SOCIAL STATE OF THE ARABS. 341 



ledge is more highly venerated than that of the occult 

 sciences, which afford a maintenance to a vast 

 number of quacks and impudent pretenders. The 

 science of Ism Allah (or Name of God), enables the 

 possessor to discover what is passing in his absence, 

 to expel evil spirits, cure diseases, and dispose of 

 the winds and seasons as he chooses. Those who 

 have advanced far in this study pretend to calm 

 tempests at sea by the rules of art, or say their 

 prayers at noon in Mecca, without stirring from their 

 own houses in Aden or Bagdad. The Simta is not 

 quite so subhme a science, as it teaches merely the 

 feats and illusions of jugglers. Dervises and mol- 

 lahs practise it, and appear to the astonished spec- 

 tators to pierce their bodies with lances, strike 

 sharp-pointed instruments into their eyes, or leap 

 from the roofs of houses upon a pole shod with iron, 

 which seems to run through their body, while they 

 are carried like spitted victims about the streets. 

 The Kurra is the art of composing billets or amu- 

 lets, which secure the wearer from the power of 

 enchantments and all sorts of accidents. They are 

 also employed to give cattle an appetite for food, 

 and clear houses from flies or other vermin. The 

 practice of fortune-telling, which they call ramie, 

 is very common. The natives of Oman are pecu- 

 liarly skilled in sorcery {sihr) ; they are inferior, 

 however, to the witches and wizards of Europe, as 

 they know nothing about the art of riding through the 

 air on broomsticks, saihng to India in cockle-shells, 

 or holding nocturnal revelries in their mosques, 

 under the visible presidency of Satan. 



The Arabs pay great attention to their language, 

 which they speak and write with the utmost care. 

 No tongue, perhaps, is diversified by so many dia- 

 lects: the pronunciation in Yemen differs from that 

 of Tehama ; and both are distinct from the Bedouin 

 phraseology. It is a mistake, however, to suppose, 



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