Magic and Divination in Early Islam by Emilie Savage-Smith;

Author:Emilie Savage-Smith;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Unlimited)
Published: 2004-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

6

ISLAMIC SEALS: MAGICAL OR PRACTICAL?

Venetia Porter

In public and private collections there are many thousands of seals that can be broadly defined as Islamic. They are made from a range of materials such as carnelian, chalcedony, rock crystal and hematite and carry a variety of types of inscriptions in Arabic script. There are names of owners, pious inscriptions which include invocations to God or Shi‘ite imams. Some carry symbols such as stars or single letters, numbers sometimes in squares, letters and numbers mixed together. Others have obscure and difficult inscriptions in Kufic script, generally relegated to the ‘undeciphered inscription’ category. All these inscriptions are engraved in reverse and are, therefore, made with the intention of stamping onto something. However, the same inscriptions or symbols often appear engraved in positive, and these objects are generally regarded as talismans. This paper considers firstly the overlap between the validatory and amuletic functions of seals, and then goes on to discuss a variety of magical seals and amulets.

The word khātam as described in Ibn Manẓūr’s dictionary Lisan al-‘Arab1 is ‘that which is placed on clay’ and al-khitām the clay which is used to seal documents (kitāb). Living in the 13th-14th century, Ibn Manẓūr worked in Tripoli in North Africa in the Dīwān al-Inshā’ where documents are likely to have still been sealed possibly with clay. While there are often references in historical texts to the sealing of documents in the various chanceries of the ‘Abbāsids or the Saljūqs, for example, clay seals still sometimes attached to papyrus documents only tend to survive from the early Islamic period.2

The term khātam grew to encompass a whole range of meanings and thus when Allan wrote the entry khātam in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, he describes it as ‘a seal, signet ring, the impression (also khatm) as well as the actual seal-matrix; it is applied not only to seals proper, engraved in incuse characters with retrograde inscriptions, but also in the very common seal-like objects with regular inscriptions of a pious or auspicious character;’ in addition to meaning a ring, it covers virtually any small ‘seal-like object which has been stamped with some mark.’3 The other terms that we find in the literature in connection with seals are faṣṣ, the engraved stone of a ring,4 and ṭābi‘5 as something which has been stamped on.

The first group of seals with which we are concerned here are a large group with inscriptions of a pious nature, sometimes, but not always, with a name attached: phrases such as ‘sovereignty belongs to God’ (al-mulk lillāh), I put my faith in God’ (tawakkalt‘ alā Allāh) or ‘such and such a person trusts in God’ (fulān yathiq billāh). It can be said that although these are personal seals, as will be shown below, through their references to God, and through the use of particular stones with known amuletic functions these seals have an inbuilt amuletic aspect to them.6

The ambiguity between seal and talisman alluded to by Allan has a very long history. Finkel in his

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