THE PEOPLE

MUSLIMS

The only numerically important community in Sangli other than the Hindus is the Muslim. Over 80 per cent of the Muslims are classified under three family names, viz. Saiyads, Pathans and Saikhs. There are a few families styled as Moghals. Many are known by the occupations they follow such as Atars, Nalbands, Maniyars, Bagvans etc. Most of them were originally Hindus, who after embracing Islam, took the name Saikh or Pathan or Saiyad from the religious or military leader under whom they served. Some of them have some strain of Arab, Abyssinian, Persian, Moghal or North Indian blood.

Except the Bohoras, Khojas and Memans who have comparatively recently come from Gujarat to the district in the wake of trade and business, all Musalmans are like the Marathas and Kunabis. They speak corrupt Hindustani with a fair mixture of Marathi words, the intonation and accent being nearer to Marathi than to north Indian Urdu.

Houses.

The houses of Muslims do not differ very much from those of others. In towns the well-to-do live in two-storeyed houses with stone and cement walls and tiled roofs and surrounded by a compound. Most of the houses are tile-roofed cottages with brick walls and plastered with mud and cowdung. Village houses are much like poor town houses, one difference being that they have no wells. Women bring water from ponds or rivers.

Food.

Town Muslims take two meals a day, breakfast at about 9 a.m. of millet or wheat bread, pulse, mutton and vegetables and the supper at night at about 8 or 9. It consists of boiled rice, mutton and pulse if possible and bread with pulse and chutney of chillis, if poor. Muslims in villages and some rich town Muslims have three meals a day, villagers taking a cold breakfast at about 7 in the morning before going to their fields, a mid-day meal in the field and supper on reaching home at night. The staple food of villagers is millet bread, pulse and vegetables. Though all Muslims are non-vegetarians; very few can afford meat even occasionally. All Muslims, however, manage to get mutton on holidays like Bakr-Id. No local Muslims are particularly fond of beef but Bohoras and Memans prefer it. Buffalo beef is not taken by any Muslims but fowls, eggs and fish are taken whenever available. Muslims insist on flesh being made available by killing animals according to Koranic injunctions. Muslim tradesmen take tea or coffee and peasants take tea or milk with bread. Tobacco smoking, chewing and snuffing is common among all.

Dress.

Most Sangli Muslims dress in Hindu style. But servani and pyjama have an impress of traditional wear. Cudidar pyjamas and salavars are also worn in imitation of Uttar Pradesa and Punjabi Muslims. The tendency among youths is. however, to take to trousers and shirt or bush-shirt. At the time of prayer a Muslim wears a lungi (loin-cloth) and pairan. Indoors, men put on a head-scarf, a waistcoat and a waist or loin-cloth; out of doors, on all occasions, elderly men wear a flowing turban, a coat, trousers and shoes, especially on festive occasions. Muslim women dress like Maratha women using a sadi and coli. The Bohoras, Khojas and Memans use preformed turbans and put on loose trousers and shirts and long coats while going out. Their women put on a petticoat, backless bodices, and a head scarf (odham). Their shirts are loose and reach the knee. Rich and middle class women alone observe purdah and put on a black veil with only holes for the eyes while going out.

Ornaments

It is not customary for men to wear any ornaments except marriage or engagement rings of gold or silver. Women are given a number of ornaments at the time of marriage in keeping with the husbands' means. Parents also make ornaments as marriage presents. Necklaces like thusi and boramal are worn by Muslim women like Maratha women.

Rites and Rituals.

Being unwilling and sometimes forced converts to Islam generations ago, Sangli Muslims are not bigoted and even do not care very much for what are considered essential Muslim rites and rituals. They do not appear to be very particular about circumcision of boys nor about marriage or death rites being conducted by a kazi. The bismilla (initiation) and akika (sacrifices) ceremonies are often neglected owing partly to ignorance and partly to poverty. Attendance for prayers at a mosque is rare, but they are careful for prayers on Bakr-Id and during Ramzan. Ramzan fasts are also observed. Their traditional religious ministrants are the kazi (judge), who now acts mainly as a marriage registrar, the khatib (preacher), the mulla or maulana i.e., priest and the mujavar (beedle), but these offices have now practically disappeared and services at the mosque are led by any maulavi or learned laymen. The bangi (call-giver) keeps the mosque clean, shouts the prayer-call five times a day and calls guests to marriage and other ceremonies. Except Bohoras and Khojas, all Muslims believe in pirs (saints) to whom they pray for children or health and offer gifts to them. Most craftsmen and agriculturists believe in Khandoba, Mhasoba, Mariai and Satvai, like the Hindu Marathas and Kunbis to whom they make gifts, offer vows and worship publicly or privately. Hajis among Sangli Muslims are rare because few can afford an excursion to Mecca and Medina but it is customary among them to attend fairs of local Muslim saints in Sangli or neighbouring districts.

Marriage.

As far as birth, marriage and funeral rites are concerned, the Sangli Muslims follow the same customs and practices as the Muslims in Satara and Kolhapur do. Offer of marriage comes from the grooms' parents. After the girl is approved, the parents of both the bride and the groom consult the kazi and maulana regarding the birth stars of the couple to be. That settled favourably, dowry is paid for the girl to her father according to the terms fixed. This practice is true of poor and lower middle class families. Well-to-do people bear their own expenses. Among them, it is found difficult to find suitable husbands for girls, because caste endogamy and observation of some Hindu marriage customs still prevail in rural areas. Betrothal takes place about a year before marriage on a lucky day fixed by the kazi when the groom sends a present of a green sadi, coli and todas to the bride and the bride's father sends him a turban, a silver ring and a silk kerchief.

