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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 March 2015
The mark known as the “trace of prostration” (sīmā) that is mentioned in the Quran is well established in Islam as being a physical blemish on the forehead. Such marks on the forehead are widespread in religious traditions, often denoting community membership and piety. The Quranic instance fits this tendency. The forelock is also a symbol associated with the forehead that the Quran mentions, although that piece of hair carries negative connotations. This common feature of a person's appearance can, in other cultural situations, denote membership and piety just like a mark on the forehead. The vocabulary of the Quran incorporates images from the past, although the evidence is too slight to allow origins to be traced; popular religious ideas and practices have many sources beyond scripture.
1 Lane, Edward W., An Arabic–English Lexicon (London/Edinburgh, 1863–93)Google Scholar, 1208, from al-Zabīdī, Tāj al-ʿArūs, among other sources.
2 See his An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, Written in Egypt During the Years 1833–1835 (London, 1842)Google Scholar, which covers issues of appearance and of prayer ritual in some detail.
3 More generic words are also used, including jā-yi muhr, “seal” or “impression”, and pīneh, “callus”, in Persian; the Arabic ʿalāma, “mark”, also found in Persian and Urdu; nishān, “mark” and gaṭṭā, “stiffness” (but also with many other meanings), in Urdu; as well as the Quranic term sīmā. I am grateful to Kamran Bashir (Victoria) and Majid Daneshgar (Kuala Lumpur) for clarifying some of these popular usages for me. Also see “Sīma” [sic], in Glasse, Cyril, The New Encyclopaedia of Islam, fourth ed. (Lanham MD, 2013)Google Scholar, 500, and D.B. MacDonald-[T. Fahd], “Sīmiyā”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, second ed., last paragraph.
4 See Michael Slackman, “With a word, Egyptians leave it all to fate”, New York Times, 20 June 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/world/middleeast/20inshallah.html. Also see Mark Bardley, “Mark of faith sparks debate”, The National (Abu Dhabi Media), 23 August 2008, http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/b-focus-b-mark-of-faith-sparks-debate.
5 Gabriele Marranci, “Prayer bumps, Muslim haters, and the danger of scientific popularization”, http://marranci.com/2012/12/11/prayer-bumps/, an entry on his blog Anthropology beyond Good and Evil, dated 11 December 2012.
6 Roberto Tottoli has studied several aspects of sujūd, “bowing”, in prayer in a number of studies and devoted several paragraphs to the “trace” of it; see his “Muslim attitudes towards prostration (sujūd) I: Arabs and prostration at the beginning of the Islam and in the Qur'an”, Studia Islamica 88, 1998, 5–34Google Scholar, esp. 22–3. Tottoli's studies do help put some of the material dealt with here into a broader context; see his “Bowing and prostration”, in McAuliffe, Jane Dammen (ed.), Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān (Leiden, 2001–06), I, 254–5Google Scholar; “Muslim attitudes towards prostration (sujūd), II. The prominence and meaning of prostration in Muslim literature”, Le Muséon 111, 1998, 405–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “Traditions and controversies concerning the suġūd al-Qurʾān in Ḥadīṯ literature”, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 147, 1997, 371–93Google Scholar; “Muslim traditions against secular prostration and inter-religious polemic”, Medieval Encounters 5, 1999, 99–111CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “The thanksgiving prostration (sujūd al-shukr) in Muslim tradition”, BSOAS 62, 1998, 309–13Google Scholar. On the distinctive Shīʿī rules regarding sujūd, see Gleave, Robert, “Prayer and prostration: Imāmī Shiʿi discussions of al-sujūd ʿalā al-turba al-Ḥusayniyya”, in Khosronejad, Perram (ed.), The Art and Material Culture of Iranian Shiʿism (London, 2012), 233–53Google Scholar.
7 Quran translations are based upon Arberry, A.J., The Koran Interpreted (London, 1955)Google Scholar, modified as necessary and/or desirable.
8 See for example al-Qurṭubī (d. 671/1273), al-Jāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-Qurʾān, ed. al-Turkī, ʿA. (Beirut, 1427/2006), IV, 371 (ad Q. 2:273)Google Scholar.
