ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2514
http://www.s-gabriel.org/2514
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2 May 2002
From:  (Josh Mittleman)


Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!

You asked whether <Rukiyah> is an appropriate name for a woman in Muslim
Granada, and you asked our help choosing a byname.  Here is what we have
found.

<Rukiyah> is a reasonable name for your culture.  Although we haven't found
an example in Andalusia, it was used by early medieval Muslims and was
probably also available later in Andalusia [1].  The name was written in
Arabic originally, of course, and can be transliterated into Roman letters
in many ways.  The particular spelling you've chosen is not the best
representation of the Arabic name; we recommend <Ruqayyah>.  The name was
pronounced roughly \roo-KYE-ah\, where \KYE\ rhymes with <rye> and the <q>
is pronounced further back in the mouth than an ordinary English <k>.

You asked about several bynames [4].  Your first choice was <de Granada>.
That is a Spanish phrase, which would not have been used in Arabic.  In
your period, it would not have been uncommon for a person to be identified
in different ways in Arabic, Spanish, and perhaps also Hebrew and Latin.
In each case, though, the name would have been written (or spoken) in only
one language at a time.  If you want a byname that means "from Granada", we
can suggest the Arabic <al-Garnatiyyah>, literally "the [female] Granadan",
pronounced \ahl gar-nah-TEE-yah\ [2].

You also asked about the bynames <al-Zarqa> "the blue-eyed" and
<al-Andalus>.  The former is a reasonable choice; it appears in an early
medieval source [1].  It was pronounced \ahl-ZAR-kah\.  The latter name
isn't quite right: The Arabic term for "the [female] Andalusian" is
<al-Andalusiyyah> [2], pronounced \ahl ahn-dah-loo-SEE-yah\.

You mentioned that you want your persona to be associated with the
Alhambra.  That citadel was built between 1230 and 1354 [3], so you'll want
to focus on the period between 1230 and the expulsion of the Muslims from
Spain in 1492.


We hope this letter has been useful.  Please write us again if any part of
it has been unclear or if you have other questions.  I was assisted in
researching and writing this letter by Adelaide de Beaumont, Talan Gwynek,
and Juliana de Luna.

For the Academy,


  Arval Benicoeur
  2 May 2002


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References

[1] Da'ud ibn Auda, "Arabic Naming Practices and Names List," _Compleat
Anachronist_ #51, "The Islamic World" (Milpitas: SCA, Inc, Autumn
1990; WWW: J. Mittleman, 1998).
http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/daud/arabic-naming/</b

[2] Juliana de Luna, "Andalusian Names: Arabs in Spain" (WWW:
J. Mittleman, 2001).
http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/juliana/andalusia/

[3] "Alhambra, Moorish citadel, Spain", The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth
Edition (WWW: Bartleby.Com and Columbia University Press, 2001)
http://www.bartleby.com/65/al/AlhambSp.html

[4] Although most women in your period were identified as their father's
daughter or son's mothers, there are examples of women identified with a
descriptive byname.  The following names are from medieval al-Andalus,
taken from Victoria Aguilar, "Mujeres de la Takmila de Ibn al-Abbar en un
manuscrito de Rabat", in _Estudios Onomastico-Biograficos de al-Andalus,
vol 1_.

  `Aa'isha al-Andalusiyya
  Kitman al-Katiba
  Zaynab al-Mariyya