Volume 1
An account of the manners and customs of the modern Egyptians, written in Egypt during the years 1833, -34, and -35, partly from notes made during a former visit to that country in the years 1825, -26, -27, and -28 / By Edward William Lane.
- Edward William Lane
- Date:
- 1836
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An account of the manners and customs of the modern Egyptians, written in Egypt during the years 1833, -34, and -35, partly from notes made during a former visit to that country in the years 1825, -26, -27, and -28 / By Edward William Lane. Source: Wellcome Collection.
391/468 (page 331)
![CHARMS. 331] cure for every disease: the second I shall keep for my- self; and the third we will eat together.”—Upon this, he broke in halves one of the three cakes ; and we each ate our share. I agreed with him (though I had read the inscription) that it was delicious; and I gladly accepted his presents.—I was afterwards enabled to make several additions to my Mek’keh curiosities; comprising a piece of the covering of the Ka’abeh, brought from Mek’keh by the sheykh Ibrahee’m (Burck- hardt), and given to me by his legatee ’Osma’n.—A cake composed of dust from the Prophet’s tomb is sometimes sewed up in a leather case, and worn us an amulet. It is also formed into lumps of the shape of a pear, and of the size of a small pear; and hung to the railing or screen which surrounds the monument over the grave of a saint, or to the monument itself, or to the windows or door of the apartment which contains it. So numerous are the charms which the Egyptians employ to insure good fortune, or to prevent or remove evils of every kind, and so various are the superstitious practices to which they have recourse with these views, that a large volume would scarcely suffice to describe them in detail. These modes of endeavouring to obtain good, and to avoid or dispel evil, when they are not founded upon religion or magic or astrology, are termed matters of ?ilm er-rook'keh, or the science of the distaff (that is, of the women); which designation is given to imply their absurdity, and because women are the per- sons who most confide in them. This term is con- sidered, by some, as a vulgar corruption of “ilm er- roock’yeh,” or ‘‘ the science of enchantment:” by others, it is supposed to be substituted for the latter term by way of a pun. Some practices of the nature just R 2](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29287145_0001_0391.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
