ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2725 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2725 ************************************ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - NOTE: This report was originally sent as a direct reply, and therefore is not as reliable as regular Academy reports. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! We did some preliminary research on the name . Without some further work we can't give a definite answer, but based on what we've seen so far, it appears to be a modern name. According to Salahuddin Ahmed, A Dictionary of Muslim Names (New York: New York University Press, c.1999), is a variant of , which is derived from , the title of the 17th Sura of the Koran. The phrase means "tavel by night", and that chapter of the Koran recounts Muhammed's journey to the seven heavens. He gives no dated example, and we've found no early example in any of our other sources. We're therefore pretty confident that this name is a modern creation. If you'd like to consider a different name, we can offer you some lists of Arabic women's names recorded in medieval sources; you can find them at http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/islamic.shtml You might be particularly interested in the names <'Afra'>, , and , which sound similar to . The apostrophe in some of these names represents an Arabic letter that is pronounced as a glottal stop, i.e. the sound in the middle of . You asked if we could suggest an Arabic byname that means "herbwoman" or "witch". Our Arabic-English dictionaries do not list such a word in the Arabic language, so it is possible there is no such term. Many occupational terms in common use in the modern world didn't have equivalents in all medieval languages. If the activities involved had not yet become the preserve of specialists, then the culture may not have developed any special word to designate them. If almost every woman acted as a midwife, then there may not have been a separate concept of "midwife" as a particular occupation, and thus no need for a word to describe it. We probably can suggest a word that means "healer" in some sense, if that interests you. Arval for the Academy 11 Mar 2002