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 identify conventions of greeting and address, and to use them appropriately when you speak. The museum offers two: how a greeting is given on meeting and on parting, and how a person is honoured by a kunya. The phrases you practise, regional variants, and everyday formality, your class brings. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- B3.2 identify sociolinguistic conventions associated with a variety of social situations in diverse communities where the target language is spoken, and use them appropriately in spoken interactions in the target language […]
2 Before you start
A thought to carry into the lesson.
3 The lesson
When do you greet, and how do you address someone?
Notice the occasions for the greeting in the record: on meeting and on parting. Then compare how you would address an older person, a friend and a stranger, and what changes between them.
Go deeper
The Kuwaiti encyclopaedia of jurisprudence reports how a kunya may be taken by someone who has no child. A person without children may take the kunya of another's child, as the Prophet ﷺ told Aisha when she had no child to be named after: take the kunya of your son Abd Allah, her nephew 2. A kunya may be taken from a quality, such as Abu Turab or Abu Hurayra (may God be pleased with him) 2. On the kunya of a child, most jurists see no harm, on the report of Anas about Abu Umayr, on the words of Umar to hasten the kunyas of children lest bad nicknames stick, and on the report that the Prophet gave Ibn Mas'ud the kunya Abu Abd al-Rahman before he had children 2 3. Scholars said children were given kunyas as an omen of living until they have children 2 3.
Two views
On the kunya of a child, most jurists see no harm 2 3. Ibn Abidin says that some dislike giving a child the kunya Abu Bakr, but most do not, since people intend an omen 3. So the majority accept it, some dislike one particular kunya for a child, and in the encyclopaedia the reason given for giving a child a kunya is an omen of a long life.
How do we know?
All these rulings come from one book, the Kuwaiti encyclopaedia of jurisprudence, which names those who hold them and the reports they rely on: Ibn Muflih cites the report of Hani ibn Yazid 2, and Ibn Abidin gives his view on the kunya Abu Bakr 3. The record on greeting with peace takes the meaning of the word taslim from the same encyclopaedia 4; its other sections are headed "Greeting as a brother's right in Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy's lesson" and "In Abd al-Rahman Mansour's programme 'Ahalina'", and they report what was said in a lesson and in a programme.
Think about it
Into the museum
- Kunya: the rulings the jurists give, the kunya of the Prophet, and the kunya of a child.
- Greeting with peace: the meaning of taslim, and the sections of the record that report a lesson and a programme.
- Tasmiya: the jurists' senses of the word for naming, and the schools' differing views on the time of naming.
Try this
Read the records on the greeting of peace and on the kunya. Write a short role-play in which two people meet, honour each other by a name that begins with Abu or Umm, and take leave.
4 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does Greeting with peace (salam) have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
Greeting on meeting and on parting. Abd al-Rahman Mansour makes giving the greeting of peace the first of 'the keys to hearts' in his programme Ahalina. He says the greeting belongs to arriving and to leaving alike, and that the first is no more due than the last. Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy counts greeting on meeting among a Muslim's rights over his brother. When do you greet, and when do you take leave, in the language you study?
In your own words: what does Kunya (teknonym, fiqh rulings) have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
Honouring someone by a kunya. The Kuwaiti Encyclopaedia of Fiqh says that a kunya is a name that begins with ab, father, or umm, mother, such as Abu Abd Allah or Umm al-Khayr. It says it is a name besides the given name and the laqab, used with them or alone to honour its bearer, and that it belongs to notable people. Among the Arabs kunyas were so well known that they sometimes overcame the proper names. How would you address someone you wish to honour?
I can now
Notes
- 1. Ontario Ministry of Education, The Ontario Curriculum: Classical Studies and International Languages
- 2. al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya, Noor-Book copy (file named v3), p.13541
- 3. al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya, Noor-Book copy (file named v3), p.13542
- 4. al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya, Noor-Book copy (file named v3), p.5084