All sorts of things are used as amulets in Arabia, and their use is justified by the saying of Mohammed himself: “There is no wrong in using charms and spells so long as you do not associate anything with God.” The most common things used as amulets are a small Koran suspended in a silver case; words from the Koran written on paper and carried in a leather receptacle; the names of Allah or their numerical value; the names of Mohammed and his companions; precious stones with or without inscriptions; beads; old coins; clay images; the teeth of wild animals; holy earth from Mecca or Kerbela in the shape of tiny bricks, or in small bags. When the Kaaba covering at Mecca is taken down each year and renewed, the old cloth is cut up into small pieces and sold for charms.
The women in Mecca use an amulet of special power called “Mishkash,” which is supposed to exercise its virtue for the increase of the family. The “Mishkash” is really a copy of an old Venetian coin, representing the Duke of Venice kneeling before St. Mark on the one side, and on the other side is the image of Christ surrounded by stars. Of course the women themselves are in total ignorance of the inscription on the coin and of its Christian character.
According to the principles of Islam only verses from the Koran should be used, but the door of superstition once being set ajar by Mohammed himself, as we know from the story of his life, it is now wide open. The chapters from the Koran which are most often selected for use as amulets and put in the little cases shown in the picture are Surahs I, VI, XVIII, XXXVI, XLIV, LV, LXVII, LXXVIII. There are five verses in the Koran called the verses of protection, “Ayat-el-Hifdh,” which are the most powerful to defend from evil. They read as follows: “The preservation of heaven and earth is no burden unto Him;” “God is the best protector;” “They guard him by the command of God;” “We guard him from every stoned devil;” “A protection from every rebellious devil.” These verses are written with great care and with a special kind of ink by those who deal in amulets, and are then sold for a good price to Moslem women and children. The ink used for writing amulets is saffron water, the juice of onions, water from the sacred well of Zem Zem, and sometimes even human blood. It is very important that the one who writes the amulet be a holy man in the Moslem sense of that word. We are told in Arabic books on the subject (and these books are printed by the thousands) that “The diet of the one who prepares charms depends on the kind of names of God which he intends to write or recite. If they are the terrible attributes of Allah, then he must refrain from the use of meat, fish, eggs, honey and musk. If they are His amiable attributes, he must abstain from butter, curds, vinegar, salt and ambergris.”
A favourite kind of amulet is called the magic square, and I have drawn one here for you. Most of the Arabs believe that there are only four elements, earth, air, fire and water, and under these four names they have numerical squares, as you see them, of the numbers one to sixteen, and whichever way you add the columns up and down or across the total is always thirty-four. Try it.
EARTH
| 8 | 11 | 14 | 1 |
| 13 | 2 | 7 | 12 |
| 3 | 16 | 9 | 6 |
| 10 | 5 | 4 | 15 |
WATER
| 14 | 4 | 1 | 15 |
| 7 | 9 | 12 | 6 |
| 11 | 5 | 8 | 10 |
| 2 | 16 | 13 | 3 |
AIR