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, name of one of the most ancient deities ofthe Semitic pantheon, who appears in the Pre-Sargonic period in the form Menūtum and constitutes one ofthe names of Ishtar (J. Bottéro, Les divinités sémitiques anciennes en Mésopotamie , in S. Moscati (ed.), Le antiche divinité semitiche, 30; Tallqvist, Götterepitheta , 373-4); the Ḳurʾānic scriptio of her name preserves the primitive w, which also appears in the Nabatean mnwtw (Lidzbarski, Handbuch , 313; Wellhausen, Reste 2, 28). The w changes to i in the Bible (Isa. lxv, 11), as in the Sallier IV papyrus, verso , i, 5-6 (in J.B. Pritchard, Ancien…

(a.), active participle from nad̲j̲d̲j̲ama “to observe the stars and deduce from them the state of the world”. The munad̲j̲d̲j̲im claims to know the lot of humans and their destiny from the positions of the stars. He is the astrologer. For a long time this noun designated both astrologer and astronomer, so close were the functions of the two. Often the court astrologer used to observe the stars scientifically and to interpret their movements for the benefit of his master. This is borne out ¶ by the fact that, according to D̲j̲ābir b. Ḥayyān, “the astrologer must be a mathematician ( riyāḍi …

, the name of a Safaitic deity, unknown however in the pantheon of Central and South Arabia. In Safaitic inscriptions he appears as šyʿhḳwm , i.e. S̲h̲ayʿ ha-Ḳawm, and it is only in the Nabataean and Palmyrene inscriptions (see G. Ryckmans, Les religions arabes préislamiques 2, Louvain 1953 = Quillet, Hist . gen . des religions 2, Paris 1960, ii, 199-228) that we have the form with the regular Arabic definite article, S̲h̲ayʿ al-Ḳawm. The name may refer to a tribal deity in the form of a lion or lion cub, so that S̲h̲ayʿ Allāh (this theophoric name, probably a depagan…

, the name of one of the five gods dating from the time of Noah mentioned in the Ḳurʾān (LXX, 23), together with Wadd, Yag̲h̲ūt̲h̲, Yaʿūk and Nasr [ q.vv.]. Suwāʿ was worshipped by the Hud̲h̲ayl [ q.v.] at Ruhāt in the region of Yanbuʿ (Ibn al-Kalbī, 6) in one of the valleys running from the Red Sea towards Medina (Yāḳūt, Buldān , iv, 1038). The tribe assiduously frequented his shrine, made pilgrimages to it and constantly offered sacrifices of their best smaller beasts to it (Ibn al-Kalbī, 6, 35, citing two verses attributed to a Yem…

(a.), the casting of stones. R-d̲j̲-m is a Semitic root, derivatives from which are found in the Old Testament with the meaning of “to stone, to drive away or kill by throwing stones” an abominable creature; rad̲j̲ma is “a heap of stones, an assembly of men, cries, tumult”. In Arabic, the root means “to stone, to curse”; rad̲j̲m , “heap of stones”, also means simply the stones placed upon tombs either as flagstones or in a heap, a custom which ḥadīt̲h̲ condemns, recommending rather that a grave should be level with the surface of the ground. On the ḥadīt̲h̲ of ʿAbd Allāh b. Mug̲h̲fal, it is …

, a personage associated with the legendary town of Iram D̲h̲āt al-ʿImād, to whom is attributed its foundation. For information on him, see ʿād and iram. (T. Fahd)

or Nabīṭ (coll.), Nabaṭī (sing.), Anbāṭ (pl.), the name given by the Arabs to the Nabataeans , amongst whom they distinguished the Nabaṭ al-Sham (i.e. of Syria), installed at Petra towards the end of the Hellenistic imperial era and at the beginning of the Roman one, and the Nabaṭ al-ʿIrāḳ (i.e. of ʿIrāḳ). [The Editors of the EI have decided to retain unchanged the following two articles, despite the inevitable overlappings in their present forms.] 1. The Nabaṭ al-S̲h̲ām. The Arabic term, occuring in Aramaic inscriptions, nbṭ / nbṭw , appears very often in the …

