Czas święty i czas świecki w chamaile Aleksandrowicza: godziny i dni niechsiowe

Santrauka

The article analyses the aspect of the Polish–Lithuanian Tatars’ beliefs: a belief in wrong (Arabic nahs) and good (Arabic sad) parts of days and months. This belief comes back to the Islamic manners and customs of the Middle East. Islam is both a religion and the way of life; for this reason, every thing in Islamic culture is connected with sacrum – there exists no profanum. The belief in nahs and sad is one of the aspects of this phenomenon. We found many proofs for this in the books of Medieval Arabic “sorcerers”, for example, in “Shams al-Ma’arif al-Kubra” (The Great Sun of Knowledge) by Al-Buni and “Ghayat al-Hakim” (The Goal of the Sage) by Al-Madjriti. The belief in good and wrong hours and days has its roots in detailed astrological calculations. As for the Polish–Tatar evidences, I examined the khamail of Aleksandrowicz, a handwritten “prayer book” from the 19th century. This khamail was found and partially described by the Polish orientalist Stanisław Szachno-Romanowicz and from 1997 is deposited at the library of the Faculty of Oriental Studies of Warsaw University. Nahs time (days, hours) in this khamail (and also in other Tatar sources) is known as niechś [niekhsh]. The sources for the analysis of the nahs/sad diversification are not only the texts directly connected with niechś and the revelation about it sent to the Prophet Musa, but also a small Tatar dream-book and a story about the “wandering of the soul” in the men’s body and also the beliefs connected with the “ringing in the ears”. There are, for example, the nahs-days from the story about Musa: in muharram: 3rd and 7th days; in safar: 2nd and 20th days; in rabi al-awwal: 4th and 25th days; in rabi al-akhira: 1st and 2nd days; in jumada al-ula: 1st and 5th days; in jumada al-ahira: 1st and 14th days; in rajab: 9th and 12th days; in shaban: 2nd and 4th days; in ramadan: 1st and 10th days; in shawwal: 4th and 20th days; in dhu al-qada: 3rd and 6th day; in dhu al-hijja: 20th and 30th days. Despite their Middle Eastern roots and Islamic dress, in the context of Polish–Tatar culture those beliefs show probably the influence of Slavonic and Old Turkic areas.