Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ D-stem, denom. from ↗¹naǧm ‘star’ (from ↗naǧama ‘to appear, come in sight’).
▪ [v2] ‘to pay in instalments’, too, is related etymologically to the observation of stars, but treated separately here due to distinction in modern semantics.

hist

▪ First attestation of vb. II in the meaning ‘to expect a tempest from the rising of its star’ <748 CE in a verse by the poet Ibn al-Dumaynaẗ, but naǧm in the sense of ‘astrology’, and munaǧǧim ‘astrologer’, are attested earlier (ca. 732 CE in a saying reported by Wahb b. Munabbih, and ca. 660 CE in a saying ascribed to ʕAlī b. ʔAbī Ṭālib, respectively) – HDAL_200621.

cogn

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disc

▪ The value is clearly dependent on ↗¹naǧm ‘star’, and so is also the special meaning of naǧǧama, ^†‘to expose a little mud to the air [i.e., to the stars] overnight to be able to judge the next flooding of the Nile (practiced in Egypt)’.
▪ EgAr distinguishes between ni gmaẗ ‘star’and na gmaẗ ‘jinx’. The EgAr vb. I nagam, i, ‘to jinx, put the evil eye on’ (as, e.g., in dōl nās wiḥšīn nagamū-na w-ḥasadū-na ‘they are bad people, they’ve jinxed us and put the evil eye on us’) signifies a magic practice based on the belief in the power of the stars – BadawiHinds1986.
▪ From the observation of the course of the stars and the moments they rise are not only the values ‘to predict the future, (and, in Egypt) the flooding of the Nile’ as well as ‘to practice astrology’, but also ↗²naǧǧama ‘to fix s.th. according to the course of stars, hence, to accomplish s.th. at appointed terms’, and then also ‘to pay in instalments’ (cf. also ^†naǧm ‘appointed time, term’, and ↗²naǧm ‘instalment’). Al-Bustānī1869 explained the relation between the observation of the stars and paying one’s debts by the fact that, as he put it, »the Arabs used to measure time (tuwaqqit) according to the rising of the stars because they did not know how to calculate but remembered the times of the year by natural phenomena [ʔanwāʔ, lit., tempests]. They also called the time at which it [i.e., a tempest etc.] was due [or to be expected], metaphorically, a ‘star’ because its happening was not to be known except by [the observation of] the stars. Then they [sc. the Arabs] extended this meaning [even farther], calling also a due payment a ‘star’ because it was due […] at the time when [its] star rose« (1869: 2136).

west

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deriv

► tanaǧǧama, vb. V, to observe the stars, predict the future from the stars: Dt-stem, intr. of ¹naǧǧama, denom. from ¹naǧm.

► naǧǧām and munaǧǧim, ^†mutanaǧǧim, pl. ‑ūn, n., astrologer: n.prof. (I) and PA II, ^†PA V, respectively.
► tanǧīm, n., astrology: vn. II.

For other items of the root, see ↗naǧama, ↗²naǧǧama, ↗¹naǧm, ↗²naǧm, ↗³naǧm, ↗naǧmaẗ, ↗¹manǧam, ↗²manǧam, ↗manǧim, ↗^†minǧam, (AlgAr) ↗naǧām, and, for the whole picture, root entry ↗√NǦM.

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