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(a.) “lamentation”, the noun of action from nāḥa “to weep with great cries, lamentations, sighings and affliction”. The term is used to designate the activity of professional mourners who play a great role in funeral ceremonies all around the Mediterranean. If it is mentioned here, it is because this practice, considered to be a legacy of paganism, was condemned by the Prophet. Indeed, he is made to say “Three pre-Islamic customs ( ak̲h̲lāḳ ; Usd al-g̲h̲āba , fiʿl ) are not to be retained by the Muslims. They are: invoking the planets in order to receive rain ( istisḳāʾ bi ’l-kawākib …

(a.), “The interpretation of dreams”. As well as this expression, tafsīr al-aḥlām is employed, with taʿbīr , basically “the passage of one thing to another, one sense to another”, hence “explanation” and tafsīr , lit. “commenting, explaining”, from roots occurring in other Semitic languages and with the two Arabic verbal nouns found, once each, in the Ḳurʾān, at XII, 43, and XXV, 33, with taʾwīl [ q.v.] also at XII, 44-5. In current usage, taʿbīr is confined to the sense of “interpretation of dreams”, whilst tafsīr [ q.v.] is used for commentaries on e.g. the Bible and the Ḳurʾān. For the ter…

(a.), pl. anṣāb , Hebrew maṣṣeb̲ōt . The plural, more often used, denotes the blocks ofstone on which the blood of the victims sacrificed for idols ( awt̲h̲ān , aṣnām ) was poured, as well as sepulchral stones and those marking out the sacred enclosure ( ḥimā ) of the sanctuary (cf. J. Wellhausen, Reste2 , 101-2; W. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites , 201 ff.). In nomadic circles, the nuṣub has been regarded in a few rare instances as the symbol of the divinity (cf. Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaḳāt , iv/1, 159-60; R. Dozy, Essai sur l’histoire de l’Islamisme , translated from the…

, invisible being whose cry rends the night, transmitting a message; a prophetic voice which announces in an oracular style a future happening. Already in the Bible this voice is confused with that of the prophet (Ezekiel, XXI, 2, 7; Amos, VII, 16). On the eve of Muḥammad’s call, mysterious voices were proclaiming his coming. These were the voices of “one who was calling” ( munādī ) or “who was shouting” ( ṣāʾiḥ : Ag̲h̲ānī 1, xv, 76; in the legend of Mad̲j̲nūn, hātif is the equivalent of munādī and of ṣāʾiḥ: ibid., i, 169; ii, 4; i, 174; a third equivalent, tālī , is found in al-Ṭabarī, iii4, 2337). I…

(a.) means divination in general. Lā kihāna baʿd al-nubuwwa “there is no divination after the prophetic mission”; if it were necessary to be content with this dictum, frequently repeated in the Tradition, such an article as this would be out of place in an Encyclopaedia of Islam . But once the precise sense of this term has been established and the range of concepts which it covers outlined, the reader will agree that it is, on the contrary, far from superfluous. The word itself, both in terms of the conceptual aspect ( kihāna ) and the pragmatic aspect ( hahāna ) is a le…

(a.) “shoulder”; ʿilm al-katif or al-aktāf denotes scapulomancy or omoplatoscopy, i.e. divination by the use of the shoulder-bones. This art forms a part of the practices of physiognomy. It is universal in scope, inasmuch as it provides for the foretelling of what will happen in the different regions of the earth towards which the four sides of the scapula are pointed according to the signs revealed by it. From this point of view the ʿilm al-aktāf is to be linked with the practice of cleromancy of the d̲j̲afr [ q.v.] and the malāḥim (cf. T. Fahd, La divination arabe, 219 ff.). How was this skil…

, Abū saʿīd ( Saʿd ) Naṣr b. Yaʿḳūb , is a writer chiefly remembered as author of al-Ḳādirī fi ’l-Taʿbīr (composed in 397/1006 and dedicated to al-Ḳādir Bi’llāh 381-422/991-1020), which is the oldest authentic Arabic treatise on oneirocriticism and an excellent synthesis of everything that was known on the subject at the time. Its sources were Arabic: Ibn Sīrīn [ q.v.] to whom innumerable interpretations are attributed; Greek: Artemidorus of Ephesus, whose Oneirocritica translated into Arabic by Ḥunayn b. Isḥāḳ (died 260/873; cf. Fihrist, 255, MS A 4726 in the Istanbul Universi…

