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The Seal of Solomon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

J. McG. Dawkins
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Extract

Among the sharpest contrasts between East and West has been their different approach to the problems of physical science. The West, aiming low, concentrated on the Philosopher's Stone and the Elixir of Life, conceivably attainable ends, and arrived at modern science. The East aimed higher at the grand source of power, from which all the rest would follow, and it arrived practically nowhere. This power was sought in knowledge of the Seal of the Great Name, the seal containing the Ineffable Name of God, which was believed to have given Solomon his power over the Djinn, the birds and the winds.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 76 , Issue 3-4 , October 1944 , pp. 145 - 150
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1944

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References

page 145 not 1 Winkler, H. A., Siegel und Charaktere in der Muhammedanisehen Zauberei, Tuebingen, 1930Google Scholar.Stevenson, W. B., Studia Semitica et Orientalia, Glasgow Oriental Society, 1920Google Scholar.Doutté, E., Magie et Religion dans l'Afrigue du Nord, Jourdan, Alger, 1908Google Scholar.

page 145 note 2 Al-buni. Cod. Par. 2647. Thirteenth century.

page 147 note 1 Tod, , Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan (ed. by Crooke, W., 1920, vol. i, 383)Google Scholar.

page 147 note 2 Elliot, , Supplemental Glossary, ed. by , Beames, 1869, vol. ii, p. 68Google Scholar, note.

page 148 note 1 Smith, V. A., Akbar the Great Mogul, 2nd ed., 1919, p. 91Google Scholar.

page 148 note 2 Russell, R. V., Tribes and Castes, 1916, ii, p. 395Google Scholar.

page 149 note 1 The use of such magic words and numbers on letters is widespread. I am indebted to Sir Richard Burn for the information that Indian Musulmans so use 786, the abjad equivalent of the Bismillah formula; while in Turkey, the name Katmir, the dog of the Seven Sleepers, has been regarded as presiding over letters (see Hasluck, F. W., Christianity and Islam under the Sultans, 1929, i, p. 313)Google Scholar.