ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3263
http://www.s-gabriel.org/3263
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03 Jul 2007
From: Ursula Whitcher 

Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!

You asked whether <Rayya bint Harith> was a suitable name for a woman
living in Egypt before 1600.  You also said that you were interested in
a name suitable for a member of the Ghawazee.  (A more careful
transliteration of <Ghawazee> is <Ghawaazii>.)

Before we begin, we'd like to apologize for the amount of time this
letter has taken.  We hope this information is still useful to you.

We'll start with some information about the Ghawaazii.  Then we'll
discuss each part of your name, and possibilities for the full name.

<Ghawaazii> is an Egyptian term for dancing girls.  In the nineteenth
century, the Ghawaazii came from a single tribe, and referred to
themselves as <Baraamika>; in Egypt, the term <Ghawaazii> has been
considered derogatory since the nineteenth century.  The name
<Baraamika> indicates descent from the Barmakids, a family of Iranian
bureaucrats who served the Abbasid caliphs.  However, we have found no
evidence of the Ghawaazii tribe in Egypt or elsewhere before the
nineteenth century; we do not know whether their claim to descent from
the Barmakids is genuine. [1,2]

<Rayya> is a fine name for an Arabic-speaking woman living before 1600. 
  A more careful transliteration, using double vowels to indicate long
vowels, would be <Rayyaa>. [3]

The masculine name <Harith> may be more precisely transliterated
<H.aarith>, where the period represents a small dot below the 'H', and
the double <aa> indicates a long vowel.  The Arabic tribe known as the
Banu al-H.aarith or Balh.aarith traced their origin to a man named
<H.aarith b. Ka`b> who supposedly lived some time prior to the Prophet
Muhammad.  We also found at least one example of <H.aarith> in
Andalusia. [4,5]  We found several people who used the byname
<al-H.aarith>, which means 'the plowman' or 'the cultivator'.  In
particular, one of Muhammad's wives was known as <Maymuuna bint
al-H.aarith>, 'Maymuuna daughter of al-H.aarith'. [3,6,7,8]

<Rayyaa bint H.aarith> and <Rayyaa bint al-H.aarith> are both plausible
names for an Arabic-speaking woman living before 1600.  As far as we
know, this name does not indicate any special connection to Egypt or the
Barmakid family.

We hope this letter has been useful to you.  If you have any questions
or concerns, please don't hesitate to write to us again.  In particular,
we'd be happy to give you an approximate pronunciation.  Talan Gwynek, 
Maridonna Benvenuti, and Aryanhwy merch Catmael assisted in researching 
and writing this report.

For the Academy,

Ursula Georges
3 July 2007

References:

[1] P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P.
Heinrichs, ed.s, _The Encyclopaedia of Islam_.  (Leiden, Brill: 1960-,
WWW: Brill Online), s.n. <ghawazi>.
http://www.brillonline.nl

[2] Encyclopaedia of Islam s.n. <al-Baramika> or <al-Barmak>.

[3] Da'ud ibn Auda, "Period Arabic Names and Naming Practices," (WWW:
SCA.org, 2003) http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/arabic-naming2.htm

[4] Encyclopaedia of Islam s.nn. <ibn Mada>, <Banu 'l-H.aarith b. Ka`b>.
  <Ah.mad ibn Mad.aa' b. `Abd al-Rah.maan b. Muh.ammad b. Sa`d b.
H.aarith b. `Aas.im al-Lakhmii> was a twelfth-century Andalusian grammarian.

[5] Juliana de Luna, "Andalusian Names: Arabs in Spain" (WWW: Academy of
Saint Gabriel, 2001).
http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/juliana/andalusia/

[6] Encyclopaedia of Islam.  In particular, see s.n. <Maymuna bint
al-Harith>.

[7] Robert R. Ratcliffe, "Analogy in Semitic Non-concatenative
Morphology" (WWW: AFLANG, 1997).
http://www.aa.tufs.ac.jp/~P_aflang/TEXTS/june97/ratcliff.txt

Upper-case letters represent the emphatics, so that <H> is our <h.>.

[8] "Muslim Names" (WWW: Islam Channel, 2007).
http://www.islamchannel.tv/MuslimNames/MuslimNames.aspx