Nowruz Mobarak!

With the beginning of spring I must of course wish all of those of you who celebrate Nowruz a happy New Year, whether you are Iranian, Afghan, Turkish, Central Asians, some folks in the Balkans, Syrian ‘Alawites, Zoroastrians everywhere, members of the Baha'i Faith — almost anyone who has been touched by the culture or faith of ancient Persia. You'll find my earlier Nowruz posts here, and Wikipedia's background here.

Nowruz literally means "New Day," which I wish all my readers.

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Purim

Best wishes to my Jewish readers on the occasion of Purim this weekend.

While I have family plans over the weekend I may drop by here occasionally when events warrant, as I rather suspect they will.

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Mawlid al-Nabi

I'm a little late noting the Prophet's birthday this year, which was yesterday.

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Merry Christmas, Part Two

If you're Middle Eastern, or any sort of Orthodox or other eastern Christian, and/or ecumenical and believe you can never have too many Christmases, a Happy Orthodox/Eastern Christmas to you today. The Julian calendar having now diverged from the Gregorian by 13 days, it's rather neat: just as Western Christians are celebrating 12th Night/Epiphany/Three Kings Day and the 12 Drummers are drumming on January 6, suddenly it's Christmas Eve in the old calendar and we get to start the whole process again.

But then many Armenians celebrate on the Julian Three Kings Day, so we've still got one to go.

So Merry Christmas, Part Two.

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Happy New Year!

Happy January 1, 2011 AD.

Of course it's also:

December 19, 2010 in the Julian Calendar;

25 Tevet AM 5771 in the Jewish Calendar;

26 Muharram, 1432 AH in the Muslim Calendar;

11 Dey 1389 in the Persian Calendar;

11 Befranbar 1389 in the Kurdish Calendar;

11 Jaddi 1389 in the Afghan Calendar;

23 Koiak (Kiahk) Year of the Martyrs 1727 in the Coptic Calendar;

2 Sharaf 167 BE in the Baha'i Calendar;

and since I'm still on holiday that's where I'll stop. Those I've left out are welcome to post to the comments.

And a Happy New Year to you all anyway. Kull al-‘am wa antum bi'l khayr, Shona Tova, and all the rest.

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Christmas Week: Posting will Be Irregular

I'm spending the week with the family, so posting will be sporadic. I lost Internet for a while today, probably due to the high winds we've been getting, but am back now. Posts may also be at odd hours, but do stop by as I will be around this week.

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‘Ashura 1432

Okay, before somebody starts denouncing me, the above artwork is from Hizbullah's Al-Manar TV English website. If you think I'm a Hizbullah sympathizer you haven't been paying attention, but I needed some Shi‘ite graphics for ‘Ashura, and there it was. If it makes you feel any better, I'm probably violating their copyright.

Today is ‘Ashura, the tenth of Muharram. As the tenth day of the new Muslim year, it originated as a day of fasting exactly analagous to Yom Kippur; the parallel was, according to some hadith, acknowledged by the Prophet himself. I dealt with the background of the day in some detail last year.

While it is still a day of recommended fasting for Sunni Muslims, it has become far more closely identified with Shi‘ism, since it was on ‘Ashura in the year 61 after the Hijra (680 AD) that the third Imam of Shi‘ism, the Prophet's grandson Hussein, and many members of the Prophetic family were martyred in battle at Karbala in Iraq by the Umayyad Caliph Yazid.

At a minimum, Shi‘ites mark ‘Ashura by reenactments of Hussein's martyrdom and by mourning; in some countries self-flagellation and other extreme practices are seen. In Tehran and other Iranian cities, in the Shi‘ite shrines of Iraq, in southern Lebanon and Bahrain and eastern Saudi Arabia, Shi‘ites will commemorate their central martyr. Unfortunately there are likely to be sectarian attacks as well; yesterday's bombing in Chabahar, Iran, claimed by the Sunni Jundallah, was presumably timed to ‘Ashura, and Sunni-Shi‘ite clashes in Iraq often coincide with Shi‘ite holidays. The blood shed on the field of Karbala 1330 years ago still divides Muslims today.

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Ra's al-Sana; 1 Muharram 1432 AH

For my Muslim readers, Ra's al-Sana (exactly cognate with Rosh Hashona), the new Hijri year, begins at sundown today. Tomorrow is 1 Muharram, 1432 in the Hijra calendar. Happy New Year; Kul al-‘Am wa antum bi'l-khayr.

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Hanukkah Greetings

The eight day feast of Hanukkah begins at sundown. Hanukkah greetings to my Jewish readers. Last year I reflected a bit on the differences between Hanukkah in the United States and in Israel, and if you're interested you can still find that post here.

[Link wasn't working for several hours. It's fixed now.]

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UAE Independence, 39 Years On

Tomorrow will mark the 39th Anniversary of UAE independence. The National today has a nice historical section, including videos of the independence ceremonies, and of Oum Kulthum's concert celebrating independence. The videos don't seem to be embeddable, so follow the links. Being an Abu Dhabi paper, the late Sheikh Zayed gets all the attention.

