Every book is personal. However, this unending adventure of following the hand symbol and its metamorphosis across time and space has occupied my mind and imagination for many years. Joyful moments of discovery have been followed by many of doubt, questioning different hypotheses and interpretations, in my constant search for an understanding of this fascinating symbol. It has also offered me the opportunity to contact others who share the same passion – whether in-person or otherwise – whose knowledge and experience has enriched my journey.
It all began with a simple silver khamsa amulet, whose artistic appeal captured my imagination. Attracted by the aesthetics of the khamsa, I began collecting them. This fascination led me to deepen my study of these pieces, despite an unencouraging remark from an Arab woman – a specialist in Arabic literature, no less. When I eagerly told her I was studying the khamsa, she retorted, “I never paid much attention to something we grew up to see – to laugh at – as a symbol of old-fashioned thinking.”
Still, I pushed on, impelled by my own personal interest in these khamsa amulets. Gradually, my research turned more towards a comprehensive understanding of the khamsa’s far-reaching symbolic significance, as I began to analyse the khamsa in the global context of Arab-Islamic cultures, and beyond. For the khamsa spans far and wide – many eras, many cultures, many faiths, and many regions. Although particularly prevalent among Jews and Muslims, the symbol of the open hand predates the Abrahamic traditions and has been “a universally recognised sign of divine power, protection and blessing among many ancient Near Eastern religions, as well as in Hinduism, Buddhism, and among all three Abrahamic faiths.”1 Insofar as exploring the khamsa in all these traditions would be too much for one work, this book will take the reader on a journey with the khamsa throughout Arab-Islamic cultures, past and present.2
This book has been heavily driven by collection: collecting objects, collecting images, collecting information, and then shaping it into the narrative and interpretation that is to come. My goal was to introduce an innovative approach, situating the hand symbol as an object of study and research in the convergence of semiotics and the history of culture, from past to present. Hopefully, this work will inspire further discussion and debate.
Fahmida Suleman, “The Hand of Fatima: in search of its origins and significance”, in People of the Prophet’s House. Artistic and Ritual Expressions of Shiʿi Islam, ed. F. Suleman (London: Azimuth Editions in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies in collaboration with the British Museum’s Department of the Middle East, 2015), p. 173.
This led, among other things, to the publication of two papers: Eva-Maria von Kemnitz, “The khamsa. A recurrent symbol in artistic tradition in the global Islamic context”, in Islam and Globalisation. Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Proceedings of the 25th Congress of l’Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants, ed. A. Cilardo (Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters, 2013), pp. 581–607; Eva-Maria von Kemnitz, “Porous Frontiers of the Hand Symbol”, in In the Iberian Peninsula and Beyond. A History of Jews and Muslims (15th and 17th centuries), ed. J.A.R. Silva Tavim, M.F. Lopes de Barros, and Lúcia Liba Mucznik (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015), vol. 2, pp. 258–270.