(a.), a verbal noun from the root s̲h̲-r-f indicating elevation, nobility, pre-eminence in the physical and the moral senses. Hence the s̲h̲arīf [ q.v.] is a person who is placed above those who surround him on account of his prestigious and noble origin. In pre-Islamic Arabia and in early Islam, s̲h̲araf and mad̲j̲d both denote “illustriousness on account of birth”, while hasab , “individual quality, merit” (as opposed to nasab ) and karam denote “illustriousness acquired by oneself” ( LA, s.w. and see ḥasab wa-nasab ). According to the historians of Islam…

(a.), the invocation made in a loud voice and repeatedly by the pilgrim when he enters the state of ritual taboo ( iḥrām ) for the Pilgrimage at Mecca [see ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ ]. This moment begins on entering the Ḥaram or sacred area and at the points where the pilgrims gather together ( mawāḳīt ) on the boundaries of the enclosure. Amongst the practices to be followed by the pilgrims are prayers and movements (see T. Fahd, Les pratiques musulmanes , in Atlas des religions , Encylopaedia Universalis, Paris 1988, 319-23). On entering the sacred territory, the pilgr…

, an idol of the tribes of Ḳuḍāʿa, Lak̲h̲m, Ḏj̲ud̲h̲ām, ʿĀmila and G̲h̲aṭafān [ q.vv.], venerated in northern Arabia, across which these tribes ranged, as far as the Syrian borders (Ibn al-Kalbī, 24, 30). Pilgrimage was made to it by devotees with shaven heads; with each lock of hair, a handful of meal was offered, all this thrown into a large trench or a dried-up well ( ḥafr ). The Hawāzin, neighbours of the Ḳuḍāʿa, used to come and collect the meal, either at the time of the offering or after it was mixed with the hair. The deity seems to have been embodied in several betyles. The poet Zu…

(a.), as opposed to faʾl [ q.v.] which denotes human omens (cledonism), is applied in a general sense to animal omens (zoomancy) and, in the strict sense, to ornithomancy, that is to say the art of divining omens in the names of birds, their cries, their flight and their posture ( TA, vi, 207, l. 24 ff.). With certain names of birds a fatal quality is associated, though why this is so is not always known; in general, black and greenish plumage and down constitute the only justification. This is the case with the crow, the roller, the jay, and with …

, (a.) from the root r-ḳ-y meaning “to ascend” (cf. Ḳurʾān, XVII, 93, XXXVIII, 10; to this, LXXV, 27, adds the idea of “enchanter”, “one who cures” and “magician” rāḳ in, a term often found in the Sīra , in Ḥadīt̲h̲ and in the Sunna), “enchantment, magical spell”. Since casting a spell was usually by means of a magical formula pronounced or written on an amulet of parchment or leather, rāḳ in is to be connected with ḳāriʾ and riḳḳ [ q.v.]. The term tarāḳī of the preceding verse, 26, from the root r-ḳ-w/y , variously understood by the commentators, means “collar bones” (see TA and Lane, s.v.; Steingass…

(a.), derived from Persian nayrang , nīrang , pl. nīrand̲j̲āt , nīrand̲j̲iyyāt (Ibn Sīnā, ms. Paris; Brockelmann, S I, 828), nārand̲j̲iyyāt (al-D̲j̲ināʿī, ms. Strasbourg 4212, fol. 102b), designates, in the two languages, the operations of white magic, comprising prestidigitation, fakery and counter-fakery, the creating of illusions and other feats of sleight-of-hand ( ḥiyal ). A certain al-Ḥasan b. Muḥammad al-Iskandarī al-Kūs̲h̲ī al-ʿAbdari described the whole set of these operations in his work Fi ’l-ḥiyal al-bābiliyya li ’l-k̲h̲izāna al-kāmiliyya …

(a.), a noun derived from y-s-r "to be easy, simple", a root from which derives, by antiphrasis, a qualificative of the left hand, al-yusrā , with which the ḥurḍa (cf. Hebrew ḥ-r-ṣ and Akkadian ḫarāšu "decide, fix, determine"), the equivalent of the sādin of the istiḳsām [ q.v.], shot arrows one by one. Hence the term maysir could be rendered by "the game of the left-handed", although its present morphological state is inexplicable. The game consisted of dividing a slaughtered beast into ten parts, for which the game was played: these being the thighs and shins of bo…

