27 



Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, were changed into Belteshazzar, Shadrach, 

 Meshach, and Abednego, which custom prevails up to the present day 

 amongst the different communities which inhabit that country.* If a 

 Christian becomes a Mohammedan, his name has to be changed, even if he 

 is called Georgis (George), which is regarded as that of a saint, both by 

 Mohammedans and Christians; and so if I became a Moslem my name 

 would be changed, though I bore a name acceptable to Mohammedans. 

 So with regard to the conversion from Islamism to Christianity, though the 

 person's name would be Abd-Allah, Abd-Alkareem, or Abd-Arraheem, all 

 of which are attributes of God, with the " Abd" (slave) added to them, they 

 would be changed to the name of a saint. Moses is considered by the 

 Moslems next to Christ and Mohammed, and they call him "Kaleem 

 Allah" (speaker with God,) yet if a Jew is named after him and turns 

 a Moslem, Moses would be changed to Mohammed, All, or some other name 

 implying a connexion with them. To show you how cautious a man must 

 be in giving an opinion about the derivation of some words as they were used 

 two or three thousand years ago, I will give you some illustration of some 

 extraordinary coincidences that have come to my knowledge in the meaning 

 of words. Of course, people must live some years in the country to know 

 what many of these words mean. We have the word " telegraph " in Meso- 

 potamia, as the telegraph system has been introduced into that country, as 

 well as in some other parts of the East. If you go, therefore, amongst the 

 Arabs of that country and ask them what " telegraph " means, they will tell 

 you that it means " to know by wire," because it happens that in their 

 Arabic "tel" means wire, and "araf" to know or expound. The meaning 

 of " telegraph," therefore, amongst these people is " to know by wire," or to 

 obtain " knowledge by wire." So if Europe were to be destroyed and Arabic 

 would be the only language extant, an Arab scholar might just as well give it 

 as his opinion that the word " telegraph" was derived from the Arabic words 

 " tel " and " araf" ! I must also relate to you a very serious mistake which 

 was made by a friend when we were guests of an Arab Chief by not being 

 able to pronounce the guttural kkaf or k properly. The Chief had killed a 

 sheep for us, of which a sort of stew was made, in which the head, the 

 trotters, the liver, the heart, and other parts of the animal were mixed up 

 together. It is considered polite amongst the Arabs, when a party is seated 

 together, for one to offer the other the nicest thing in the dish ; and so my 

 friend, for civility's sake, picked out a bit of the heart and asked the Chief if 

 he would take a piece of that " kalib." Now, in Arabic the words "heart " and 

 " dog " have the same pronounciation, with only this difference, namely, that 

 the first letter of the word, k, must be pronounced more guttural in the word 

 which means heart ; and any one who cannot make the proper sound 

 would be certain to say kalib instead of Wcalib ; that is to say, dog 

 instead of heart. You can well fancy, then, how disgusted our 



* We see also in Genesis xli. 45, that in taking Joseph into his service, 

 Pharaoh changed his name into "Zaphuath-paaneah." H. KASSAM. 



