has suggested an Arabic borrowing by Tolkien, albeit by way of medieval
Europe. Forgive me for paraphrasing the following from one of my own
posts in May (curiously, my post followed right after one of yours (headed with
“It is Saruman, only reduced to a hobbit-sized villain”) in a thread about the
name Sharkey.)
Shippey suggests that "Sharkey" from "sharku" could be a corruption of “sheik”
(!) derived from the 14th Century text, The Voyages and Travels of Sir John
Mandeville, Knight, which Shippey says any medievalist would know; the work
is often referred to as Mandeville’s Travels. (“Mandeville” may
not have been a real person, by the way.) Mandeville’s specific reference
was to Sheik-al-Jabal, the "Old Man of the Mountains," that is, Hassan ben
Sabbah and his successors in the mountain refuge of Almut in Persia, who led
the 11th-13th century terrorist group known as the Hashishin, the "eaters of
hashish," or as we know the word, "assassin."
Both the real word "sheik" and Tolkien's orkish "sharku" mean "old
man."
