Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
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
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- B3.1 communicate information orally in the target language about communities where the target language is spoken, including aspects of their cultures and their contributions to the world, and make connections to personal experiences and their own and other communities […]
2 Before you start
A thought to carry into the lesson.
3 The lesson
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?
Think about it
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.
4 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does al-Khwarizmi have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
Al-Khwarizmi. The editors of the Cairo edition of al-Khwarizmi's algebra quote Ibn al-Nadim's Fihrist that he came from Khwarazm and was attached to al-Ma'mun's Treasury of Wisdom. They hold that his name became Algorithm in English and Algorismus in Latin, and that Indian reckoning, with its use of zero, reached the West through his book on arithmetic. Which of his accomplishments would you tell a classmate first?
In your own words: what does Tasmiya (naming: giving a name to a child, and the rules on names) have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
Naming a child. The Kuwaiti Encyclopaedia of Fiqh records that the jurists use the word tasmiya in several senses, one of them giving a proper name to a child, and that they hold that the father has the better right to name a child; if the parents differ, the father's choice is preferred. This is a legal discussion, not a custom of any community. It reports that the schools differ on the time: the Malikis hold that a child is named on the seventh day after the aqiqa sacrifice, the Shafi'is recommend the seventh day, and the Hanbalis report two views. How is a child named in your family?
I can now
Notes
- 1. Ontario Ministry of Education, The Ontario Curriculum: Classical Studies and International Languages
- 2. al-Khwarizmi, Kitab al-Jabr wal-Muqabala, ed. Mosharafa and Ahmad (Cairo, 1939), p.22
- 3. al-Khwarizmi, al-Kitab al-mukhtasar fi hisab al-jabr wal-muqabala, ed. Friedrich Rosen (London, 1831), Arabic text, p.121
- 4. Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition (Leiden: Brill, 1954–2008), 13 volumes, vol. 4 p. 1111
- 5. al-Khwarizmi, Kitab al-Jabr wal-Muqabala, ed. Mosharafa and Ahmad (Cairo, 1939), p.23