or hemerologies and menologies (Gr. χαταρχαί, Lat. electiones ) means an ¶ astrological procedure whose aim is to ascertain the auspicious ( saʿd ) or inauspicious ( naḥs ) character of the future. It deals with years, months, days and hours. This task, which was the duty of the official astrologer of the court as early as the Umayyad period, became increasingly important under the ʿAbbāsids as a result of the adoption of Iranian customs and Sāsānid calendars which established precisely how the prince’s time should be spent during all the days of the week (cf. for example the Ps.-D̲j̲āḥiẓ, Bāb…

, a pair of gods worshipped at ¶ Mecca before Islam. Several orientalists of the last century, such as Rudolph Krehl and François Lenormant, saw in them, not unreasonably, replicas of Baʿl and Baʿla. Indeed Isāf and Nāʾila do display the essential characteristics distinguishing this pair of gods from the many avatars known in the various Semitic religions: physical représentation by two sacred stones erected close to each other, or by two parallel hills; symbolic représentation of…

(a.), derived from the Semitic root r-ʾ-y which gives rise to formations expressing “sight” ( ruʾya ( t)) and “vision” ( ruʾyā ), one of the aspects of vision being nocturnal vision, the dream. 1. In the meaning of dream. On relations between “seer” ( rōʾe - Aram, ḥōzē = Ar. ḥāzī ), “soothsayer” ( kāhin , ʿarrāf , etc.) and “prophet” ( nabī ), see the articles kāhin, kihāna , nubuwwa. The Semitic terminology of the dream and of the vision evolves in two fundamentally different semantic zones: (1)The first is situated in the space extending between sleep and waking and is consequentl…

(a.), in a technical sense designates rhapsodomancy. It is an Islamic divinatory procedure, analogous to bibliomancy; but in current usage the term refers to the drawing of lots, whatever form this may take, and this has been used following the Ḳurʾānic prohibition of istiḳsām [ q.v.] and of maysir [ q.v.], the two principal cleromantic techniques of pagan Arabia. I. In the usual sense of “the drawing of lots”, the term ḳurʿa , originally applied to “a wineskin with broad base and narrow neck” ( TA, v, 453, l. 23) which probably served as a receptacle for the shaking of the lots…

(a.) or Zāʾirad̲j̲a , a divinatory technique which, in the same manner as geomancy [see k̲h̲aṭṭ ] and d̲j̲afr [ q.v.], and under various outside influences, had a wide diffusion in the mediaeval Islamic lands. It involved a mechanical means of calculating portents, strongly imbued with magic and astrology, in which were strongly mingled the talismanic sciences, based on the ʿilm al-k̲h̲awāṣṣ “knowledge of secret properties”, the ʿilm al-awfāḳ “knowledge of conjunctions”, ʿilm al-ṭilasmāt “knowledge of talismans” and ʿilm al-ḥurūf “knowledge of letters” [see ḥurūf ]. D̲j̲afr and ḥur…

, an Arabian god whose worship was fostered in Mecca by the K̲h̲uzāʿī ʿAmr b. Luḥayy [ q.v.] in the first half of the 3rd century A.D. Represented at first by a baetyl, like most of the Arab deities, it was later personified, with human features, by a statue made of cornelian, with the right arm truncated (cf. Judges III, 15, XX, 16) and which the ¶ Ḳurays̲h̲īs are said to have replaced by a golden arm (al-Azraḳī, Ak̲h̲bār Makka , ed. Wüstenfeld, Leipzig 1858, 74). It was from a town with thermal springs ( ḥamma ) that it was apparently brought to the Ḥid̲j̲āz. Having…

