Search

(a.), derived from nas̲h̲ada “to search (especially for a stray camel), designates a set form of oath, at the beginning of a prayer of petition, sometimes involving a threat or coercion, directed at God. A certain Abū Sammāl of Banū Asad set out once in search of his camel; after a long, vain search, he turned to God, entreating him in these words: aymunuka laʾin lam taruddahā ilayya lā aʿbudka , “I swear if you do not return it to me, I will not worship you”; and he found it. The man was not a saint, so that his success could be attributed t…

(A.), deriving from a root k̲h̲-y-r which expresses the idea of option or choice, consists of entrusting God with the choice between two or more possible options, either through piety and submission to His will, or else through inability to decide oneself, on account of not knowing which choice is the most advantageous one. To the first category belong the ak̲h̲yār or “chosen”, who regulate their lives according to the model inspired by God in the Ḳurʾān and the Law; to the second belong the mustak̲h̲īrūn , those who seek to escape from indecision with the h…

, apparently the name of an idol of the pre-Islamic Arabs. In a marginal addition to Ibn al-Kalbī’s K. al-Aṣnām (ed. Klinke-Rosenberger, 2), the following ḥadīt̲h̲ is given: “Fulfill your legal alms obligations, for God has freed you from al-Sud̲j̲d̲j̲a and al-Bad̲j̲d̲j̲a” (missing from the Concordance ). The commentator says that al-Sud̲j̲d̲j̲a was an idol. As for al-Bad̲j̲d̲j̲a, This is the blood drawn from an incision ( faṣīd ) of a camel’s vein, on which the Arabs used to feed in times of dearth. But according to TʿA , ii, 6, al-Bad̲j̲d̲j̲a was an idol too…

, spontaneous pulsations, tremblings or convulsions which occur in all parts of the body, in particular in the limbs, the eyelids and the eyebrows and which provide omens the interpretation of which as a divinatory sign is known as the ʿilm al-ik̲h̲tilād̲j̲ or “palmoscopy”. Palmoscopy forms part of physiognomy and, like it, formed part of medical diagnosis by the physicians of classical antiquity, among them Galen, who established a distinction between “palpitation” and “trembling, shudder, convulsion”. As a divinatory practice, Islamic palmoscopy seems to have as its s…

(A.), 10th form of the root ḳ-s-m which embraces two groups of meanings, the one of a magical nature and the other divinatory. The first is applied to formulae and methods for conjuring up demons, for adjuration and exorcism; this latter is the meaning acquired by the 2nd and 4th forms, ḳassama and aḳsama , particularly in the Christian Arab world, clearly influenced by the Hebrew ḳesem ( e.g., Deut. xxiii, 23), which has the same meaning. This usage is late, colloquial, and most frequently found among Christian Arabs, who also employ ḳisām , “adjuration, exorcism …

(or K̲h̲ulaṣa ). D̲h̲u ’l-K̲h̲alaṣa refers to the sacred stone (and the holy place where it was to be found) which was worshipped by the tribes of Daws, K̲h̲at̲h̲ʿam, Bad̲j̲īla, the Azd of the Sarāt mountains and the Arabs of Tabāla. “It was a white quartziferous rock, bearing the sculpture of something like a crown. It was in Tabāla at the place called al-ʿAblāʾ, i.e., White Rock ( TʿA , viii, 3) between Mecca and the Yemen and seven nights’ march from the former ( i.e., approximately 192 kilometres or 119 miles). The guardians of the sanctuary were the Banū Umāma of the Bāhila…

(a.), in early Arabia, the guardian of a shrine (abstract noun, sidāna ). The root s - d - n contains the sense of "veil, curtain", which puts sādin on a level with ḥād̲j̲ib , the first term denoting the guardian of a shrine, and the second, the "door-keeper" of a palace, hence "chamberlain". The ḥād̲j̲ib acts under the orders of someone else, whereas the sādin acts on his own initiative ( LʿA , xvii, 69, citing Ibn Barrī). However, the two terms may be found juxtaposed, e.g. in Ibn His̲h̲ām, who says, "The Arabs possessed, as well as the Kaʿba, tawāg̲h̲īṭ which were shrines ( buyūt : cf. Fahd, La divin…

(a.), from rīf , pl. aryāf , “cultivated and fertile region”, generally designates the lands along a river or the sea and the fertile plains bordering the desert [see further rīf ]. The noun riyāfa , a recent formation on the model of ḳiyāfa (note that al-Ḏj̲āḥiẓ, K. al-Tarbīʿ wa ’l-tadwīr , ed. Pellat, 91-2, § 176, gives for ḳiyāfa [ q.v.] the sense of the detection of paternity, the whereabouts of water, atmospheric phenomena and the earth), designates the water-diviner’s art which estimates the depth of water under the earth through the smell of the ea…

(a.), from the root s-ʿ-y , used 30 times in the Ḳurʾān in such senses as “to work, apply oneself to, denounce, seek to earn one’s living, run after s. th.” etc., but in the sense concerning here denoting the pilgrim’s running between al-Ṣafā and al-Marwa. These are two hills to the south and north-west of the Kaʿba respectively, linked by a masʿā , course, which the pilgrim follows after having made the sevenfold circuit of the Kaʿba, at his or her arrival and his or her departure. This following of the course, the saʿy , is likewise sevenfold; it starts in al-Ṣafā, and goes to al-Marwa, ca. 300 m a…

