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                                    Muhammad in the Bible David Benjamin KeldaniEdited & Annotated by: Prof. Dawud M. R. Alhanbali & Prof, Dr. Kaseb A. Albadran ( 40 )cupidity, ardent desire, and appetite.” Well, this is the precise sense and signification of the verb “hamad” in the Hebrew Scriptures. One of the commands in the famous Decalogue of the Torah (Arabic “Taurāt”) or the Law contains this clause: “Lo tahmōd ish réïkha” –“Thou shalt not covet the wife of the neighbour” (Exod. xx. 17.)b) Hemed.10 The substantive in the masculine gender, and “Himdah” in the feminine,signifies: “lust, desire, pleasantness, delight, object of longing and of desire, loveliness” (Hag. ii. 7; Jerem. xxv. 34, etc.).c) Mahmad, Mahamod (pbuh) (Lam. i. 7, 10; ii. 4, etc.). These participles forms are also derivatives from the verb “hamad” and mean “most covetable, delightful, pleasant, delicious, charming, precious, and beloved.”That the Arabic form Muhammad (pbuh) and the Hebrew Mahmad and Mahamod are derived from the same verb or root, and that they, notwithstanding the slight orthographic difference between the forms, have one common origin and signification, there cannot be a jot or iota of doubt. I have given the meanings of the Hebrew forms as the Jews and the lexicographers have understood them.d) It will, therefore, be observed that the Greek word “eudokia” must be a literal representation of the Hebrew substantive Himdah, and that both signify: “delight, pleasantness, good pleasure (bon plaisir), desire, loveliness, preciousness,” and some other synonymous words.Now it would follow from the above that the corresponding equivalent to the Hebrew “Mahamod” could be none other than “eudoxos” which was the object of desire and longing, the most de10 An article on “Himdah,” by the learned Professor, was published in the Islamic Review for October 1927. (The author).
                                
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