← Table of contents
Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 4 (of 6)

Note 388 — THE TALE OF THE KAZI AND THE BHANG-EATER.[224] (continued 3)

Richard Francis Burton translation · Edition 2

Arab. “Tamím” (plur. of Tamímat) = spells, charms, amulets, as those hung to a horse’s neck, the African Greegree and the Heb. Thummim. As was the case with most of these earliest superstitions, the Serpent, the Ark, the Cherubim, the Golden Calf (Apis) and the Levitical Institution, the Children of Israel derived the now mysterious term “Urím” (lights) and “Thummim” (amulets) from Egypt and the Semitic word (Tamímah) still remains to explain the Hebrew. “Thummim,” I may add, is by “general consensus” derived from “Tôm” = completeness and is englished “Perfection,” but we can find a better origin near at hand in spoken Arabic.

Explore with AITake your curiosity a little further.

Reading settings