Page 24 - Arabian Studies (II)

14 Arabian Studies II

them had done it. People in a storm could not have stopped a leak
in the boat at that time.
[The narrator] said: We went off to b. Hud, each giving what he
had vowed to. Just as we arrived each one gave what he had vowed
to give. The man slaughtered the she-goat that he had promised
beforehand and satisfied the hunger of twenty people. The other
vows were kept but the man who had vowed the ghaz forgot the tin
and did not bring it. His companions asked where the tin of ghaz
was. He said: ‘I have forgotten it.’ They said: ‘Well, we shall have
to see then if b. Hud makes any miraculous manifestation
[beydnet] tonight for so and so [the man who had forgotten the
tin]. The ghaz has to come tonight. Someone will bring the ghaz
during the night and if he has no miraculous sign, we ought to
know about it.* He said: ‘Bin Hud, if you have power or miracle.
... I vowed the gas to you but forgot it. Bring it tonight.’
Then at midnight they said: ‘We can hear men coining in the
night from the direction of the sea.’ They said: ‘When the canoe
was beached we were with the men and they had two tins of ghaz
with them.’ They said: ‘One we had vowed to give to b. Hud for
his lamp, but the other we came across just as we were about to
beach. It floated here.’ It had got into this little palm trunk.
The men looked and found writing on it, the name of the man
who had been its previous owner.
He [b. Hud] became famous. Now everybody wanted to make
vows to them-b. Hud, b. ‘All, Shaykh 1-Afayf [al-‘Af!f], and
Shaykh el-Goherey [al-Jawharl].
Those are the ones people all over the country make vows to
and visit, and for whom beasts are slaughtered. And if a
woman — if a man does not make his wife pregnant, he vows he
will slaughter a she-goat or some other beast, or [offer]
something; [for example] he will make an offering of money if his
wife conceives. And they do become pregnant. Those are the ones
people believe in.
If someone’s livestock is stolen and a certain person is suspected
of it and goes to the one who suspects him and says to him: ‘I
swear to you on the Qur’an (extemet) that I did not steal your
livestock’, the answer to him will be: ‘Never! I will not accept that
unless you swear to me on b. Hud, or on b. ‘AIT, or on Shaykh
el-Goherey’ - those are the places of worship [mesdwged]. 12 He
may protest that the Qur’an is the word of God and he will be
answered: ‘Indeed I know it is the word of God, and God is
gracious, but those are the mesdwged where miraculous signs are
given without delay.’
Even up to the present, really, some of the older people believe.
However some knowledgeable people do not believe in them or
consult them or make use of them.