Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ Cheung2017rev: ultimately of Ir origin, but prob. borrowed indirectly, via Syr mgušā or (Emp)Aram *magūš ‘id.’ < oPers maguš ‘Magian priest’. For details, see below, section DISC.
▪ …

hist

▪ eC7 Q 22:17 ʔinna ’llaḏīna ʔāmanū wa-’llaḏīna hādū wa-’l-ṣābiʔīna wa-’l-naṣārā wa-’l-maǧūsa wa-’llaḏīna ʔašrakū ʔinna ’llāha yafṣilu bayna-hum yawma ’l-qiyāmaẗi ‘Lo! those who believe (this revelation), and those who are Jews, and the Sabaeans and the Christians and the Magians and the idolaters – Lo! Allah will decide between them on the Day of Resurrection’.

cogn

disc

▪ Jeffery1938: »They [the Magians, or Zoroastrians] are mentioned in a late Madinan verse along with Jews, Christians, and Sabians. – The early authorities know that the sun-worshippers are meant, and it was early recognized that it was a foreign word.¹ Ibn Sīda and others derived the word from manǧ said to mean qaṣīr [small] and kūš said to mean al-ʔuḏun [ear], and tell us that it referred to a man manǧ kūš, so called because of the smallness of his ears, who was the first to preach the Magian faith.² Others, however, knew that it was derived from the Iranian Magush (LA, viii, 99). – It is clearly the oPers Magush,³ with the acc. form of which, magum, we can compare the Av magav or moγu⁴ and Phlv maγōī. ⁵ From Av ??? come the Arm mog,⁶ and Hbr māg, as well as the modPers moġ.⁷ In Phlv we also find a form magōšīā,⁸ derived directly from the oPers, and this appears in the Aram ʔmgwšʔ, Grk mágos,⁹ Syr mgwšā and the mgwš of the Aram of the Behistun inscription.¹⁰ – Lagarde, GA, 159, would derive maǧūs from the Grk mágos, and though Vollers, ZDMG, li, 303, follows him in this there is little to be said in its favour. The word was well known in pre-Islamic days and occurs in the old poetry,¹¹ and so may quite well have come direct from mPers, though it is also a possibility that it may have come through Syr.¹² «

1. al-Ǧawālīqī, Muʕarrab, 141; as-Suyūṭī, Itq, 324; Mutaw, 47; al-Khafāǧī, 182. 2. TA, iv, 245; LA, viii, 99. 3. Vide Meillet, Grammaire du vieux Perse, p. 148; and note Haug, Parsis, 169. 4. Bartholomae, AIW, 1111; Horn, Grundriss, 221; Frahang, Glossary, 94; Herzfeld, Paikuli, Glossary, 213. 5. West, Glossary, 223; PPGl, 152 and ???, 160; Frahang, Glossary, 114. See also ZDMG, xliv, 671, for its occurrence on a Sasanian gem. 6. Hübschmann, Arm. Gramm., i, 195. 7. Vullers, Lex, ii, 1197; BQ, 863. 8. PPGl, 152; Frahang, Glossary, p. 113. In the Assyrian transcription of the Behistun inscription it is written magushu. Note also the magūstān = priestly order. Paikuli, Glossary, 214. 9. There is an alternative theory that the Grk is a sg. formed from Mágoi, the name of an ancient Median tribe, but we find Magousaîoi in Eusebius. 10. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri, p. 254. 11. Vide Horovitz, KU, 137. 12. Mingana, Syriac Influence, 95; Ahrens, Muḥammad, 9.

west

▪ Cf. Engl magi, sg. magus) ‘skilled magicians, astrologers’, »c. 1200, from Lat magi, pl. of magus ‘magician, learned magician’, from Grk magos, a word used for the Pers learned and priestly class as portrayed in the Bible (said by ancient historians to have been originally the name of a Median tribe), from oPers maguš ‘magician’ (see magic). Also, in Chr history, the ‘wise men’ who, according to Matthew, came from the east to Jerusalem to do homage to the newborn Christ (lC14). || magic (n.), lC14, magike ‘art of influencing or predicting events and producing marvels using hidden natural forces’, also ‘supernatural art’, especially the art of controlling the actions of spiritual or superhuman beings; from oFr magique ‘magic; magical’, from lLat magice ‘sorcery, magic’, from Grk magikē (presumably with tekhnē ‘art’), fem. of magikos ‘magical’, from magos ‘one of the members of the learned and priestly class’, from oPers maguš, which is possibly from protIE root *magh- ‘to be able, have power’.¹ / The transferred sense of ‘legerdemain, optical illusion, etc.’ is from 1811. It displaced oEngl wiccecræft (see witch), also drycræft, from dry ‘magician’, from Irish drui ‘priest, magician’ (see Druid). Natural magic in the Middle Ages was that which did not involve the agency of personal spirits; it was considered more or less legitimate, not sinful, and involved much that would be explained scientifically as the manipulation of natural forces« – EtymOnline.

1. »It forms all or part of: dismay, deus ex machina, may (v.) ‘am able’, might (n.) ‘bodily strength, power’, main, machine, mechanic, mechanism, mechano-, mage, magi, magic. | It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Skr mahan ‘great’, Grk mēkhanē ‘device, means’, mekhos, makhos ‘means, instrument’, oChSlav mošti, Ru moč’ ‘can, be able’, oEngl mæg ‘I can’, Goth mag ‘can, is able’, oHGe magan, oNo magn ‘power, might’« – EtymOnline.

deriv

►maǧūsī, adj./n., Magian; Magus, adherent of Mazdaism: nsb-formation
►maǧūsiyyaẗ, n.f., Mazdaism: abstr. formation in -iyyaẗ

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