LotR -- Book 3 - Chapter 03 - The Uruk-Hai

[Lalwendë]

This thing troubles me in this chapter:
Why is the badge of Saruman white? Why not a rainbow? Or anything multi-coloured?

Pass me the tin opener, I've some more worms to let loose.

Why the White Hand? I’ve been trying to figure that one out for a while, and came across a few dead ends. I know it is a symbol in Islam, and it is also related to Moses as a prophet. Unfortunately I have never read the Koran nor do I have much knowledge of the symbolism surrounding Moses.

However, I have found that the symbol of the wide open hand was commonly used. In a text from 1898 entitled The Magic of the Horse-Shoe with other folk lore notes, I found the following interesting passages:

It is worthy of note that the symbol of an open hand with extended fingers was a favorite talisman in former ages, and was to be seen, for example, at the entrances of dwellings in ancient Carthage. It is also found on Lybian and Phoenician tombs, as well as on Celtic monuments in French Brittany.

A white hand-print is commonly seen upon the doors and shutters of Jewish and Moslem houses in Beyrout and other Syrian towns; and even the Christian residents of these towns sometimes mark windows and flour-boxes with this emblem, after dipping the hand in whitewash, in order to “avert chilling February winds from old people and to bring luck to the bin.”

In Germany a rude amulet having the form of an open hand is fashioned out of the stems of coarse plants, and is deemed an ample safeguard against divers misfortunes and sorceries. It is called “the hand of Saint John,” or “the hand of Fortune.”