Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T14:07:48.006Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Art. IX.—On the Proper Names of the Mohammedans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

T. E. Colebrooke
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

I concluded a former essay on Mohammedan proper names with a promise of renewing the subject in another paper, which should deal with the names of women, and some other points not included in my first sketch. The system, as it is xepresented to us by Arab authors, though somewhat complicated, admits of a distinct arrangement; and each class of proper names throws light on national character and manners, -as they were developed during the first centuries of the Hejra, and have left their traces in countries over which the Arab dominion extended. My former notice touched very slightly on the meaning and etymology of old names, to which my attention was first directed. I was very soon brought to a stand by difficulties inherent in the attempt to trace the origin of ancient names, and which are enhanced in the case of those of the Arabs by the peculiarities in the structure of the language, where the meaning of words varies so much with the strength and position of the vowel-points, of all sounds the most liable to phonetic decay. The language itself has undergone a great change since the time of Mahomet, and many old words and expressions are interpreted on traditional authority.

Type
Original Communications
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , April 1881 , pp. 237 - 280
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1881

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 237 note 1 For illustration of the uncertainty which attaches to many Arabic words I refer the reader to Lane's preface to his dictionary, in which he enters at some length on the difficulties he encountered, owing to the changes which the language has undergone. “Many explanations,” he remarks, “when first given by Arab lexicographers, were perfectly intelligible, but have become less and less so in succeeding ages, and at length are quite unintelligible to the most learned of modern Arabs. Sometimes the term (known) is appended to a word which has quite ceased to be so.” … “Perfect reliance,” he adds, “is not to be placed on the vowel signs.” Fresnel, also, in one of his essays on the history of the Arabs before the rise of Islam, dwells on the same subject: “Il y a tels mots des traditions de l'Aghaniy que ne se trouvent dans aucun dictionnaire arabe, et pour lesquels il faut accepter bougré malgré la definition que le Rawy nous en donne dans le corps même de son recit. Il raconte le fait comme on le lui a raconté dans le desert, sans changer une syllabe, mais s'interrompt naturellement pour expliquer à ses auditeurs les expressions qui ne sont plus en usage parmi eux.”—Journal Asiatique, Avril, 1837.

page 238 note 1 In my former paper I remarked on the rare instances in other languages of names that refer to praise. It escaped me that Judah in Bible history represents this feeling. Indeed the expression of thankfulness attributed to Leah on the birth of her son is the counterpart of that which is reported by Abulfeda of Abd el Motallib on the birth of Mahomet, which I there quoted. Leah says, “Now will I praise the Lord” (Odeh, ): “therefore she called his name Judah” (Gen. xxix. 35). There is the same play on the name in Jacob's blessing on his son (Gen. xlix. 8): “Judah, thon whom thy brethren shall praise.”

page 239 note 1 Vide Koran, sura xlvi. The names of the seven are given in Tatari, , i. 434Google Scholar.

page 240 note 1 The play on the word is preserved both in the Septuagint and in Jerome's version: “Vocate me Mara, hoc est amaram, quia amaratudine replevit omnipotens.”—Smith's Dictionary of the Bible.

page 241 note 1 Muir, I. celui.—Al Motalib, on the death of his brother Hashim, took charge of his son Shéba, and the people of Mecca, seeing him pass with a lad at his side, concluded he had purchased a slave, and exclaimed, Abd el Motalib, lo! the servant of Al Motalib.

page 242 note 1 Sa'ad was the name of an idol worshipped by the Bani Malkan. Vide Pococke, 's Specimen, etc., p. 101Google Scholar. It is supposed to have been an unshaped stone.

page 243 note 1 In Pocock's preface to Abulfarage's Dynasties the name is so traced: “Sultan Yilderím Bayazíd, qui et alias Abuyazid dicitur.”

page 243 note 2 See Wright, 's Arabic Grammar, i. p. 276, where this proper name is quoted with some others as resembling in form the verbal forms and or any of the persons of the imperfect.Google Scholar

page 246 note 1 In Hammer-Purgstall's list it is rendered “der erwerber.” Sir W. Muir (Life of Mahomet), referring to this name, affirms that it was employed in the sense of ‘lion,’ in opposition to Mundzir, ‘a dog,’ which was borne by the rival kings of Hira.

page 251 note 1 Judges xi. 2: “And Gilead's wife bare him sons”; ver. 5: “The elders of Gilead went to fetch Jephthah.”

