"يوميّات رحلة من بلاد فارس إلى الهند عبر هراة وقندهار. وأيضًا تقرير رحلة إلى العاصمة الوهابية، الرياض في وسط الجزيرة العربية" [ظ‎‎١‎٢‎٦] (٢٦٨/٢٥٢)

believe also in some anonymous heavenly personages styled the
confidential friends of God. They pray three times daily; once
as the sun rises, so as to finish ere the disc is full on the horizon j
secondly, before the sun dips from tho meridian, and thirdly so as
to finish with tho setting of the sun. Those Selaibs who still
dwell in Irak are said to have a purer worship, and to have pre
served certain sacred writings in the Chaldean or Assyrian.
Among those writings arc supposed to be the Psalms of David
and some of our Jewish Prophets. The Selaib fasts three times a
year; thirty days during the month of Ramzan, four to seven
days in Shaban, from five to nine days during tho summer months.
The Selaibs adore tho Polar star, as tho one fixed point which
guides all travellers by sea and land. In reverencing it, they
stand with their faces towards it, and stretch out their arms, so
as to form a cross.
The Arabs would never intermarry with the Selaibs, whose mar
riage ceremony is simple. It is performed in the presence of tho
respective fathers, or nearest of kin, of the bride and bridegroom.
Mutual consent is the essential. The girl’s father receives a cer
tain payment. A Moollah, or a gray-beard then asks the parties
if they consent to tho union, receives a fee, and sends them off
to cohabit.
Forty days after the birth of a child, it is immersed seven times
in water.
The child must be circumcised before it attain seven years of
age. Then tho cross is planted as before noticed; some sheep
are killed, and all are welcome to tho feast.
In point of fact, tho Selaibs of the desert seem to have con
formed to tho ceremonies of tho dominant religion, until from
generation to generation they have lost their own. They never
theless declare that they were originally Sabians, but this seems
erroneous.
The Selaibs are peaceful; and the tribes disdain to injure or
plunder them. They are too useful as guides and drudges to be in
jured. They pay no tribute, and the tribes scorn to borrow from