On the eve of the marriage, a booth is built in front of the house with the muhurtmedha (lucky post) planted in the ground at a lucky moment. At night the rajjaka is held in which a series of songs and hymns in praise of Allah are sung by the women of the family to the accompaniment of drums. While the music goes on, gulgulas (small stuffed wheat cakes) and rahims (boiled rice flour balls made with milk, sugar' and rose water) are heaped in the name of Allah in two miniature pyramids, one for the bride and the other for the groom. After offering red cotton cord, flower and burnt incense to the heaps, they are broken and the cakes and balls are distributed among the women. Next day a woman with her husband alive marks the bridegroom's clothes with turmeric paste without making him aware of it. This is called cor halad (secret turmeric) which is followed by sav halad (public turmeric) ceremony in which the bride and the groom are rubbed with the turmeric paste each separately and one after the other. This is followed by the biyapari feast at which incense is burnt in the name of Allah. Friends and relations make presents of clothes to the parents of the bride and the groom. A feast of pulav (rice cooked with mutton) is given to all male guests.

The ceremony of turmeric-rubbing is followed by that of tel mehendi (oil and henna) About ten at night on the marriage day, the bridegroom's friends and kinsmen seat him on horseback and escort him to the bride's house in a procession. The bridegroom is dressed in jama (long coat) and a mandil (flowing turban) and over the dress a cloak of jasmine and other flowers covers the body from head to foot. After arrival at the marriage hall, the groom and party are received and seated by the bride's relations and friends. The kazi is summoned to register the marriage. Two vakils (agents) and two witnesses, one for the bride and the other for the groom stand before the kazi and declare that they have agreed to this marriage and are ready to hear evidence. Before this the witness should have directly approached the bride and after repeating the name of the groom and his age should have taken her consent to accept him as her husband. After hearing personally the bride's consent, they declare the same before the kazi and the assembled guests. The kazi then asks the bride's father and the groom to sit opposite each other, hold each other's right hands and registers the marriage. After registration and payment of the dowry fixed, the groom announces to all present that he has chosen the bride as his wife with the said sum of dowry. The bride's father says that he has given his. daughter to the groom as his wife in marriage with all lawful ceremonies. The groom then embraces his father-in-law, shakes hands with him and bows to all present. Till late hours in the morning the groom sits in the hall listening to music and witnessing dancing by girls. About dawn he is called into the women's apartment by the bride's brother. The bride and groom are asked to sit on a cot and look at each other's face. The kazi takes a little sugar in his hand and asks the groom whether the sugar is sweet or his wife is sweet. He answers that Al Koran is sweeter and the sweetest. The husband and wife look at each other in a mirror and placing a hand on the other's back bow five times to Allah. The bride and groom are taken in varat at noon. The bride sits in a carriage and the groom rides a horse and escorts the bride to his house. On reaching the front gate, he is welcomed by sisters and cousins who before allowing him to come in make him promise that he would give his daughters in marriage to their sons.

Divorce.

The Koran does not demand any justification from a Muslim husband if he wants to divorce his wife. A woman claims divorce on the ground of ill-treatment, insufficiency of maintenance and impotence on the part of the husband. But divorces are few and far between owing probably to the poverty which acts as a deterrent. The divorce given by a man is called talaq. In case of the woman she has to apply to a kazi for divorce and it is called khala.

After-death rites.

Muslims bury their dead. When there is death, some relative, in company of a mulla, goes to the market and buys a shroud 75 feet long for a man and 90 feet long for a woman. Rose-water, scents, sulphuret of antimony, frankincense and yellow earth are the other articles needed in a funeral. In the case of a woman frankincense oil and a flower-net are additional articles needed. The dead body is washed clean and laid on back on a wooden board. The mulla writes, " There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his Prophet" on the chest and forehead of the dead and puts pieces of camphor at all joints of the dead body. The body is then wrapped in the shroud and placed in janaza (bier) and carried to the grave-yard.

As the body is borne to the grave-yard, the men accompanying the party keep on repeating Kalma-i-Shahadat and other verses from the Koran as they proceed. The bearers keep on changing and relieving one another. At the Idga (prayer place) all kneel and pray. As the grave is being filled, everyone puts a little earth. When the grave is closed, there are other prayers said known as Khatmas, On reaching home of the dead also the khatmas are repeated. On the first day after the funeral, the mourners are fed by their friends and relations. On the third the ziyarat is held. This means that the mourners go to the burial ground, whitewash the tomb and lay flowers, sabaja (basil Ocymum pilosum) and sweet-meats beside it. Feasts in memory of the dead are held on the 10th and 20th day and a grand feast on the 40th day. On this day a garland of flowers is kept hanging from the centre of the roof on a large platter filled with a number of savoury dishes and the mourners burn incense before the platter, offering prayers for the soul of the dead. Then there is a funeral feast. In the evening Koran is read. This is called maulad. The maulana is paid for his funeral services. According to Muslim law, the only form of mourning is that the widow of the dead be kept in strict seclusion for 50 days.

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