Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 January 1892 — Shiah’s Sacred Shrines. [ARTICLE]

Shiah’s Sacred Shrines.

A curious account of the sacred shrines of the Shiah Division of the Mohammedan faith is given in the report of Brigade Surgeon Bowman of tho Bombay Medical Service. The most important of these is Karbala, or Mashad Husnni, some fifty odd miles from Bagdad, which contains tho tomb of Husaui, son of Ali, und that of Abbas, his halfbrother. It is a pluco of pilgrimago for largo numbers of Indian, Persian, and other Shiahs, but it is also a spot to which thousauds of bodies from overy country whero tho Shiah faith exists arc brought for interment, so that tho place has become “ono vast burial ground.” Its population is estimated at between fifty and sixty thousand. Kadhunain, another Shiah shrine, is' about three miles only from Bagdad, und has a population of 13,000. The insanitary condition of this town is said to ho “beyond description.” At both these shrines'several outbreaks of cholera during the yeur are reported.—[Loudon News.