Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ The traditional opinion, put forward, among others, by Lane, was that the ‘throwing, casting of stones’ was the »primary meaning« and [v2] thus dependent on [v1]. However, this view is contested by Kogan who, sorting out the difficult semantic entanglements within the Sem root, comes to the conclusion that the overall evidence seems to speak against the traditional theory. Following Leslau, Kogan assumes a semantic development along the line *‘to speak, say > to speak against, bring legal action against > to abuse, curse > to cast stones > heap of stones > stone(s)’.

hist

▪ eC7 raǧama (to stone) Q 18:20 ʔin yaẓharū ʕalay-kum yarǧumū-kum ‘if they should discover you, they will stone you’. – raǧm (the act of stoning) Q 18:22 raǧman bi’l-ġaybi ‘conjecturing, guessing in the dark, guessing at what is being kept hidden, shooting in the dark [lit., throwing stones without seeing, blindly)’. – ruǧūm (pl. of raǧm : materials for stoning, rocks, projectiles, missiles) Q 67:5 wa-ǧaʕalnā-hā ruǧūman liš-šayāṭīni ‘and We have made them [the stars] rocks for stoning the devils’. – raǧīm (quasi-PP: stoned, cast out) Q 15:17 wa-ḥafiẓnā-hā min kulli šayṭānin raǧīmin ‘and guarded it from every outcast devil’; (epithet of Satan) Q 16:98 al-~ ‘the outcast, the stoned’. – marǧūm (stoned, castaway, outcast) Q 26:116 la-takūnanna min-a ’l-marǧūmīna ‘you will be among those stoned’.
▪ Lane describes two series of semantic values attached to raǧm in ClassAr: (1) ‘throwing, casting of stones’ > ‘slaying (in any manner, but generally:) stoning, putting to death’ > ‘beating, battering’ (al-ʔarḍ the ground, said of camels); (2) act of ‘cursing, reviling’ > ‘driving away; expelling; putting, or placing, at a distance, away, or far away; cutting off from friendly, or loving communion or intercourse; forsaking; abandoning’
▪ Hava1899 has still raǧama u (raǧm) in the sense, among others, of ‘to put a stone on (DO a tomb)’, the L-stem ^†rāǧama ‘to throw stones (DO at s.o.); to contend (DO with s.o., fī in words); to protect (ʕan)’, the tL-stem ^†tarāǧama ‘to throw stones at one another’, as well as the PP II ^†muraǧǧam ‘doubtful (news)’ and the (PA III, nominalized adj.?) ^†murāǧim ‘foul speech’.

cogn

▪ CAD, Zammit2002, Tropper2008, Kogan2015: (a) [Sem *RGM ‘to speak (emphatically), to curse’] Akk ragāmu ‘to call, call out; to prophesy; to summon, convoke; to lodge a claim, sue, bring a legal complaint, claim s.th. by lawsuit’, rigmu ‘voice, sound; noise; call, proclamation; thunder; wailing, lamentation; complaint, request, legal complaint’ (from oAkk on), Ug rgm ‘to say, tell, announce, report, talk’, Ar raǧama ‘to revile, utter evil speech; rāǧama ‘to plead in defense of s.o.’, Gz ragama, Gur räggämä, (as)suraggämä, Amh täräggʷämä, räggämä ‘to curse, insult, revile’, Jib s̃érégəm ‘to blame one another with harsh words’. – > (b) [protCSem *RGM ‘to stone’] Hbr rāgam ‘to stone, kill by stoning’, Aram Syr rᵉgam, Ar raǧama ‘to stone’, (? Ar > ) Soq rígɛm ‘to be stoned’. – > (c) [non-Eth SSem (Ar SAr)] Jib erógəm ‘to cover (a dead body, with stones and soil)’, rɔ́tgəm ‘(corpse) to be buried’, s̃ergím ‘to be covered, buried alive (as, e.g., a witch)’, rəgmún ‘stoned, covered by stones; covered by stones and soil (in the grave)’, Ar raǧam ‘stones that are placed upon a grave’, raǧǧama ‘to place a stone on one’s grave’. – ? [SAr] Mhr rəgūm ‘to cover (usually food to keep the flies off it)’, Jib ɛrgúm ‘to cover, put a lid on’, Soq régom ‘to cover, protect’.

disc

▪ In their EI² entry on »radjm«, M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes and T. Fahd still seem to put forward the traditional opinion that the primary value of raǧm is ‘the casting of stones’: »r-ǧ-m is a Sem root, derivatives from which are found in the O[ld]T[estament] with the meaning of ‘to stone, to drive away or kill by throwing stones’ an abominable creature; raǧmaẗ is ‘a heap of stones, an assembly of men, cries, tumult’. / In Arabic, the root means ‘to stone, to curse’; raǧm ‘heap of stones’, also means simply the ‘stones placed upon tombs’ either as flagstones or in a heap, a custom which ḥadīṯ condemns, recommending rather that a grave should be level with the surface of the ground. In the ḥadīṯ of ʕAbd Allāh b. Muġfal, it is discussed whether lā turaǧǧimū qabrī means ‘do not build my grave in a mound’ or ‘do not utter imprecations there’.«
▪ However, the same entry also states that »[t]he lapidation and heaps of stones at Minā are called [with metathesis] ǧamraẗ [√ǦMR, not √RǦM!], and ǧamarāt al-ʕArab means ‘the groups of Bedouin tribes’; we find there the two old meanings of the root which can be taken back to ǧ-m-, in Ar ↗ǧamma and ↗ǧamaʕa ‘to reunite’. The Arab grammarians derive ǧamraẗ ‘lapidation’ from ǧamarāt al-ʕArab. / In addition to the meaning of ‘ritual stoning as a punishment for fornication’, raǧm means the casting of stones at Minā, which is one of the pre-Islamic rites preserved by Muḥammad and inserted among the ceremonies of the pilgrimage« (op.cit. supra).
▪ For the most recent analysis cf. Kogan2015, quoted above in section CONC and, in more detail, in “root” entry ↗RǦM.