page 254 note 1 Among the Mansabdars of Turki origin figures one Mihtar Khan Anisuddin. Blochmann adds: “The word Mihtar, a prince, occurs very often in the names of Humáyun's servants.” The word will be familiar to residents in India as the common name of a scavenger. H. H. Wilson (Glossary of Indian Terms) sup-, poses that it was so applied ironically. This may he the case, and indeed is. analogous to the familiar application of the name Khalif to some Mohammedan domestics in India. I think it more probable that it acquired this meaning from its having been applied to persons attached to the person of a prince, and, by an, easy change, to one who undertook a menial office. The word is Persian, the comparative of Meh, , and in Bianchi's Turkish Dictionary receives, among other explanations, the following: “À la cour de Perse, Chambellan qui a toujours accès auprès du roi.”

page 256 note 1 Hyde, in his preface to Ulugh Beg, quotes a passage from Arab Shah, in which the Turkish name is rendered literally in Arabic as if it were his ordinary designation. Al Hadid, son of Taragai, son of Abgai Hadid. is in Arabic ‘iron.’

page 256 note 2 Guk means blue, and De Slane, in a note to his translation of Ibn Khallikan, suggests that buri may mean wolf in some old dialect of Turkish. I should add, that in Marsden's work this Prince's name is included by a mistake, which he acknowledges, in the coins of the Ortokite dynasty and the name on the coin is spelt Kúkkberi, Beri in Modern Turkish bears various meanings.

page 257 note 1 In Meninski's Lexicon tekin is rendered ‘bellicosus,’ and given as the equivalent of Behadur. Mr. Redhouse, in reply to my inquiry, says that the word means ‘a champion,’ ‘one who fights m single combat with a similar picked enemy.’ The Turkish root is ‘sole,’ ‘single,’ ‘odd,’ ‘unimpaired,’ ‘peerless.’

page 258 note 1 I accept Mr. Thomas's rendering of the name Aibeg from ‘the moon,’ and Bek or Beg, the Turkish title. It has been supposed, from a passage in Ferishta, that he was so called from his broken finger. Mr. Thomas, in a note, as also Major Raverty, in a note to his translation of the Tabakat-i-Nasiri, discuss the point fully. It seems the name Ibeg is followed by the word Shal, which is rendered ‘maimed,’ also ‘weak’; and if, as Major Raverty supposes, the word Ibeg means ‘finger,’ the sense is clear. But there are other Ibegs in history, to whom this explanation will not apply, and Kutb uddin is elsewhere called Ibeg i lung, analogous to Timur lung, and lung may apply to defects of hand or foot, as the word ‘lame’ is used in the double sense in Scotland.

page 258 note 2 Major Raverty, in a note to his translation of the Tabakat-i-Nasiri (p. 496), raises doubts as to the accuracy of the usual spelling of this name. Yil dúz, , means ‘star’; but in some works that he names the general's name is spelt I-yal-dúz , which he considers analogous to lyal Arsalan and I-yaltimish.

page 262 note 1 Surnames (surnoms), as the term implies, were originally so called from the practice of writing the individual's nickname or description over the Christian name in ancient muniments. See Ducange, under the article “Cognomen,” where numerous examples are given. The practice of adding the tee-name (agnomen) has survived in parts of Scotland in recent times, where the old clannish practice prevails. I give the following example from a curious paper in Blackwood's Magazine for 1842, as quoted by Cosmo Innes in his essay “Concerning some Scotch Surnames”:—

“The fishers are generally in want of surnames…. There are seldom more than two or three surnames in a fish-town. There are twenty-five George Cowies in Buckie (Cowie is the name of an ancient fishing village). The grocers, in ‘booking’ their fisher customers, invariably insert their nickname, or tee-name; and, in the case of married men, write down the wife's along with the husband's name. Unmarried debtors have the names of their parents inserted with their own. In the town register of Peterhead these signatures occur: Elizabeth Taylor, spouse to Thompson, John, SouplesGoogle Scholar; Agnes Farquhar, spouse to Findlater, W., Stouttie…Google Scholar. It is amusing enough to turn over the leaves of a grocer's ledger, and see the tee-names as they come up: Buckie, Beauty, Bam, Biggelugs, Collop, Helldom, the King, the Provost, Rochie, Stouttie, Sillerton, the Smack, Snipe, Snuffers, Toothie, Todlowrie. Ladies are occasionally found who are gallantly and exquisitely called the Cutter, the Sear, etc. Among the twenty-five George Cowies in Buckie there are Cowie, George, DoodleGoogle Scholar, Cowie, George, CarrotGoogle Scholar, and Cowie, George, NeepGoogle Scholar.

“A stranger had occasion to call on a fisherman, in one of the Buchan fishing villages, of the name of Alexander White. Meeting a girl, he asked,—

“‘Could you tell me fa'r Sanny Fite lives ?’

