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 100 also been dressed in gay garments for the occasion. Greeting cards are sent out and received by the family on the occasion of these great religious festivals, and nowadays even highly decorated telegram forms are used for the same purpose. The houses are decorated just as is done in the West at Christmas, and the young people especially rejoice in the good times.

Another special day celebrates the birth of the Prophet, and children are encouraged to recite poems in his honor, and to attend public meetings where he is praised. Still another special occasion is the Night of Record, celebrated with fireworks, when it is believed that God records all the actions of men that will be performed during the coming year, and the names of those who are to be born and to die.

A ceremony which undoubtedly leaves a great and lasting impression on the minds of children is the celebration of Muharram, when the death of the first martyrs of Islam, Ali, Hasan and Husain, is solemnly commemorated with deep feeling. Especially is this the case among the Shiites. Their particular hero is the martyred Husain, who fell on the field of Karbala in what is now Iraq. With great emotion, poems in honor of Husain are recited, and many devotees will lash their bare backs with chains and even swords, until blood streams to the ground and they fall down exhausted. The elaborate and gaily colored representations of the tomb of the martyr are carried through the streets in a huge procession accompanied by thousands. The sight of such a large concourse of