On Barack Hussein, the name
by Juan Cole who is a middle eastern scholar & professor, also fluent in Arabic. His analysis and
commentary on Iraq and the middle east is excellent.
http://www.juancole.com/refers herein to the guy Cunningham who spoke at the McCain rally (see
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JOcSPTFAck )
"...
I want to say something about Barack Hussein Obama's name. It is a name to be
proud of. It is an American name. It is a blessed name. It is a heroic name, as
heroic and American in its own way as the name of General Omar Nelson Bradley
or the name of Benjamin Franklin. And denigrating that name is a form of racial
and religious bigotry of the most vile and debased sort. It is a prejudice against
names deriving from Semitic languages!
Christian, Western heroes have often been bequeathed Middle Eastern names.
Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, the medieval Spanish hero, carried the name El Cid, from
the Arabic al-Sayyid, "the lord."
Barack and Hussein are Semitic words. Americans have been named with Semitic
names since the founding of the Republic. Thirteen of our 42 presidents have
had Semitic names (see below).
Barack is a Semitic word meaning "to bless" as a verb or "blessing" as a noun.
It is found all through the Bible. It first occurs in Genesis 1:22: "And God blessed
(barak) them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and
let fowl multiply in the earth."
...
Now let us take the name "Hussein." It is from the Semitic word, hasan, meaning
"good" or "handsome." Husayn is the diminutive, affectionate form.
Barack Obama's middle name is in honor of his grandfather, Hussein, a secular
resident of Nairobi. Americans may think of Saddam Hussein when they hear the
name, but that is like thinking of Stalin when you hear the name Joseph.
There have been lots of Husseins in history, from the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad,
a hero who touched the historian Gibbon, to King Hussein of Jordan, one of America's
most steadfast allies in the 20th century. The author of the beloved American novel,
The Kite Runner, is Khaled Hosseini.
But in Obama's case, it is just a reference to his grandfather.
It is worth pointing out that John McCain's adopted daughter, Bridget, is originally
from Bangladesh. Since Hussein is a very common name in Bangladesh, it is entirely
possible that her birth father or grandfather was named Hussein.
McCain certainly has Muslim relatives via adoption in his family. If Muslim relatives
are a disqualification from high office in the United States, then McCain himself is
in trouble.
In fact, since Bridget is upset that George W. Bush doesn't like her "because she is
black," and used her to stop the McCain campaign in South Carolina in 2000, you
understand why McCain would be especially sensitive to race-baiting of Cunningham's
sort. The question is how vigorously he will combat it; he hasn't been above Muslim-
taunting in the campaign so far. (And, the McCains really should let Bridget know
that she is Asian, not "black." The poor girl; Bush and Rove have done a number on
her, and Cindy's confusion can't help.)
...
So, anyway, Obama's first two names mean "Blessing, the Good." If we are lucky
enough to get him for president, we can only hope that his names are prophetic for us.
Which brings me to Omar Bradley. Omar is an alternative spelling of Umar, i.e.
Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second caliph of Sunni Islam. Presumably General Bradley
was named for the poet Omar Khayyam, who bore the caliph's name. Omar
Khayyam's Rubaiyat, in the "translation" of Edward FitzGerald, became enormously
popular in Victorian America.
Gen. Omar Bradley, who bore a Semitic, Muslim first name, and shared it with the
second Caliph of Sunni Islam, was the hero of D-Day and Normandy, of the Battle
of the Bulge and the Ruhr.
Would Mr. Cunningham see Omar Bradley as un-American, as an enemy because
of his name?
What about other American heroes ....
As for an American president bearing a name derived from a Semitic language, that
is hardly unprecedented.
Let us take Benjamin Franklin. His first name is from the Hebrew Bin Yamin, the son
of the Right (hand), or son of strength, or the son of the South (yamin or right has lots
of connotations). The "Bin" means "son of," just as in modern colloquial Arabic. Bin
Yamin Franklin is not a dishonorable name because of its Semitic root. By the way,
there are lots of Muslims named Bin Yamin.
John Adams really only had Semitic names. His first name is from the Hebrew
Yochanan, or gift of God, which became Johan and then John. (In German and in
medieval English, "y" is represented by "j" but was originally pronounced "y".) Adams
is from the biblical Adam, which also just means "human being." In Arabic, one
way of saying "human being" is "Bani Adam," the children of men.
Thomas Jefferson's first name is from the Aramaic Tuma, meaning "twin." Aramaic
is a Semitic language spoken by Jesus, which is related to Hebrew and Arabic. In
Arabic twin is tau'am, so you can see the similarity.
James Madison, James Monroe and James Polk all had a Semitic first name, derived
from the Hebrew Ya?aqov or Jacob, which is Ya`qub in Arabic. It became Iacobus
in Latin, then was corrupted to Iacomus, and from there became James in English.
Zachary Taylor's first name is from the Hebrew Zachariah, which means "the Lord
has remembered."
Abraham Lincoln, of course is, named for the patriarch Abraham, from the Semitic
word for father, Ab, and the word for "multitude," raham,. In Arabic rahim means
"womb," also with the connotation of "kinship."
So, Mr. Cunningham, Barack Hussein Obama fits right in this list of presidents
with Semitic names. In fact, we haven't had one for a while, since John F. Kennedy.
We are due for another one.
A blessed and good one.
--
Posted By Juan Cole to Informed Comment at 2/27/2008 06:32:00 AM
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