A scholar and how people are named

Brief

This lesson asks you to speak in Arabic about communities where it is spoken, aspects of their cultures and their contributions, and to link what you say to your own experience. The museum offers one scholar and one set of naming practices. Common nicknames today and naming ceremonies of other communities, your class brings. ¹

Whom will you talk about?

Choose a significant person and pick one or two accomplishments to present in your own words, then ask where your talk meets your own experience.

How are names given?

Compare what the record says about naming with the practice in your own family or a friend's, and notice the differences.

Go deeper

How is a scholar's name written when the books give it differently? The editors of the Cairo edition of the algebra say that what is known of al-Khwarizmi himself goes back to Ibn al-Nadim's Fihrist: his name was Muhammad ibn Musa, he came from Khwarazm, and he was attached to al-Ma'mun's "Treasury of Wisdom" ². In the London edition he is given the kunya Abu Abd Allah ³. The Encyclopaedia of Islam gives his kunya as Abu Ja'far, a form different from Abu Abd Allah ⁴.

How do we know?

The Cairo editors say that what is known of him goes back to Ibn al-Nadim's Fihrist ². The Encyclopaedia of Islam says that very few other biographical details are known ⁴. The Cairo editors hold that the dates of his birth and death are not known with certainty ² ⁵.

Think about it

The two editions give him two different kunyas, Abu Abd Allah ³ and Abu Ja'far ⁴. If you introduced him to your class, which name would you use, and why would you also mention the other?

Into the museum

Al-Khwarizmi: the books Ibn al-Nadim lists for him, and what the Encyclopaedia of Islam says of his life.
Tasmiya: the jurists' senses of the word for naming, the father's better right to name a child, and the schools' differing views on the time.
Kunya: what the Kuwaiti encyclopaedia of jurisprudence says a kunya is, a name that begins with ab or umm.

Try this

Read the records on al-Khwarizmi and on tasmiya. Present al-Khwarizmi to a classmate in one minute, then tell them about one naming practice.

Sources

Ontario Ministry of Education, The Ontario Curriculum: Classical Studies and International Languages

al-Khwarizmi, Kitab al-Jabr wal-Muqabala, ed. Mosharafa and Ahmad (Cairo, 1939) , p.22

al-Khwarizmi, al-Kitab al-mukhtasar fi hisab al-jabr wal-muqabala, ed. Friedrich Rosen (London, 1831), Arabic text , p.121

Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition (Leiden: Brill, 1954–2008), 13 volumes , vol. 4 p. 1111

al-Khwarizmi, Kitab al-Jabr wal-Muqabala, ed. Mosharafa and Ahmad (Cairo, 1939) , p.23