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(a.), originally, the formal expression of the oracular pronouncement. 1. As magical utterances in pre-Islamic Arabian usage. Here, sad̲j̲ʿ was the rhythmical style practised by the Arab kāhin s [ q.v.] and kāhina s [see al-kāhina ], a style intermediate between that of the versified oracular utterances of the Sibylls and Pythians and that of the prose utterances of Apollo (see P. Amandry, La mantique apollinienne à Delphes . Essai sur le fonctionnement de l’oracle, diss. Paris 1950, 15). These utterances are "formulated in short, rhymed phrases, with rhythmical caden…

(a.) “water”. The present article covers the religio-magical and the Islamic legal aspects of water, together with irrigation techniques, as follows: 1. Hydromancy A a vehicle for the sacred, water has been employed for various techniques of divination, and in particular, for potamonancy (sc. divination by means of the colour of the waters of a river and their ebbing and flowing; cf. FY. Cumont, Études syriennes , Paris 1917, 250 ff., notably on the purification power of the Euphrates, consulted for divinatory reasons); for pegomancy (sc…

(a.), poet. ¶ 1. In the Arab world. A. Pre-Islamic and Umayyad periods. Among those endowed with knowledge and with power in ancient Arabia stands the figure of the s̲h̲āʿir , whose role is often confused with that of the ʿarrāf ( s̲h̲aʿara and ʿarafa having the …