p. 296 | A SPECTACLE FOR SKEPTICS

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, May 6, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 19

A SPECTACLE FOR SKEPTICS.

A RECENT letter from Cairo, Egypt, to the N. Y. Herald, gives an account of the annual ceremony of the “Dosseh,” which closes the festival indulged in by the Mussulman pilgrims after returning from their visit to Mohammed’s shrine at Mecca, Arabia. Every good Mussulman is expected, once during his lifetime, to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, for which he receives the honorable title of “Hadji,” secures indulgence for sin, etc.

The principal feature of the ceremony consists in the following revolting exhibition of fanaticism. Some thirty or forty of the pilgrims lie down upon the ground, face downward, so close together as to form a sort of “corduroy” road. A sheik, mounted upon an Arabian stallion of the purest breed, then rides over their prostrate bodies. On the occasion described it took the united efforts of five men to force the noble animal to the terrible task; and when he felt his feet cutting deeply into the flesh of the human beings beneath him, he trembled; then becoming frightened or maddened by the wild frenzy about him, he plunged furiously forward till he reached the end of the terrible road, his white feet deeply stained with human gore. The dead and wounded were quickly removed.

This ceremony is witnessed by the Khedive, the Sheik-ul-islam, mufti, and all the princes, ministers, and functionaries, both native and European, as well as by many hundreds of women of the princely and other harems.

Here is a country where the Bible and the Christian religion do not bear sway; and this is one of the brutal scenes to which the people degrade themselves. How does the skeptic fancy the picture? He knows, as all know, that should the Bible become the book, and Christianity the religion, of that land, such revolting spectacles would be forever banished. And which would he prefer, the Bible, and the absence of such ceremonies? or the absence of the Bible, and the continuance of these scenes?

There are those who, with a very wise and pompous air, declare that the Mohammedan Koran is as good as the Christian Bible. Judging by their fruits, what think ye?