Step 4 of 7

The writing is on the bowls: Arabic

Side view

Side view

Contrary to traditional magic bowls that have forever been in use throughout the Muslim world, these bowls do not have writing on the inside, but on the outside. What is more, the writing does not correspond to what we typically find on magic bowls; there are no invocations of God, no protective words against the Evil One. What is written instead only adds to our confusion, because the Arabic writing is unintelligible.

On the Arabic bowl we can make out mostly well-written letters and the word lisān, meaning language or tongue, as well as – perhaps - the word ḥifdh meaning preservation, but most of the calligraphy is gibberish, and the conclusion for now must be that we are dealing with what is called pseudo-Arabic.

As has been argued elsewhere however, pseudo-Arabic may be unintelligible, but it is not often without meaning. Its meaning is indeed often related to magic -abracadabra!