How to pronounce and use habibi / habibti, ayooni, albi, hayaati, oumri, and rohi in the Palestinian dialect.

enta oumr oumri - you’re the age of my age, (the love of my life, masc.)

Please note there was a bit missing from the Derja vocabulary post, thanks Tunglr. The expressions are a mixture of transcriptions and transliterations from different sources. They’re not guaranteed to be accurate as written in Roman script, they’re not all consistent with each other, and they are intended for light reading purposes only. And as always, please remember to consume your Tumblr posts with a massive pinch of salt.

Adding to that: one big difference between Derja and MSA (Modern Standard Arabic) is that there are 7 pronouns in Derja, while there are 13 pronouns in MSA. For example, in Derja “inti” (you) is a neutral pronoun. In other dialects “inti / enty” is the female pronoun and “enta” is the male pronoun. Using “inti”, the standard female pronoun, when speaking to a man could be very insulting to a non-Derja speaker. But Joe could say “inti hobb hayati” (you’re the love of my life) to Nicky in Derja without eating the gender rulebook.

There are over a dozen ways to transliterate Arabic script into Roman script and there are multiple versions of many transcribed words. Some examples:

• I love you (نحبك) - n7bek / nhbek / nhebek
• a lot (برشة) - barcha / barsha
• my heart (قلبي) - qalbi / ‘albi / galbi / albi / albee
• My eyes (عيونى) - 3youni / ouyouni / ayouni / ayooni / ayoony / 'yooni / eiyoni / ‘aini
• My eye (عينى) - 3aynayya / 3inine / 3eni / eini / eayny / any
• thank you (شكرا) - chokran / shokran / shokrane / shukran

Some of these differences reflect different transliteration styles and some of them reflect different regional pronunciations. Casually trying to be consistent with transliterated / transcribed Arabic in fic would be some challenge. “He said in Arabic” is your fic friend.

As a 954 year old Joe would speak a diverse mix of dialects, and use old and modern terms. But maybe Joe uses azizi / azizti (my dear, m/f) or qatussi / qatussti (my cat, m/f) sometimes instead of habibi / habibti. He might respond to “you’re the love of my life” with “you’re the light of my eyes”. He might say “it all went to salad” instead of “the shit hit the fan”. Just like Booker might say Nile is “the wild plum of my eye” (la prunelle des mes yeuxs) instead of the apple of his eye and Nicky might say “everything is broth, Andy” (tutto fa brodo, Andy) instead of every little helps.

To be absolutely clear, anything I share about Arabic is not intended to be definitive. I am a language learner, not a linguist, and this is not a langblr. It’s just a beginner sharing what they’re enjoying learning on their hyperfixation station. Sharing might encourage someone else to explore the beautiful world beyond habibi or it might encourage someone else to get over the mental block that Arabic is impossible and start learning it too. There is so much Western bias against learning or understanding Arabic but it has an alphabet with 28 letters, the pronunciation can be learned with a little practice, and the vocabulary is as complex as any other modern language. And hey, if Nicolò di Genova could do it, so could you.

How to say “a lot” in Modern Standard Arabic and in the dialects of Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Libya and Sudan

English phrases translated into different Arabic dialects - Qatari, Egyptian, Tunisian and Moroccan

Yusuf ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad Al-Kaysani,

Proud Citizen of the Zirid Dynasty: Part 2

Ok, so now we can confidently say that the Zirid Dynasty makes sense as the homeland of Yusuf. I was going to get straight into the history of the Zirid Dynasty but honestly, there’s nothing straight about this blog. I wrote one line about the city of Kairouan being founded by the Umayyad’s on the site of a former Byzantine outpost and came to the conclusion that some more context couldn’t hurt. Let’s zoom back out for a minute and get a feel for some of the regions historic context, it’s relationship with “Italy”, and also get some context for “the Franks” feeling of entitlement towards the Levant.

Keep your eye on the city of Carthage as we go, that’s modern day Tunis. Phoenicians founded the city in 814 BC and it became the centre of the Carthaginian Empire. Carthage was the trading hub of the Ancient Mediterranean and was an incredibly rich city.

This is probably where a textbook would start, ignoring the Amazigh peoples that inhabited the region for at least 9,000 years before the Phoenicians sailed up the coast. We’ll come back to that another day. For now, have a look at Phoenicia itself on the map. Doesn’t that region look familiar? People sailing around the Mediterranean and claiming other parts of it was nothing new in 1096 AD.

The rise of the Carthaginian Empire and the rise of the Roman Empire brought them into conflict. This lead to the Maghrebi region of the Carthaginian Empire becoming the Roman province, Africa Proconsularis.*

*This link is not objective and contains blatant historical bias but it was the most accurate, least biased one I could find.

In the 4th century Christianity began to spread throughout the Roman Empire after Constantine I co-signed the Edict of Milan. He was the first Christian Roman Emperor, and he founded the new Roman capital city, Constantinople (now Istanbul not Constantinople).

Christianisation was messy and complicated. There was a rich diversity of indigenous religious beliefs throughout the regions beforehand, despite the uniform picture painted by the term “pagan”, and the early adoption of Christianity was varied in its sincerity. But that’s a whole other story. It seemed relevant to note that it’s rarely ever as simple as “us” and “them”.

After the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, Africa Proconsularis became the Kingdom of the Vandals. Note that the Eastern Roman Empire (the Byzantine Empire) was still going strong. The fall marked the beginning of the Middle Ages, also known as the “the Dark Ages”.

