ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2651 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2651 ************************************ ************************************************* * * * NOTE: Later research turned up additional * * information relevant to this report. * * See the end of the letter for details. * * * ************************************************* 6 May 2003 From: Josh Mittleman Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked us to suggest a late 15th or early 16th century Arabic name meaning "Safya the singer, daughter of Ziyad of Cairo". You had previously expressed interest in as your father's name. Here is what we have found. As we noted earlier, is a fine choice [but please see the correction below]; it was the name of one of the wives of the prophet Mohammed and we have found several examples of it in our period [1, 2]. is a fine name for your father, too [3]. We were earlier unable to find evidence of , but now have a good indication that it was the name of one of the companions of Mohammed and therefore a plausible name for your culture [4]. The Arabic word for "[female] singer" is [5], pronounced \ahl-moo-ghahn-NEE-yah\ [10]. The \GH\ stands for the voiced equivalent of the raspy sound in the Scottish word or German . The word for "[male] Cairene" is [5]. However, we recommend that you avoid this byname: We have found no example of it in period sources. The original name of the city of Cairo is "the Victorious [city] of [the caliph] Mu'izz li-Din Allah", since shortened to [6]. A byname meaning "the victorious" might have been seen as inappropriate or it might simply have been grammatically inconvenient to construct a byname from this place name. In any case, men from Cairo seem to have been identified as "the Egyptian" rather than "the Cairene" [7, 8]. Two 10th century examples are [9]: Abu al-Hasan 'Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Misri Ibn al-Imam al-Misri We therefore recommend you use or [but please see the correction below]. 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 Sion Andreas, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Maridonna Benvenuti, Adelaide de Beaumont, and Da'ud ibn Auda. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 6 May 2003 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Academy of S. Gabriel report 1971 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1971 [2] Juliana de Luna, "Andalusian Names: Arabs in Spain" (WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 2001). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/juliana/andalusia/ [3] Mustapha al-Muhaddith ibn al-Saqaat, "Arabic Personal Names from the Futuwwah", ed. Arval Benicoeur and Avelina of the Bridge (WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1999) http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mustapha/futuwwah.html. [4] "Suhayb Ar-Rumi" (WWW: The Sabr Foundation, accessed 29 Apr 2003) http:/www.islam101.com/people/companions/rumi.html says that was one of the companions of Mohammed. [5] Wehr, Hans, _A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic_, edited by J. Milton Cowan, 3rd ed. (Ithaca, NY: Spoken Language Services, Inc., 1976). [6] Glasse/, Cyril, _The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam_ (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1991), p.81. [7] Ja:schke, Richard "English-Arabic Conversational Dictionary" (New York: F. Ungar Publishing Co., 1955), p.169. [8] Elias, E. A., _Elias' Modern Dictionary: English-Arabic_ (W.S. Heinman, June 1988), p.22. [9] Dodge, Baynard, _The Fihrist of al-Nadim_ (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), vol.2, p.1045. [10] We are not certain where the stress fell in the medieval pronunciation of this phrase. It varies in modern dialects. Our suggestion here is based on a rule offered by Alan S. Kaye, in his article "Arabic" in Comrie, Bernard, ed., _The World's Major Languages_ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Correction, Arval, 27 Apr 2004: Talan checked the Arabic of the Mohammed's wife's name; a better transcription is , where the period represents a dot under the 'S', indicating an emphatic consonant. The pronunciation of emphatic consonants is difficult to explain; we recommend finding a native Arabic speaker to get a demonstration.