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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 “Kaleeni 
Allah” (speaker with God,) yet if a Jew is named after him and turns 
a Moslem, Moses would be changed to Mohammed, Ali, 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 “ kaUb.’^ Now, in Arabic the words “ heart ” and 
“ dog ” have the 'same pronunciation, 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 halih instead of hkalib ; that is to say, (lorj 
instead ef 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 “ Zaphnath-paaneah.” — H. Eassam. 