“‘Filk Sanny Fite?’

“‘Muckle Sanny Fite.’

“‘Filk Muckle Sanny Fite ?’

“‘Muckle lang Sanny Fite.’

“‘Filk Muckle lang Sanny Fite ?’

“‘Muckle lang gleyed Sanny Fite,’ shouted the stranger.

“‘Oh! it's “Goup-the-Ltft” ye're seeking,’ cried the girl; ‘and fat the deevil for,.dinna ye speer for the man by his richt name at ance?’”

page 263 note 1 Essai sur les noms d'hommes de peuples et des lieux.

page 264 note 1 “Duceris plantâ, velut ictus ab Hercule Cacus, Et ponere foras, si quid tentaveris unquam Hiscere, tanquam habeas tria nomina.”—Juvenal, v. p. 127.Google Scholar

The poet warns a person not to act as if he had three names, that is, as if he were of noble blood.

page 268 note 1 That is, Balkis in the one case, and Zuleika in the other. I state the fact of these being in common use on the authority of Hammer-Purgstall, though I have not fallen in with a Balkis in modern times. The passages in the Koran where reference is made to the Queen of Sheba's visit to Solomon and to Joseph's adventures do not mention either of these ladies by name. Their names rest on Arab tradition.

page 268 note 2 In the 66th Sura of the Koran, where Mary is held up to the admiration of believers as a perfect woman, she is coupled with the wife of Pharaoh, who plays in Moslem traditions the same part as is assigned to Pharaoh's daughter in Mosaic history. Her traditional name is Asya, . Sale, in a note to this passage, mentions a Moslem traditional saying of Mahomet, that only four of the other sex had attained to perfection, viz. Asya, Mary, Khadija (his first wife), and Fathima. Ayesha is passed over.

page 269 note 1 In Freytag's Dictionary the name is spelt , with the explanation, “Nomen proprium mulieris. Kam. item, nomen incolarum Indiæ, plu. , Indi, Kam.”

page 269 note 2 Histoire des Arabes, vol. ii. p. 151. She lived to an advanced age, and died after the rise of Islam.

page 269 note 3 It is difficult to reconcile the two narratives. It is clear that we have in the Arab annals the same sisters that contended with, the Romans. Vopiscus, in a passage quoted by Caussin de Perceval, says: “Pugnatum est contre Zenobiam et Zabam, ejus soeiam.” But other Latin and Greek authors represent Zaba or Zabda as the general of Zenobia. Aurelius, in a letter quoted by Gibbon, names her expressly. The Arab authorities are of a late date, and the confusion is more likely to be on their part. Caussin de Perceval describes the events of the period as “legendes.” Sir W. Muir, in the introduction to his Life of Mahomet (p. clxix), agrees with the views of Caussin de Perceval, and contends that many particulars common to the Zebba of Arab history and to the Zenobia of the Romans, point to one and the same individual. He adds, “The Arabs mistook the enemy of Zenobia; it was not the King of Hira, but the Emperos of Rome.” If they could have blundered so grossly, may they not have erred in the name? It should be remembered that the Zenobia of Roman history lived after the triumph of Aurelius in a villa at Tivoli, and her daughters married into Roman families (Gibbon, cap. xi.).

page 270 note 1 In Lane and other dictionaries , applied to a man, and , applied to a woman, is rendered ‘having much and long hair.’

page 270 note 2 From the root “evacuavit,” and in the same Dictionary are interpreted “vacuum labore.” I conjecture that the word was used as a proper name in the sense of ‘indolent’ or ‘quiet.’

page 270 note 3 Yemána is a native of Yemen.

page 271 note 1 I find in Ibn Khallikan's work several places distinguished by their Kunyats expressing maternity. I assume they are called after certain women, as was the case with a well between Mecca and Medina, described as Bir Omm Mabád. Mahomet in his flight is said to have alighted, with Abubekr, at the tent of the lady Omm Mabád Aatika. She had no food to offer the Prophet, and he obtained a miraculous supply of milk from an old ewe. Omm al Arab, ‘Mother of the Arabs,’ is the name of a village near Cairo, the supposed birthplace of Hagar, mother of Ishmael. Omm Abida is applied to a village, Omm al Duhaim to a farm, and Omm Maudúd to a cistern near Cairo.

page 275 note 1 “Beglückend wie der nond.”—Hammer Purgatali.

page 275 note 2 Vullers gives “eques peritissimus.”

page 275 note 1 I have taken these and some other facts, which are given in the next paragraph, from Erskine's History of India under Baber and Humayun.

page 279 note 1 Zobeide Omm Jafar is one of the three wives of the Khalif mentioned by Tabari.