Yesterday, at work a colleague was wearing a pendant shaped like a hand and she asked me if I had heard of it and what it was called in arabic (assuming that I knew arabic since I'm a muslim). Ignorantly, I told her that I had never seen it and didn't know what it was called. She told me that it has a 'significance' for both jews and muslims. She was half jewish and half something.
I found out later in the day that its called 'Hand of Fatimah' (Prophet Muhammed's daughter) or 'Khamsa (Five)' in Arabic. Apparently, it is used for protection against evil eye and any other evil, especially for girls. It has an eye at the back of the hand. It is usually worn by Algerians and is very famous in France. I can see why women like to wear it, its a very beautiful piece of jewelry.
Being a non-superstitious muslim, I knew this was a load of crap and a piece of some jewelry can't prevent evil from happening to you. But this was something that I hadn't heard of and it was an addition to my not-so-vast knowledge.
10 comments:
Hand of Fatimah huh; quite interesting.
Shhhh, or THE HAND OF FATIMAH will gecha! ;)
Knitmare, the Hand of Fatimah is used for protection against evil. It doesn't bring evil! You've got it the other way around.
what's kinda random (my husband is a French Algerian) is that a lot of the second and third generation north africans in France wear a hand of fatima the way someone would wear a cross necklace or something...the French even think that the girls who "shouldn't wear hijab" should wear a hand of fatima to "assert their muslimness". Sigh. The weird thing is that when i'm in the US, I see a lot of sephardic jews wearing it and not so many muslims.
Thanks for your comment on my blog. Yes my cat is my one true love, much to the dismay of Nice Husband.
One of my friends in college was from Tunisia and wore it as a necklace i want one too... they're a cool accessory though like you I dont believe in that kind of stuff.
These things are Shirk. They are from the created things which cannot benifit us, seek protection in the Creator of all things. Anything else is a door to the hellfire.
That's true Musa but sadly a lot of people don't get that.
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