Thursday of the Dead (Arabic: خميس الأموات, Khamis al-Amwat), also known as Thursday of the Secrets (Arabic: الأسرار خميس, Khamis al-Asrar) or Thursday of the Eggs[1] is a feast day shared by Christians and Muslims in the Levant[2] that falls sometime between the Holy Thursdays of the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christian traditions. It is a day on which the souls of the dead are honoured and underscores the mutual influences between Christians and Muslims in the region.[3]
Anne N. Fuller in Buarij, Portrait of a Lebanese Muslim Village (1961), lists the day among a series of springtime rituals preceded by Thursday of the Animals and Thursday of the Plants, and followed by Thursday of the Jumping.[4] Of Thursday of the Dead, she writes that, in it, can be "seen that ancient Near East belief that the living as well as the dead form a single community."[5]
As a shared tradition, it is thought to date back to at least the twelfth century when Saladin urged Muslims to adopt Christian customs in order to promote religious tolerance in the region.[3]
Letters from Captain Warren in 1901 identify the day as taking place "in Spring, about the Greek Easter" and he describes it as the culmination of seven consecutive Thursdays marked by wailing over the dead.[6] A 1948 article in The Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society notes the day as commemorated fourteen days before the Good Friday of the Eastern church.[7] The same article describes it as, "A feast day of the women. The visiting of the dead is in most cases very superficial, and the time is actually spent in good company out."[7] Also described as an important day, popular among women, it is noted that Islamic holy books advise one to visit the dead.[7]
Thursday of the Dead is described in The Rites of Birth, Marriage, Death, and Kindred Occasions Among the Semites (1966) as a universal day for visiting tombs, marked most assiduously by townspeople, followed by fellaheen ("peasants"), and then Bedouins.[1] Women would go to the cemetery before sunrise to pray for the departed and distribute bread cakes stamped with elaborate geometric designes known as ka'ak al-asfar ("the yellow roll") and dried fruit to the poor, to children, and to relatives. Children would also receive painted eggs, generally yellow in colour.[3] Morgenstern notes the carrying of dyed eggs by the women of Jerusalem on their visits to cemeteries in the afternoon on the Thursday of the dead and places it as forming part of djum'et al-amwat ("the week of the dead").[1]
According to Frederick Jones Bliss in a lecture he delivered on religions of Syria and Palestine in 1912, Thursday of the dead formed a part of Muslim mourning practices: "The cemetery may be visited every Thursday after the death occurs and then annually on the Thursday of the dead."[8] In an 1892-1893 Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund, it is noted the distribution of food by the family of the deceased at the tombsite is considered rahmy ("mercy") and that for some the practice continues until the first Thursday of the Dead after the person's passing.[9]
Thursday of the Dead is less commonly observed today, though the stamped cakes of bread continue to be distributed on the Thursday and Monday following the death of a family member and during the Easter season.[3]