Re: Ja:hili:ya


Dr. Jamshid Ibrahim wrote:
Yusuf B Gursey wrote:
I subscribe to "usage over 'roots' "

ignorance but disregard as in the extended verb form. Of course people
in Ja:hili:yya couldn't have been ignorant in any sense.The term must


Enc. of Islam II "Djahiliyya" (the CD-ROM (1st ver.) misspells the
entry <Djahilliya>)


Enc. of the Qur'an "Age of Ignorance" offers some arguments for
"barbarism".

Enc. of Islam I "Djahiliya" offers a parallel with Acts 17, 30 in favor
of "ignorance"


Acts of the Apostles 17

30. "Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now
declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,



have been applied later and probably implied more than "ignorance of
Islam". Another word which just came to my mind is ?ummi: (illiterate
or motherly) which is said to be derived from ?umma (ordinary people)
and ?umm (mother).

one modern interpreation is that it originally meant "Gentile" (from a
hebrew expression "of the nations of the world") and then became
"uneducated in scripture",
and only later "illiterate". Noldeke and others, see Enc. of Islam I
(first edition), "Ummi"

Yes, Yusuf maybe I don't categorically deny the truth of such
interpretations but as I said earlier I have my doubts and I believe
there is some dispute on this matter and there are no definite answers
so far. Maybe the term is a loan translation. It might also imply the
abscence of some values and the condemnation of some practices before
Islam like Wa?d - il-bana:t....and not only ignorance. There is some
reproachful implication here. I think more resaerch is needed.

try the sources I suggested. it's more about religion than language.

.

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