ROSARY

Arabic subḥah ( سبحة‎ ). The rosary amongst Muḥammadans consists of 100 beads, and is used by them for counting the ninety-nine attributes of God, together with the e ential name Allāh [ GOD ]; or the repetition of the Tasbīḥ (“O Holy God!”), the Taḥmīd (“Praised be God!”), and the Takbīr (“God is Great!”), or for the recital of any act of devotion. It is called in Persian and in Hindūstānī the Tasbīḥ ( تسبيح‎ ). The introduction of the rosary into Christen dom in ascribed by Pope Pius V., in a Bull, A.D . 1596, to Dominic, the founder of the Black Friars ( A.D . 1221), and it is related that Paul of Pherma, an Egyptian ascetic of the fourth century, being ordered to recite 300 prayers, collected as many pebbles which he kept in his bosom, and threw out one by one at every prayer, which shows that the rosary was probably not in use at that period. ʿAbdu ʾl-Ḥaqq, the commentator on the Mishkātu ʾl-Maṣābiḥ , says that in the early days of Islām the Muḥammadans counted God’s praises on small pebbles, or on the fingers, from which the Wahhābīs maintain that their Prophet did not use a rosary. It seems probable that the Muslims borrowed the rosary from the Buddhists, and that the Crusaders copied their Muslim opponents and introduced it into Christen dom. IMG:3048615538088815629_p546.png:Rosary. ROZAH ( روزه‎ ). The Persian word for the Arabic ṣaum , or fasting. [ FASTING , RAMAZAN .] RUBʿ ( ربع‎ ). A fourth. A legal term used in Muḥammadan law, e.g . “a fourth,” or the wife’s portion when her husband dies without i ue. RUḤ ( روح‎ ), pl. arwāḥ ; Heb. ‏רוּחַ‎ ruakh , “spirit; soul; life.” Ibnu ʾl-As̤īr , author of the Nihāyah , says it is the nervous fluid or animal spirit. A vaporous substance, which is the principle of vitality and of sensation, and of voluntary motion. In the Kitābu ʾt-Taʿrifāt , it is defined as a subtle body, the source of which is the hollow of the corporeal heart, and which diffuses itself into all the other parts of the body by means of the pulsing veins and arteries. See also Gen. ix. 4 : “Flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof.” Many of the ancients believed the soul to reside in the blood. (See Virgil’s Æn ., ix. p. 349.) The breath which a man breathes and which pervades the whole body. Called in Persian jān ( جان‎ ). The philosophers say it is the blood, by the exhausting of which life ceases. The word is generally rendered in Hindūstānī as of the feminine gender, but Arabic authors render it as often masculine as feminine. (See Lane’s Arabic Dictionary , in loco .) In the Qurʾān the word is sometimes used for Jesus, who is known as Rūḥu ʾllāh (“the Spirit of God”), for the angel Gabriel, and also for life, grace, soul, and the Spirit of Prophecy. (A complete list of texts is given in the article SPIRIT .) According to the Kitābu ʾt-Taʿrīfāt , p. 76, spirit is of three kinds:— (1) Ar-Rūḥu ʾl-Insānī ( الروح الانسانى‎ ), “the human spirit,” by which is understood the mind of man, which distinguishes him from the animal, and which is given to him, by the decree of God, from heaven, of the true e ence of which we know nothing. It is this spirit which is sometimes united to the body and sometimes separated from it, as in sleep or death. (2) Ar-Rūḥu ʾl-Ḥaiwānī ( الروح الحيوانى‎ ) , “the animal spirit,” by which is understood the life, the seat of which is in the heart, and