3963 Ta'ir means a bird. Like the Roman augurs, the Arabs had a superstition about deriving omens from birds. Cf. the English word auspcious, from the Latin avis, a bird, and specie, I see. From Ta'ir (bird) came tatayyara, or ittayyara, to draw evil omens. Because the prophets of Allah denounced evil, the evildoers thought that they brought ill-luck to them. As a matter of fact any evil that happened to them was the result of their own ill-deeds. Cf.
17:13 , where the Egyptians ascribed their calamities to the ill-luck brought by Moses: and
27:47, where Thamud ascribed ill-luck to the preaching of Salih.