▪ Jeffery1938: »The Commentators differ among themselves as to whether it stands for a Jewish, a Christian, or a Sabian place of worship. They agree, however, in deriving it from
ṣamaʕa (cf. Ibn Durayd, 166), and Fraenkel agrees,
1
thinking that originally it must have meant a high tapering building.
2
The difficulty of deriving it from
ṣamaʕa, however, is obvious, and al-Ḫafāǧī, 123, lists it as a borrowed word. / Its origin is apparently to be sought in SArabia, from the word that is behind the Eth [Gz]
ṣomāʕt ‘a hermit’s cell’ (Nöldeke,
Beiträge, 52),
3
though we have as yet no SAr word with which to compare it.«