which moves in the veins with the pulsations of the body. (3) Ar-Rūḥu ʾl-Aʿz̤am , ( الروح الاعظم‎ ) , “the exalted spirit,” that human spirit which is connected with the existence of God, but the e ence of which is unknown to all but the Almighty. The spiritual faculty in man. It is called also al-ʿAqlu ʾl-Awwal , “the first intelligence”; al-Ḥaqīqatu ʾl-Muḥammadīyah , “the e ence of Muḥammad”; an-Nafsu ʾl-Wāḥidah , “the single e ence”; al-Ḥaqīqatu ʾl-Samāwīyāh , “The original spirit of man first created by God.” The following terms are also found in Muslim works:— Ar-Rūḥu ʾn-Nabātī ( الروح النباتى‎ ), “the vegetable spirit.” Ar-Rūḥu ʾt̤-T̤abiʿī ( الروح الطبعى‎ ), “the animal spirit.” Ar-Rūḥu ʾl-Ilāhī ( الروح اللهى‎ ), “the divine spirit.” Ar-Rūḥu ʾs-Suflī ( الروح السفلى‎ ), “the lower spirit,” which is said to belong merely to animal life. Ar-Rūḥu ʾl-ʿUlwī ( الروح العلوى‎ ), “the lofty or heavenly spirit.” Ar-Rūḥu ʾl-Jārī ( الروح الجارى‎ ), “the travelling spirit,” or that which leaves the body in sleep and gives rise to dreams. Ar-Rūḥu ʾl-Muḥkam ( الروح المحكم‎ ), “the resident spirit,” which is said never to leave the body, even after death. Rūḥu ʾl-Ilqāʾ ( روح الالقاء‎ ), “the spirit of casting into.” Used for Gabriel and the spirit of prophecy. [ SPIRIT .] AR -RŪḤU ʾL-AMĪN ( الروح الامين‎ ). “The faithful spirit.” Occurs in the Qurʾān , Sūrah xxvi. 193 : “Verily from the Lord of the Worlds hath this book come down; the faithful spirit hath come down with it upon thy heart, that thou mayest become a warner in the clear Arabic tongue.” It is supposed to refer to the Angel Gabriel. [ SPIRIT .] RŪḤU ʾLLĀH ( روح الله‎ ). “The Spirit of God.” According to Muḥammad, it is the special Kalimah , or title of Jesus. See the Qurʾān. Sūratu ʾn-Nisāʾ (iv.), 169 : “The Me iah, Jesus, the son of Mary, is only an Apostle of God, and His Word, which He conveyed into Mary and a spirit proceeding from Himself.” ( Rūḥun min-hu ). Sūratu ʾl-Ambyāʾ (xxi.), 91 : “Into whom (Mary) we breathed of our spirit .” Sūratu ʾt-Taḥrīm (lxvi . ), 12 : “Into whose womb we breathed of our spirit .” It is also used in the Qurʾān for Adam, Sūratu ʾs-Sajdah (xxxii.), 8 ; Sūratu ʾl-Ḥijr (xv.), 29 ; and Sūratu Ṣād (xxxviii.), 72 ; where it is said that God breathed his spirit into Adam, but Adam is never called Rūḥu ʾllāh in any Muḥammadan book. [ SPIRIT , JESUS .] RŪḤU ʾL-QUDUS ( روح القدس‎ ). “The Holy Spirit” ( lit . “Spirit of Holine ”). The expre ion only occurs three times in the Qurʾān:— Sūrah ii. 81 : “We gave Jesus the Son of Mary manifest signs and aided him with the Holy Spirit .” Sūrah ii. 254 : “Of them is one to whom God spoke ( i.e . Moses); and we have raised some of them degrees; and we have given Jesus the son of Mary manifest signs, and strengthened him by the Holy Spirit .” Sūrah v. 109 : “When God said, ‘O Jesus, son of Mary! remember my favours towards thee and towards thy mother, when I aided thee with the Holy Spirit , till thou didst speak to men in the cradle, and when grown up. ’ ” Al-Baiẓāwī says the meaning of the expre ion Rūḥu ʾl-Qudus is the Angel Gabriel, although some understand it to refer to the spirit of Jesus, and others to the Gospel of Jesus, whilst some think it is the Ismu ʾl-Aʿz̤am , or “the exalted name of God,” whereby Jesus raised the dead. (See Tafsīru ʾl-Baiẓāwī , p. 65.) [ SPIRIT , HOLY SPIRIT .]