Every-Day Life in Palestine.
By William Mead Jones
The following was verified during my residence in the Holy Land, 1854–1861; Biblical manners are to be seen everywhere among the Arabs. They are proud of their descent from Abraham; they are proud of their language and of their conservatism. Their language contains nearly all the roots of the Hebrew, and is, in fact, Hebrew refined, with a verbal development bordering on the marvelous, it being a kind of out-branching tree beyond any other of the scintillations from Babel. A single root-word can be carried through its thirteen aboorwabs—doors—or conjugations, and spread out into eighteen hundred variations. The oneness and permanency of pronunciation are very remarkable. Its age and conservation of the past reminds one of the great pyramids and obelisks of Egypt; yea, when looked at as the museum of Biblical idioms and customs, you believe more firmly that “the word of the Lord endureth forever.” Not any of the nations, whether Jew or Arab, name the days of the week, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, &c.; nor do they call the first day of the week Lord’s day, nor do they ever give to the seventh day the name Saturday. But this I noticed constantly: The notation of time is by hours—twelve hours for the night, and twelve hours for the day, and both are called a day, i. e., a complete or perfect day. The evening before the day belongs to that day, or the night precedes the day. Beginning with our Saturday night at sundown, they call it laylt-el-had—night of the first—the day being understood. Sunday night is called laylt-il-itneen—night of the second—the day being understood, and rarely if ever expressed. Those who carried watches I often saw winding and regulating them at sundown. Never do they count the day from midnight to midnight, but always from sundown to sundown. The first hour of the night is one hour from and after sundown—and the first hour of the day-time is reckoned from and after the expiration of twelve complete hours of the night. The first hour of the morning of June 21, it will be seen, begins some time after sunrise, and so ending the twelve hours of the day precisely at sundown. When an evening appointment is made for a meeting, or business, the language used is “night of the First, night of the Second,” etc. The only exception is where the appointment or event is soon after sundown or in the early part of the evening, when the language is “such a day at evening;” but the former mode of speech is the general one; yet in no case do they understand the expression “the same day at evening” to mean that that evening belongs to that day, but to the day following. In some Christian liturgies there may be read in Arabic: yom ir-rub: Day of the Lord, or Lord’s day, for the first day of the week. But Lord’s day is not known among the great mass of the people. Whether any of the missionaries are trying to change gradually the habits of the people in this respect I cannot say. In ecclesiastical life they do try to influence their converts to say yom ir-rub, Lord’s day; but I think they do not try their tongues at calling it Sabbath in Arabic, for that would make an awkward mess of it, for the reason (and which is very satisfactory to us) that the seventh day is known throughout Arabdom by yom es-sabt—or day of the Sabbath. Even from the mouth of the missionary you will hear as frequently yom es-sabt as yom el-itneen—day of the Sabbath—day of the Second, i. e., Monday. The only exception to the Genesis’ mode of naming the days of the week is with the sixth day, which, since the rise of Mohammedanism, is called yom al-joumah, day of the assembly; vulgarly called in English the Mohammedan Sabbath. But Sabbath is a misnomer, and the idea of rest is not in joumah at all. The word means simply assembly, and the assembling of the assembly of the “Faithful” amounts to no more than an hour or two of prayer in the middle of the day of Friday, public and private business going on as usual during the rest of the day. The following are the names of the days of the week as used by the Arabs and all who speak their language:— Ay-yam al-usbooah.
Days of the week.
Literally, Days of the Sevens. Al-a-had, The First,
Al-itneen, The Second,
Ab-telate, The Third,
Al-arbah, The Fourth,
Al-khamees, The Fifth,
Al-joumah, The Assembly,
As-sabt, or Es-sabt, The Sabbath. As before stated, when first, second, and third are spoken the word for day precedes in this form—day of the first—day of the Sabbath. Another thing which it is well for all Christian Sabbath-keepers to remember is, that neither the word seven nor any other name is given by the Arabs to the Sabbath day. It is always the Sabbath; and the reason for it, they say, is, that this has been its name from the beginning. The very name for our word week the sevens, is suggestive that it would be an offense to their sense of the sacredness of names, and of the order of antiquity, as well as a literary blunder, to call the seventh day of the sevens by another name than that of the Sabbath. Often have I seen them shrug the shoulder at the bare mention of the change made by the ahl-er-room—the people of Rome—Romans, in the reckoning of time. The Arabs affirm of their own method of dates and names that it is from old, old, OLD time, meaning from the beginning. Great changes are said to be going on in Syria and Palestine, but I think they are chiefly of a kind not likely to affect this style of speech, nor to obliterate God’s order of noting time. It is exceedingly interesting to hear those descendants of faithful Abraham chat about hours, days, weeks, months, and years, and indeed about everything that pertains to their every-day life. So ingrained is nature’s work, so permanent is their language, so established are their home customs, that to contemplate a change in their notation of time, I sooner expect the return of the Jews to that land than anything of the kind. While looking at and listening to them, I was often reminded of Topsy—they were “not brought up,” they “growed!” Added to the above, mention should be made of the fact that the Italians, in their daily life, called the seventh day, Sabbath, and so long as Protestants are allowed to apply Dominica to the first day, they will not trouble themselves about changing Sabbati to Saturne. After all, the work of polluting by an idol’s name the day appointed by God as a testimony against idolatry, belongs to the neighbors of Rome on the north and west, the English-speaking peoples included. Lord, “turn to the people a pure language!” If it is his will, let it be Arabic, a tongue containing two hundred thousand words, and spoken by a hundred million people. It is poetic, euphonic, of simple construction, very sublime, imaginative, given to the laconic, and yet capable of a marvelous amplification of expression. And as to zeal—“a hot language,” as my teacher used to say. While almost every civilized western hand has been employed to rob the holy day of God of its proper name, the “hand” that has been “against every man” has preserved and still maintains its grasp in keeping the name SABBATH in its proper God-given place, and to its own seventh day. WILLIAM MEAD JONES.
London, Nov. 24, 1874.