( ʿilm-i ), a divinatory process which belongs to the realm of physiognomy [see firāsa ], and designates more specifically chirognomy, or the art of deducing the character of a person according to the shape and appearance of the hands, whereas chiromancy proper is designated by ʿilm al-asārīr (lines of the hand) or k̲h̲uṭūṭ al-yad . One can also say naẓar fi ’l-yad , firāsat al-kaff , ʿalāmāt asārīr al-kaff (cf. T. Fahd, Divination arabe , 393 ff.). But the use of the term ʿilm al-kaff has become general, and this has supplanted the others. It covers both c…

(a.), the name of two rather mysterious groups in early Islamic times: 1. Ṣābiʾat al-baṭāʾiḥ . The Mesopotamian dialectal pronunciation of ṣābiʿa , where the ʿayn has been transformed into y or ī , also occurs in Mandaean (cf. Lidzbarski, Ginzā ; Nöldeke, Mandäische Grammatik ; R. Macuch, Handbook , 94, 1. 16: ṣabuia ). This substantive, which became current in Mecca during the period of Ḳurʾānic preaching, irrespective of its etymology, derives from the Semitic root ṣ-b-ʿ (Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac; Ethiopic ṣabk̲h̲a ), corresponding to ṣ-b-g̲h̲ in Arabic. Th…

(a.), literally, "the fortunate and the unfortunate". These concepts are based on the influence exerted by the planets and the signs of the Zodiac on earthly events. The astrologers describe the stars as being either . saʿd or naḥs . Thus Jupiter, Venus and the Moon are said to be saʿd, Saturn is naḥs and the Sun and Mercury are at times called one or the other. But this can vary as a function of their positions in the ecliptic and of their conjunctions (cf. Abū Maslama Muḥammad al-Mad̲j̲rīṭī, G̲h̲āyat al-ḥakīm , ed. H. Ritter, Leipzig 1933, 198 ff. = M. Plessner, Picatrix , London 1962, 209 ff.; L’ag…

(a.), image, representation and, especially, idol (from the Common Semitic root ṣ-l-m , cf. Akk. ṣalmu , Aram, ṣalmā , Hebr. ṣelem , etc., by a shift of l into n, see Gesenius-Buhl, 684); for Old Testament parallels, see inter alia, Num. xxxiii. 52; II Kings xi. 18; Ezek., vii. 20; Amos, v. 26). It is in this sense that it is found in the Ḳurʾān, where the pl. aṣnām is cited five times (VI, 74; VII, 138; XIV, 35; XXI, 57; XXVI, 71). Ṣanam progressively replaces nuṣub (pl. anṣāb , Hebr. maṣṣebōt̲ , Gen. xxxv. 14), a term denoting “carved stones over which the blood …

(a.), a term of the Ḳurʾān and of Islamic religion. The root s̲h̲-k-n (Akkadian, Hebrew, Aramaic) or s-k-n (Arabic) means basically “to go down, rest, be quiescent, inhabit”, and the corresponding Later Hebrew form to Arabic sakīna is s̲h̲ek̲h̲īnā and the Jewish Palestinian Aramaic one s̲h̲ e k̲h̲īnā, Syriac s̲h̲ekīntā . Cf. Hebr. ham-mis̲h̲kan , mis̲h̲kan Yhwh , Syr. mas̲h̲kan zab̲h̲nā / zab̲h̲nō , Ar. ḳubbat al-zamān (al-Ḳardāḥī, Lubāb , Beirut 1887, ii, 546-7), referring to Moses’ tent sanctuary, Exod. xxv. 22). The Hebrew usage is genera…

, more precisely al-k̲h̲aṭṭ bi-raml , the original name for Arab geomancy. In the Islamic era, raml (or ʿilm al-raml ) was dominant, but with the growing influence of astrology on the occult sciences, the term s̲h̲akl (pl. as̲h̲kāl ), “figure” was used (see below, the expression as̲h̲kāl al-raml, as̲h̲kāl al-turāb , ḥulūl al-as̲h̲kāl ), From s̲h̲akl are derived “squill” a figure in geomancy, and “to squill”, to practise divination by sand, cf. G. Ferrand, in JA, 10th Series, vi (1905), 195. In Madagascar, the words sikili and skidy also denote geomantic figure…