TCD MS 10516 folio 2 verso
[9th July 1916] found on the ground amidst the burning tents. It was about an inch in diameter, smooth and polished, and about half an inch in thickness. This fragment of clay was apparently a sacred fragment from the holy city of Kerbela, where Shias worship at the Shrine of Hussein. The eyes of some of our Arab scouts were on me as I handled the sacred object and, not wishing to offend their religious scruples, I thought it best to give it to them. I handed it to a Sunni Mohamedan but he, showing his contempt for the soil of Kerbela, pushed it aside and handed it to a Shia. The latter, full of devotion towards the sacred clay, pressed it in his clasped hands, raised his eyes in fervour to the sky, and touched the fragment with his lips.