, preferably to be read as Saʿīr, although the former is more common, an idol of the pre-Islamic Arabian tribe of ʿAnaza (Ibn al-Kalbī, 48-9), coming from ʿw.ṣ , an Aramaean eponym denoting in the Bible (refs. in Gesenius-Buhl, 573) the land of Edom and the group of tribes living there (W. Robertson Smith, Kinship and marriage in early Arabia , 260-1; Nöldeke, in ZDMG, xl [1887], 183). Saʿīr, which followed the same evolution as ʿAwḍ, denotes in the Bible the land of Edom before its occupation by the sons of Esau. Gen. xxxvi.9 speaks of the hill country Seʿir, o…

(a.), the science of physiognomancy and the examination of traces on the ground. In their concern for the purity of race and the ¶ correctness of genealogical lines, the ancient Arabs perfected a technique which permitted them to verify, and, where necessary, to research into, lines of parentage. This technique consisted partly in experience and partly in divinatory intuition. In primitive times, a specialised personnel maintained the practice: but the progressive decline, in pre-Islamic Arabia, of personnel skilled i…

, a rogatory rite still practised at the present day (notably in Jordan and Morocco) and dating back to the earliest Arab times (ʿĀdite according ¶ to Ibn al-At̲h̲īr, i, 61; Abrahaniic according to Ibn Saʿd, i/1, 22) which is a supplication for rain during periods of great drought. The rite must have been both astral and magical in nature. Obliged to retain it because of its great popularity, primitive Islam tried to remove these features. A precise ritual was established—as in the case of istik̲h̲āra [ q.v.], another custom deriving from pagan cultic practices —so that the faithf…

, a term denoting hydromancy, according to Doutté, Magie et religion dans l’Afrique DU Nord (Algiers 1909), 389; but in Ibn Ḵh̲aldūn. Muḳaddima , iii, 137 ff., istinzāl rūḥāniyyāt al-aflāk is a technique belonging to sīmyāʾ [ q.v.], natural or phantasmagoric magic (cf. T. Fahd, Divination, 49, n. 1). The Pseudo-Mad̲j̲rīṭī prefers to use istid̲j̲lāb (cf. Sources Orientales , vii (1966), 170 ff.). Elsewhere, in al-Būnī and Ibn al-Muwaḳḳiʿ, istinzāl al-arwāḥ wa-’ stiḥḍāruhā fī ḳawālib al-as̲h̲bāḥ denotes the techniques of spiritism, although these are generally denoted by the name ʿilm…

(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) in modern times designates an epic [see haṃāsa ] and also corresponds to a usage already in evidence in the Old Testament, where milḥamōt is applied to the wars of Yahweh (I Sam. xviii, 17, xxv, 28), but in the Islamic Middle Ages this word meant a writing of a divinatory character, the Malḥamat Dāniyāl [cf. dāniyāl ]. It is a question of a collection of meteorological signs with their divinatory meanings, derived from the day of the week on which 1 January falls (from the Saturday to the Friday), eclipses of the moon, followi…

(a.), the sun (f). 1. In Pre-Islamic Arab lore. This was a divinity worshipped in the Semitic world, especially in Assyria-Babylonia (cf. its attributes in K. Tallqvist, Akkadische Götterepitheta , Helsinki 1938, 453 ff.) and in South Arabia, where the plurals s̲h̲ums (for s̲h̲umūs ) given by Yāḳūt (ed. Beirut, iii, 362) for this ṣanam or idol, ʾs̲h̲ms and the dual s̲h̲msy (G. Ryckmans, Les noms propres sudsémitiques , Louvain 1934-5, i, 33; A. Jamme, Le panthéon sud-arabe préislamique d’après les sources épigraphiques , in Muséon , lx [1947], 101 ff.) ¶ denote the titulary divinities…

(a.), a term with many meanings, including those of thirst, voice, echo, and screech-owl in the sense of hāma , which denotes a bird charged with taking shape in the skull of someone who has been murdered, etc. (see the lexica). It is this latter sense which interests us here. In effect, the pre-Islamic Arabs believed that after death, above all after a violent death, out of the blood of the skull ( hāma) and parts of the body there arose a bird called hāma (or hām , the male owl; see Yāḳūt, Buldān , iii, 376), which returned to the tomb of the dead man until vengea…

, a term of controversial origin (cf. T. Fahd, Divination arabe , 91 ff.), belonging to Canaanite, Aramaic and Arab traditions. At the earliest stage known to us it appears to have been used by the “Western Semites” to designate the possessor of a single function with related prerogatives, that is to say, the offering of sacrifices in the name of the group, the representing of this group before the deity, the interpretation of the will of the deity, and in addition the anticipation an…

(a.), pl. nīrān , denotes fire, whereas nūr , pl. anwār , denotes light. In Akkadian, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic, the root n-w-r simply denotes “flash”, “dazzlement”, “florescence”, “tattooing”, anything, in short, which gives light and anything which stands out clearly. The other Arabic term which signifies light, ḍawʾ , is to be associated with the Sanskrit dev/w which appears in Zeus, Dieu, dies , and expresses the notion of the personification of the luminous and calorific phenomena of nature. Nār occurs 129 times in the Ḳurʾān, of which 111…

, name of one of the three most venerated deities of the pre-Islamic pantheon, the two others being Manāt and al-ʿUzzā [ q.vv.]. The deep attachment felt by the T̲h̲aḳīf towards al-Lāt, the Aws and the K̲h̲azrad̲j̲ towards Manāt and the Ḳurays̲h̲ towards al-ʿUzzā, constituted the greatest obstacle in the path of the peaceful implantation of Islam in the regions of the Ḥid̲j̲āz. This obstacle was so difficult to overcome that the Prophet seems, for a brief period, to have consented to the continuation of the cult of these three deities, called al-g̲h̲arānīḳ al-ʿulā (see T. Fahd, Panthéon …