NAMUS ناموس
The angel, or being, which Waraqah is related to have said appeared to Moses. See Sahih ‘l-Bukhari, p. 3, where it is said, when Muhammad told Waraqah, the Jew, what he had seen on Mount Hira, Waraqah exclaimed. It is the Namus who appeared from God to Moses.”
‘Abdu ‘l-Haqq says Namus means one who can take knowledge of the secret thoughts of a man and is used in contradistinction to the word Jasus, “a spy,” who seeks to know the evil deeds of another.
According to the Kitabu ‘t-Ta’rifat, it is the law of God.
Mr. Emanuel Deutsch says: “The namus is a hermaphrodite in words. It is Arabic and also Greek. It is Talmudic. It is, in the first instance, , ‘law,’ that which by ‘custom and common consent’ has become so. In Talmudic phraseology it stands for the Thorah or Revealed Law. In Arabic it further means one who communicates a secret message. And all these different signification were conveyed by Waraqah to Muhammad. (Literary Remains, p. 78.)
The word namus occurs in the ethical work known as the Aklaq-i-Jalali, in the following passage:-
“The maintenance of equity, then , is realized by three things: (1) The holy institute of God, (2) The equitable Prince, (3) Money, or, as the old philosophers laid it down, the foremost is the institute, the second (for religion and government are twins): and the third is money in their language meaning discipline and correction). Thus the institute or greatest arbitrator is obeyed of all; to this oven the Prince or secondary arbitrator is bound to conform. While the third arbitrator, which is money, should be Invariably under the authority of the second, which is the Prince. An intimation of this principle we have in the Qur’an, Sura lvii. 26: ‘We have sent down the book, and the balance along with it, that man might stand by the right. and we have sent down steel (hadid), wherein is mighty power and advantages to man.” The book in this passage alludes to the institute; the balance to that which tests the quantities of things, In fact any instrument for ascertaining the value of heterogeneous objects (money being such an one), and steel to the sword, which is grasped by the might of the wrath-exerting doom-pronouncing Prince.” (Akhlaq-i-Jalali, Thompson’s ed., p. 127.)
The angel, or being, which Waraqah is related to have said appeared to Moses. See Sahih ‘l-Bukhari, p. 3, where it is said, when Muhammad told Waraqah, the Jew, what he had seen on Mount Hira, Waraqah exclaimed. It is the Namus who appeared from God to Moses.”
‘Abdu ‘l-Haqq says Namus means one who can take knowledge of the secret thoughts of a man and is used in contradistinction to the word Jasus, “a spy,” who seeks to know the evil deeds of another.
According to the Kitabu ‘t-Ta’rifat, it is the law of God.
Mr. Emanuel Deutsch says: “The namus is a hermaphrodite in words. It is Arabic and also Greek. It is Talmudic. It is, in the first instance, , ‘law,’ that which by ‘custom and common consent’ has become so. In Talmudic phraseology it stands for the Thorah or Revealed Law. In Arabic it further means one who communicates a secret message. And all these different signification were conveyed by Waraqah to Muhammad. (Literary Remains, p. 78.)
The word namus occurs in the ethical work known as the Aklaq-i-Jalali, in the following passage:-
“The maintenance of equity, then , is realized by three things: (1) The holy institute of God, (2) The equitable Prince, (3) Money, or, as the old philosophers laid it down, the foremost is the institute, the second (for religion and government are twins): and the third is money in their language meaning discipline and correction). Thus the institute or greatest arbitrator is obeyed of all; to this oven the Prince or secondary arbitrator is bound to conform. While the third arbitrator, which is money, should be Invariably under the authority of the second, which is the Prince. An intimation of this principle we have in the Qur’an, Sura lvii. 26: ‘We have sent down the book, and the balance along with it, that man might stand by the right. and we have sent down steel (hadid), wherein is mighty power and advantages to man.” The book in this passage alludes to the institute; the balance to that which tests the quantities of things, In fact any instrument for ascertaining the value of heterogeneous objects (money being such an one), and steel to the sword, which is grasped by the might of the wrath-exerting doom-pronouncing Prince.” (Akhlaq-i-Jalali, Thompson’s ed., p. 127.)
Based on Hughes, Dictionary of Islam
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