Translations:Manāyā/5/en

Looking at the examples above, ancient Arabs were far from revering dahr or manāyā as divine. Due to the mortal fear of desert life, sudden misfortune, and the uncertainty of the future, they imagined this power in their poetry to be pretty hostile and viewed it negatively. A few centuries earlier we find the term rġm mny in Safaitic inscriptions always in a funerary context as an expression of grief for the deceased. The dead were "struck down" (raġām or raġm) by fate. The appearance of fate in these funerary contexts suggests that the force was regarded much in the same way as in the pre-Islamic poems; it was the ultimate cause of death. Many prayers request escape from the manifestations of fate: misfortune and adversity.