Note 260 — ABDULLAH[232] THE FISHERMAN AND ABDULLAH THE MERMAN.

When Moslems apply “Nabí!” to Mohammed it is in the peculiar sense of “prophet” (προφήτης) = one who speaks before the people, not one who predicts, as such foresight was abjured by the Apostle. Dr. A. Neubauer (The Athenæum No. 3031) finds the root of “Nabí!” in the Assyrian Nabu and Heb. Noob (occurring in Exod. vii. i. “Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet.” i.e. orator, speaker before the people), and holds it to be a Canaanite term which supplanted “Roeh” (the Seer) e.g. 1 Samuel ix. 9. The learned Hebraist traces the cult of Nebo, a secondary deity in Assyria to Palestine and Phœnicia, Palmyra, Edessa (in the Nebok of Abgar) and Hierapolis in Syria or Mabug (Nabog?).