the people.

Thus throughout the whole Mohammedan world many persons take part with extreme zeal in the trawèh service, who unblushingly neglect daily religious duties which they are under a strict obligation to perform. This popular over-estimation of the trawèh is explained by its connection with the fasting month.

In like manner the fast itself has a higher place in the popular estimation than in the law. It is indeed one of the main pillars of the creed of Islam, but in actual practise it is improperly accepted as the