With these words Abraham Moses Luncz (1854–1918), the Lithuanian-born scholar of the land of Israel, expressed his bewilderment upon encountering the ‘strange’ customs of the Sephardim and the Jews from Islamic countries. The ‘five-fingered shape’ he observed ‘over the entrance of their homes’ is known in Arabic and Hebrew as a ḥamsa, literally meaning ‘five’. The folk term ḥamsa has become universal and it is not usually translated into English, although sometimes it may be called the ‘hand of God’ and recently even the ‘hand of Miriam’ (Moses’ sister, who defied Pharaoh's order to kill new born Hebrew boys by hiding Moses), referring to its magical protective properties. As a Jewish symbol it is closely associated with the biblical figure of Joseph (see below). As a Muslim one, it was known as ‘the hand of Fatima’ in reference to Fatima Zahra, the daughter of Muhammad revered for her purity. To the Sephardim and members of the edot hamizraḥ in the nineteenth century when Luncz drew attention to the object and its associated beliefs, the ḥamsa must have seemed quite unremarkable. It pervaded everyday life and was a familiar sight in their homes.

Over the next hundred years its status changed dramatically, especially in Israel. Ethnographic evidence suggests that the Sephardim in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries staunchly held on to their belief in the powers of the ḥamsa, but it had largely fallen into disuse by the mid-twentieth century.