Why the Misbaha Has Thirty-Three Beads — Epoche B1
My grandfather carries a string of beads the colour of dark honey, polished by forty years of his thumb. In Muscat you see a misbaha in every other hand: turning in the fingers of the men outside the mosque after the evening prayer, hanging by the till in the shops of Mutrah souq, where they are sold by the trayful — plastic, olive wood, amber if you ask quietly. For years I assumed the beads were simply something for the hand to do. Then my grandfather showed me the arithmetic. A misbaha has thirty-three beads, or ninety-nine with two small markers dividing them into threes, and the number is not decoration. It exists because of what is counted. After the prayer, many Muslims say subhan Allah thirty-three times, alhamdu lillah thirty-three times, then Allahu akbar — and in one common counting the last runs to thirty-four, to close the hundred. One phrase, one bead, the thumb pushing each one over the knot. On the long strings, the two markers tell the fingers, without the eyes, where one phrase ends and the next begins. Watch someone do it and you see what the beads are really for. The counting is handed to the thumb so the mind does not have to keep books. My grandfather closes his eyes for the whole of it. Ask him afterwards how many he has said and he could not tell you — the string was keeping count, and that is the entire point of the string. I bought my own in Mutrah last year, bright green and cheap. I have reached thirty-four exactly once before my mind wandered off somewhere in the twenties. My grandfather says this is normal, and that the beads will wait. References Rumi, J. (1260-1273). Masnavi-ye Ma'navi. (Various editions, commonly translated as 'The Masnavi').