9 See Rippin, Andrew, “The construction of the Arabian historical context in Muslim interpretation of the Qur'an”, in Bauer, Karen (ed.), The Aims, Methods and Contexts of Qur'anic Exegesis (2nd/8th–9th/15th Centuries) (Oxford, 2013), 173–98Google Scholar.
10 Another way of expressing “branding” is also found in Q. 9:35, “The Day they shall be heated in the fire of Hell and therewith their foreheads (jibāh) and their sides and their backs shall be branded (tukwā) by it. This is the thing you have treasured up for yourselves; therefore taste you now what you were treasuring!” This verse provides the only use in the Quran of this particular verb “to brand” and of this particular noun for “foreheads”.
11 See Lane, Lexicon, 1476, sub s-w-m and 3053, sub w-s-m.
12 Jeffery, Arthur, The Foreign Vocabulary of the Quran (Baroda, 1938), 183–4Google Scholar, crediting this observation to Vollers, Karl, “Beiträge zur Kenntnis der lebenden arabischen Sprache in Aegypten”, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 51Google Scholar, 1897, 298.
13 See, for example, al-Zamakhsharī (d. 538/1144), al-Kashshāf ʿan ḥaqāʾiq ghawāmiḍ al-tanzīl, ed. ʿAbd a-Mawjūd, ʿĀ., Muʿawwaḍ, ʿA.M. (Riyadh, 1418/1998)Google Scholar, V, 551 (ad Q. 48:29); Abū Ḥayyān (d. 745/1344), al-Baḥr al-muḥīṭ, ed. ʿAbd a-Mawjūd, ʿĀ., Muʿawwaḍ, ʿA.M. (Beirut, 1413/1993), VIII, 100–01Google Scholar (ad Q. 48:29).
14 Seidensticker, Tilman, Das Verbum sawwama: Ein Beitrag der Homonymenentscheidung im Arabischen (Munich, 1987)Google Scholar.
15 Some ḥadith reports speak of the “trace of prostration”, athar al-sujūd, especially the idea that God forbids the fires of Hell to consume it. See, for example, al-Bukhārī, al-Ṣaḥīḥ, book 97 (al-Tawḥīd) nos 7437, 7438 (= ed. M.Z. al-Nāṣir, Beirut, 2001, IX, 128–9). Such reports do not add significant clarification to the issues raised here and will not enter into the discussion.
16 See for example, al-Zamakhsharī, al-Kashshāf, V, 551.
17 See for example, al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ, IV, 371.
18 The consideration of such markings is best kept separate from attention to bodily marks that designate specific functions for specific people; the obvious example in the Muslim context is the “seal of prophecy” understood to be a physical mark between Muḥammad's shoulder blades, often associated with the Prophet's encounter with the Christian monk Baḥīrā but also seen on Muḥammad by others as described in various ḥadīth reports.
19 Biblical translations are from The New English Bible (New York, 1976)Google Scholar.
20 An example may be seen in http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Jesus-Christ-from-Hagia-Sophia.jpg; also see the twelfth-century mosaic in the cathedral of Cefalù, Sicily, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Christ_Pantokrator%2C_Cathedral_of_Cefal%C3%B9%2C_Sicily.jpg; the presence of the forelock in the latter should be noted – see below.
21 Some of the discussion of this “box-like” mark is found in the context of speculation about the famous Shroud of Turin; see Diana Fulbright, “Forelocks in early Christian tradition”, online at http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/n59part4x.pdf (note that Fulbright argues that the Shroud does not show evidence of a forelock; see below).
22 For some explanation of this, see Connell, Martin, “Ash Wednesday: meaning and history”, Liturgy 15/1, 1998, 7–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
23 On this word, see Tigay, Jeffrey H., “On the meaning of Ṭ(W)ṬPT”, Journal of Biblical Literature 101, 1982, 321–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Other translations of the word include “frontlets”, “pendants” or “symbols”.
24 Also see Exodus 13:9 and 13:16 in the context of the celebration of Passover, where the signs on the forehead and hand are deemed reminders of deliverance from Egypt (13:9) and called “phylacteries” (13:16).