west

▪ Tu recm (<1500) Kıpçak Türkçesi Sözlüğü : from Ar raǧm ‘a stoning, killing by stoning’, akin to Akk ragāmu ‘to speak, call, lodge a claim at court’ – Nişanyan14Oct2014.

deriv

► raǧama bi’l-ġayb, vb. I, 1 to talk about s.th. of which one knows nothing; 2 to guess, surmise, make conjectures; 3 to predict the future: from the pre-Isl mantic practice of casting pebbles in the sand to predict the future; see raǧǧama, next paragraph.

► raǧǧama, vb. II, 1 to talk about s.th. of which one knows nothing; 2 to guess, surmise, make conjectures; 3 to predict the future: denom. from ruǧmaẗ ‘pile of pebbles’ or ruǧūm ‘materials for stoning’. As already noted by Wellhausen1897, Ar tarǧīm has the same meaning as ḍarb bi’l-ḥaṣy, the art of prophesy from throwing pebbles. From this, the sense of ‘to assume, conjecture’ could be derived: *‘to throw stones > to interpret the results, try to give them a meaning > to make conjectures, assume’. ↗tarǧama, too, may be dependent on the heathen practice: *‘to throw stones > to (try to) interpret the results, solve the riddle > to interpret (in general)’

► raǧm, n., 1 stoning: vn. I; 2 (pl. ruǧūm) missile: transfer of meaning from the act of stoning to anything that is thrown. – Cf. also ruǧmaẗ, below. | raǧm bi’l-ġayb, n., conjecture, guesswork; prophecy: see preceding paragraphs.
► ruǧum, n., shooting stars, meteorites: transfer of meaning (*‘s.th. thrown, missile > what looks like missiles in the sky’)? See also ↗s.v.
► ruǧmaẗ, pl. ruǧam, riǧām, n.f., tombstone: prob. deverb., resultative (originally *‘heap of pebbles’, piling up when stones are thrown, hence also: ‘heap of stones on a tomb’). – Cf. Wellhausen1897: 111-2: »Bei gewissen Heiligtümern war eine eigentümliche Sitte mit dem Umlauf [i.e., the ↗ṭawāf ritual] verbunden, nemlich das ĭrtiǧām, das Werfen kleiner Steine. In einem Verse des ʔAʕšà heisst es: “sie läuft um sie herum und geht hin und her zu ihnen, so wie ein Steinwerfender um einen Steinhaufen den Umlauf macht”.¹ Die Sitte ist uns namentlich daher bekannt, dass sie am zehnten Tage des ↗ḥaǧǧ und an den drei folgenden Tagen bei den drei ǧamarāt von Mina ausgeübt wird. Das Heiligtum, die ruǧmaẗ oder ǧamraẗ, ist in diesem Fall kein einzelner Stein, sondern ein Steinhaufen. Auch bei den Hebräern (Gal, Gen. 31:51s., nicht Gilgal) und bei den Aramäern (Igura) hat es solche Steinhaufen gegeben, ebenso bei den Saracenen des Nilus. Hieronymus übersetzt [Hbr] ki-ṣrôr ʔ^äḇän bᵊ-margēmāh Prov[erbs] 26:8 mit ‘mittere lapidem in acervum Mercurii’;² er denkt an die griechische Sitte der [Grk] hérmakes, auf die jeder Vorübergehende einen Stein warf. Der Steinhaufen kann aber auch ein ‘Grab’ bezeichnen, und auch dann kommt es vor, dass die Vorübergehenden neue Steine hinzu werfen.³ Im Islam war das allerdings eine Entehrung des Toten,⁴ ursprünglich aber wol eine Verehrung, wie die Analogie vermuten lässt und das Beispiel des Abu Righal von Tâif (BHisham 32,20) zu beweisen scheint.⁵ «
► raǧīm, adj., 1 stoned; 2 cursed, damned: quasi-PP I; see also ↗s.v. – 3 For another value, see ↗riǧīm.

1. Freytag, Hamasae versio 1, 371. 2. Cf. the translation ‘as a small stone in a heap of stones’, in The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text, JPS Tanakh 1917. The English Standard Version, however, has renders the Hbr text as ‘Like one who binds the stone in the sling’. 3. Aġānī 14: 131,26; BHišām 32,20. Die gewöhnliche Bedeutung von ruǧmaẗ und raǧm ist: ‘Steinhaufe über einem Grabe’. 4. BAṯīr 3: 144,25; Aġānī 14: 144,12s.; Bakrī 679. 5. Ein ähnlicher Brauch kommt bei den Juden vor, und V. A. Huber bezeugt ihn für die Iren. – Vgl. Hamlet, Act 5, Sc. 1.

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