The Kingdom of the Vandals was conquered by the Byzantine Empire in the 6th century, when it became the Exarchate of Africa. The Byzantines held it until the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb in the 7th century. (Why yes indeed, those are both just links to Wikipedia. The other articles I could find were all a mess. The wiki entries at least acknowledge the existence of the regions indigenous peoples and both entries have referenced sources.)

As the Byzantine Empire expands and contracts during the Middle Ages you can see that it extends as far west as Carthage and southern Spain in the 6th century, that it includes Anatolia and the Levant in the 5th and 6th centuries, and that it recovered a portion of Anatolia and the Levant in the 12th century following the First Crusade.

In the 7th century Islam spread throughout the Arab peninsula, (the prophet Muhammad lived from 571-632 AD). Over the course of the next few hundred years Islam spread from the Arabian peninsula as far west as the Iberian peninsula and as far east as northern India.

By the late 7th century “Tunisia” was part of the Umayyad Caliphate. The caliphate mostly kept existing governments and cultures intact and administered through governors and financial officers in order to collect taxes. Arabic became the main administrative language. Non-Muslim subjects paid a special tax. Although many Christians migrated out of the region following the Muslim conquest there was a sizeable Christian community up until possibly as late as the 14th century.

And here we are, we’ve reached the 10 image per post limit so we’ll finish working our way up to the 11th century next time!

Hopefully, dear reader, this gives you a slightly richer sense of the First Crusades historic context, some sense of “Tunisia’s” historic cultural influences, and a sense of “Tunisia’s” significance within the wider Mediterranean world.

maps: 1, 2, 3, 4

Proud Citizen of the Zirid Dynasty: Part 1

My favourite poet and scholar Yusuf al-Kaysani is openly in a committed relationship with another man. Let’s hear what Imam Daayiee Abdullah and artist Parisa Parnian have to share about their experiences of living as openly gay Muslims.

Imam Daayiee Abdullah is involved in actively promoting understanding and awareness of issues of racial, gender and sexual equality as understood in the UN Declaration of Human Rights within and beyond Muslim communities. He performs same sex, opposite sex and interfaith marriages for Muslims and non-Muslims of diverse backgrounds.

“As a gay Imam, talking to people who are gay and lesbian, my role for them is to help them develop their own inner voice. When you’re touched by Allah, and you speak from truth. This is an important aspect because many gays and lesbians are silenced, they swallow their own voice. It’s important that they open up, and state their voice, and their truth. Because Allah admires the truth, Allah says that the truth is very important. No matter what the circumstances, the truth is very important and must be stated. So, as a gay Imam I have to speak out, not just for my people, but for all people. Because oppression of one is oppression of all.”

From: Gender Me, Imam Daayiee Abdullah

Parisa Parnian prepares Ghormeh Sabzi, one of the most iconic dishes of Iran, on Cooking with Pride, while sharing stories about her journey as a queer, Iranian, Muslim-raised immigrant womxn.

cw: the article linked at “Persia and Turkey” contains depictions of the prophet Muhammad

My favourite poet and scholar Yusuf al-Kaysani depicts people in his artwork. Aren’t Muslims prohibited from depicting living beings? Does this mean that Joe must definitely not be a practicing Muslim? Personally, I don’t think that his artistic practice informs an answer to that question.

There is a strong tradition that prohibits Muslims from drawing living beings. However, it is not explicitly prohibited in the Qur'an (and there’s actually a history of depicting the prophet Muhammad in Persia and Turkey, which is a sensitive subject). There are however many warnings in the Hadith, the collected sayings and teachings of the prophet Muhammad, against depicting livng creatures because it is seen as an act of competng against God’s creation. However, an artist is unable to create in the same manner as God creates. In his book “Speaking in God’s Name’, Khaled Abou el Fadl says that matters of such social importance should not rest on a prohibition that is given in the Hadith. Dr. Shabbir Ally

As in Judaism and Christianity where one of the commandments states "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image”, there is a worry that creating idols can create an external spiritual focus that leads to false worship. Indeed, one of the contributing factors to the split of the Christian church during the Reformation was the fear that Catholics excessive love of statues strayed into the worshipping of false idols. The subsequently formed Protestant denominations preferred little to no statuary.

I could go into an elaborate head canon about Yusuf and Nicolò spending their downtime during the 12th and 13th centuries hanging out in Persian literary salons, about how Joe has a 958 year perspective on Islam, or a meta on the way he uses his sketchbook to process and make sense of his thoughts and feelings. Instead, if it’s your cup of tea, the following will introduce you to the artistic practices of some queer and some female contemporary Muslim artists. Click the links for interviews with and articles about the artists and their work.

The Third Muslim, 2018, was an exhibition promoting the work of queer and trans* Muslim artists, writers and cultural producers from multiple diasporas, lineages, races, and ethnicities. creative practitioners included Black Americans, people hailing from South Asia, North Africa, East Africa, and the Middle East, as well as those who are not Muslim but are equally engaged in discussions around themes like migration, diaspora, displacement and Islamophobia. “this was a global revolution, queer and trans* Muslims were making art and shaping narrative throughout the world. We had been making art for many generations.”

Kiyaan Abadani

bedoone onvan/untitled

bedoone onvan/untitled

Hushidar Mortezaie

Occupy Me: Topping from the Bottom

Numair Abbasi

Little circles whisper around my head

Samra Habib

Just Me and Allah: Photographs of Queer Muslims - Leila

Just Me and Allah: Photographs of Queer Muslims - ElFarouk

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Ayqa Khan

Lalla Essaydi

Yumna Al-Arashi

Ejatu Shaw