At the very end of the twenty-second chapter of her Memoirs, Sayyida Salme tacks on a single, stand-alone sentence: We do not celebrate birthdays. (Memoirs, p. 150) It just pops in and hangs there. Such a curious non-sequitur after her detailed description of the “big festival,” it invites Westerners – who very much celebrate birthdays! – to wonder about this peculiarity. So, of course, I had to look it up. Turns out this is not just habit or preference, but harkens back to I
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