I am indebted to my friend Mr H. L. Rabino, of H.B.M.'s Consular Service, for the following valuable notes on the celebration of the Muḥarram mourning at Baghdád as early as the fourth Muhammadan (tenth Christian) century. I have only the text of the two passages (one in German and the other in Persian): the reference was probably given in the accompanying letter (December 23, 1922), which has unfortunately been mislaid. I have an impression that they are taken from one of Dorn's articles, probably published in the Mélanges Asiatiques. The whole quotation runs as follows:

“Die ‘ta'sieh’ wurden in Baghdad i. J. 963 von der Buwaihiden Mu'iss-ed-daula eingeführt, wie uns Ahmed b. Abu'l-Feth in seinem Werke <text in Arabic script omitted> (Inscr. Mus. As. No. 567^a) berichtet.”

<text in Arabic script omitted>

“It is related in the History of Ibn Kathír the Syrian that Mu'izzu'd-Dawla Aḥmad ibn Buwayh issued orders in Baghdád that during the first ten days of Muḥarram all the bazaars of Baghdád should be closed, and that the people should wear black for mourning and betake them­selves to mourning for the Chief of Martyrs [the Imám Ḥusayn]. Since this procedure was not customary in Baghdád, the Sunní doctors re­garded it as a great innovation; but since they had no control over Mu'izzu'd-Dawla, they could do nothing but submit. Thereafter every year until the collapse of the Daylamite [or Buwayhid] dynasty, this custom of mourning was observed by the Shí'ites in all countries during the first ten days of Muḥarram. In Baghdád it continued until the early days of the reign of Ṭughril the Saljúq.”