4وَمِن شَرِّ النَّفّاثاتِ فِي العُقَدِGeorge Saleand from the mischief of women blowing on knots1;From the mischief of women blowing on knots;] That is, of witches, who ised to tie knots in a cord, and to blow on them, uttering at the same time certain magical words over them, in order to work on, or debilitate the person they had a mind to injure. This was a common practice in former days (V. Virgil. in Pharmaceutria.): what they call in France Nouër l’eguillette, and the knots which the wizards in the northern parts tie, when they fell mariners a wind, (if the stories told of them be true,) are also relics of the same superstition. The commentators relate, that Lobied, a Jew, with the assistance of his daughters, bewitched Mohammed, by tying eleven knots on a cord, which they hid in a well; whereupon Mohammed falling ill, God revealed this chapter and the following, and Gabriel acquainted him with the use he was to make of them, and of the place where the cord was hidden: according to whose directions the prophet sent Ali to fetch the cord, and the same being brought, he repeated thw two chapters over it, and at every verse (for they consist of eleven) a knot was loosed, till on finishing the last words, he was entirely freed from the charm (Al Beidawi, Jallal.)