, the Arabic term for the rainbow, formed from ḳaws “bow” ( Ḳws in the inscriptions of Jordan; Ḳaws̲h̲ in the inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser, Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal; Ḳūsu in Babylonian inscriptions of the time of Darius and Artaxerxes I; Ḳūsu, Ḳūs̲h̲u , Ḳīs̲h̲i , Ḳūs̲h̲i , in the Old Testament; Kos / Kōs /Κοξε, amongst the Nabataeans; Ḳaws , Ḳays , in Arabia), an Edomite deity known during the first millennium and later venerated by the Nabataeans (cf. Vriezen, The Edomitic deity Qaus , 330 ff.). He was a war-god, symbolised by the bow, just as Adad…

(a., pl. s̲h̲āmāt ) “naevus, skin blemish, mole”. This term seems originally to have denoted the coloured marks on a horse’s body, above all, where they are disapproved of ( TʿA , viii, 362 ll. 12-13). It is applied to all marks of a colour different from the main body which they mark, and to all black marks on the body or on the ground ( ibid., ll. 304). But from what we know at present in our texts, there is no difference between s̲h̲āmāt and k̲h̲īlān (sing, k̲h̲āl ) (the two terms are attested in Akkadian: cf. ḫālu , Bezold, Babylonisch-Assyrisches Glossar , Heidelberg 1926, 120, and sāmūti , Labat, T…

, ṭīra and zad̲j̲r are terms which merge into one another and together correspond to and express adequately the concept of “omen” and of οι̉ωνóς. Faʾl , a term peculiar to Arabic and equivalent to the Hebrew neḥas̲h̲īm and the Syriac neḥshē , originally meant natural omen, cledonism. It appears in very varied forms, ranging from simple sneezing (al-Ibs̲h̲īhī, Mustaṭraf , trans. Rat, ii 182), certain peculiarities of persons and things that one encounters (al-Nuwayrī, Nihāya , 133 ff., trans, in Arabica , viii/1 (1961), 34-7), to the interpretation of the…

The particular veneration which, among the S̲h̲īʿas, the members of the Prophet’s family enjoy, is at the base of the belief that the descendants of Fāṭima have inherited certain privileges inherent in Prophethood; prediction of the future and of the destinies of nations and dynasties is one of these privileges. The S̲h̲īʿī conception of prophecy, closely connected with that of the ancient gnosis (cf. Tor Andrae, Die Person Muhammeds in Lehre und Glauben seiner Gemeinde , Stockholm 1918, ch. vi) made the prophetic afflatus pass from Adam to Muḥamm…

(a., pl. tamāʾim , synonyms taʿwīd̲h̲ , ʿūd̲h̲a ), amulet, talisman (for a wider consideration of this last, see ṭilsam ). In origin, it means a stone with white speckles on a black field or vice-versa, threaded on a thong or cord and worn round the neck to avert danger. The Arabs placed such stones on their children, believing that it would protect them from the evil eye, ill fate, sickness and death, having thereby recourse to someone other than God, Who alone is capable of preventing evil a…

(a.), lord, God, master of a slave. Pre-Islamic Arabia probably applied this term to its gods or to some of them. In this sense the word corresponds to the terms like Baʿal, Adonis, etc. in the Northwestern Semitic languages, where rabb means “much, great” (see A. Jeffery, The foreign vocabulary of the Qurʾān , Baroda 1938, 136-7). In one of the oldest sūras (CVI, 3) Allāh is called the “lord of the temple”. Similarly, al-Lāt bore the epithet al-Rabba , especially at Ṭāʾif where she was worshipped in the image of a stone or of a rock. In the Ḳurʾān, rabb (especially with the possessive suffix)…

, the art of drawing prognostications from verses of the Ḳurʾān to which beneficial effects are attributed. The sacred text is used here in the same spirit as in rhapsodomancy ( ʿilm al-ḳurʿa ) and onomatomancy [see d̲j̲afr and ḥurūf. ] But it is here more particularly a case of the “natural properties” (φυσικά) which certain formulae of a magical and superstitious nature can have, based upon suitable Ḳurʾānic verses, letters drawn from these verse, words, names of angels, prophets or God, prayers bearing celebrated names and poems ( e.g. the Burda ). Hence these …