25 Cohn, Yehudah, Tangled Up in Text: Tefillin and the Ancient World (Providence RI, 2008)Google Scholar.
26 Al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb (Beirut, 1401/1981)Google Scholar, XXVIII, 108. Also see the discussion in al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923), Jāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan taʾwīl āy al-Qurʾān, ed. Turkī, ʿA. (Cairo, 1422/2001), XXI, 327–9Google Scholar.
27 Bell, Richard, A Commentary on the Qurʾān (Manchester, 1991), II, 286Google Scholar.
28 Al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-maʿānī (Cairo, n.d. (c. 1353/1934)), XXX, 187.
29 See the comments in Ambros, Arne, A Concise Dictionary of Koranic Arabic (Wiesbaden, 2004), 269Google Scholar.
30 See Bravmann, M.M., The Spiritual Background of Early Islam: Studies in Ancient Arab Concepts (Leiden, 1972)Google Scholar, 203, n. 1. Also see Goldziher, Ignaz, Muslim Studies (London, 1966), I, 226–7Google Scholar, on the cutting of hair.
31 Kathīr, Ibn, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm (Cairo, n.d. (c. 1370/1950))Google Scholar, II, 284. Also see Robinson, Chase F., “Neck sealing in early Islam”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 48, 2005, 410CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and n. 39, for historical references to forelocks (and hair) and the meaning of cutting them off. Forelocks (and their cutting) may not be limited to jāhilī practice: Bernheimer, Teresa, The ʿAlids: The First Family of Islam, 750–1200 (Edinburgh, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 28, n. 72, notes the possibility that the ‘Alids were distinguished by their forelocks (or hair styles).
33 See the discussion in Hayes, Christine Elizabeth, Between the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds: Accounting for Halakhic Difference in Selected Sugyot from Tractate Avodah Zarah (Oxford, 1997)Google Scholar, 87.
34 See Riley, Henry Thomas and Smart, Christopher (trans.), The Comedies of Terence and the Fables of Phædrus, Literally Translated into English Prose with Notes, to Which is Added a Metrical Translation of Phædrus (London, 1887)Google Scholar, available at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25512/25512-h/25512-h.htm#smart_V_VIII
35 Knowles, Elizabeth, The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, second ed. (Oxford, 2005)Google Scholar, 264.
36 See above, notes 19 and 20.
37 Online comments to newspaper articles often have references to “annoying forelock tuggers like you” in responses to matters dealing with royalty.
38 My thanks to Gordon Nickel for reminding me of this passage. On the meaning of “phylacteries” here, see Tigay, Jeffrey H., “On the term phylacteries (Matt 23:5)”, The Harvard Theological Review 72, 1979, 45–53Google Scholar. Such statements did not prevent Christians from developing ways of marking Jesus and others with distinguishing blemishes: the bump between the two eyebrows is likely intended to represent piety.
39 Jastrow, Marcus, Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (London, 1903), 172Google Scholar.
40 See the section on “hairstyles” in Berkowitz, Beth A., Defining Jewish Difference: From Antiquity to the Present (Cambridge, 2012), 100–06CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hadas-Lebel, Mireille, “Le paganism à travers les sources rabbiniques dans IIe et IIIe siècles,” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt [ANRW II] 19/2, 1979, 397–485Google Scholar, esp. 456–7; Almog, Oz, “From blorit to ponytail: Israeli culture reflected in popular hairstyles”, Israel Studies 8/2, 2003, 82–117CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
41 A parallel might be seen with the female Shīʿī practice of not allowing the head scarf (or other covering) to interfere with the forehead touching the clay tablet known as a turba, the place on which to touch the forehead in the sajda. Thus, it might be suggested the ḥijāb keeps the forelock out of sight rather than having the law forbid it, at least in women.
42 Ezekiel 8:3 appears to use the symbol in a positive way, the forelock being used to drag Ezekiel to Jerusalem: “He stretched out what seemed to be a hand and seized me by the forelock”. However, it is uncertain that the word used here, tsītsit, means “forelock” precisely; the word is also used in Numbers 15:38–9 for the tassels on garments. It is also worth noting that the Jewish peʾōt, “side curls”, must be distinguished from forelocks, although a common understanding today frequently does confuse the two.