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Holidays All Around

I'm back from the long Thanksgiving Weekend in the US. I'll be commenting on Egypt's elections and other developments in a bit, but thought I'd note that not only have we begun the period which in the US is called "the holidays," but that it's not just the West.

Hanukkah starts at sundown on Wednesday. The Muslim New Year 1432 (Ra's al-Sana) begins December 7, or more exactly at sundown the evening before; ‘Ashura, noted by all Muslims but the great observation of the martyrdom of Imam Husayn for Shi‘a, is December 16; Latin (Western) Christmas is of course December 25. One of the major seasonal Zoroastrian festivals begins at the end of the year. Since winter solstice fesztibals are common, I may have omitted some of the smaller Middle Eastern religions (Yazidis, Mandeans, etc.), and welcome knowing about additions.

So in advance, Happy Holidays.

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Post-Thanksgiving Reverie: What do Turkeys have to do with Turkey?

I've already signed off for the four-day Thanksgiving weekend, and if you haven't watched the old videos I posted (just below) please do so, but a brief Facebook exchange on Thanksgiving night reminded me of the oddity of the term by which we call the bird so associated with Thanksgiving: that most American of birds, the turkey. (Ben Franklin thought the wild turkey, not the bald eagle, should be the American emblem.) For you non-American readers, Thanksgiving is associated with turkeys, which we eat for Thanksgiving dinner. At the first thanksgiving in 1621, after the Pilgrims in Plymouth had survived a horrible year, the Wampanoag Indians and the Pilgrims spent several days celebrating a harvest feast. They ate deer and the fruits of the harvest, and "fowl." Turkeys aren't mentioned (there are only two references to the first Thanksgiving, by William Bradford and somebody else), but have become canonical. This was a symbol of colonist/Indian amity, and has been celebrated for many years, starting sometime after the Wampanoag were essentially wiped out. The President of the United States issues a Presidential pardon to the official White House turkey and its backup (the Vice Turkey?) on TV:

.

Turkeys are not terribly intelligent birds (that's an understatement, and probably why "turkey" is a pejorative at times) but are very good to eat.

That begs the major question: If the turkey is an American bird, why is it named for Turkey?

Damned if I know, but Wikipedia offers this:

When Europeans first encountered turkeys on the American continent, they incorrectly identified the birds as a type of guineafowl (Numididae), also known as turkey fowl (or turkey hen and turkey cock) due to the birds' importation to Central Europe through Turkey. That name, shortened to just the name of the country, stuck as the name of the American bird.

Okay, but Guinea and Turkey are not particularly close to each other. But that's just the first step.

The Turks call it Hindi, or the Indian bird. French dinde, similarly, started out as d'Inde. So in Turkey, it's Indian. Apparently languages ranging from modern Hebrew to most Slavic languages (indyk or something similar) follow suit. But it's not an Indian bird, either.

In Arabic, or at least every Arabic country where I've talked turkey, it called dik rumi, the "Roman fowl," but "Roman" here means pertaining to the Byzantine Empire, hence Greek or Anatolian. It's not Greek or Anatolian either, though Anatolia today = Turkey. But various sources say that Palestinian and other Levantine dialects call it dik habashi, or Ethiopian bird. (Maybe better "Abyssinian bird" since the Arabic habash and the Greek Abyssinia are the same word.) I guess I never discussed turkeys in the Levant, if that's the case. And it's not Ethiopian, either.

I'm on a holiday break so I'm stopping there. Bernard Lewis, who whatever you think of his current politics is one of the last of the old-school orientalists, has suggested the bird is called by whatever term people see as meaning "exotic" or "foreign": something like "It's Greek to me."

I don't care what you call the damned bird. Pass the dressing.

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‘Id Mubarak: The Feast of ‘Id al-‘Adha

‘Id Mubarak to my Muslim readers. ‘Id al-‘Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice or Greater ‘Id (also Qurban Bayram and many other names in many languages), begins today. The major festival of the Muslim year (the other major feast being the ‘Id that ends Ramadan), it coincides with the sacrifice carried out in Mecca in conjunction with the Hajj.

Last year, the ‘Id overlapped with the American Thanksgiving holiday, so my greetings were offered without much background. But since this blog is intended to educate as well as entertain, I'd like to take a little more time with it this year.

The Feast of Sacrifice is generally seen as the most important religious feast, hence the fact that it is often called the ‘Id al-Kabir or "Greater ‘Id," and it coincides with the central ritual of Islam, the fifth pillar of Islam, the hajj. Animals are sacrificed (the meat then distributed to the poor) in a ritual of great antiquity, one Muslims themselves say partially predates Islam itself.

What most non-Muslims probably do not know is the fact that, like the hajj itself, the ‘Id commemorates a story known to Jews and Christians as well: God's demand that Abraham sacrifice his son, only to relent and substitute an animal sacrifice when Abraham had demonstrated his obedience even in such a horrific task. The Qur'an and Islamic tradition say the son was Isma‘il (Ishmael in the Bible) rather than Isaac (Ishaq in the Qur'an) as in the Book of Genesis, but the story and its moral is virtually identical.

Now, these days Abraham, venerated by Judaism (Avraham), Christianity (Abraham), and Islam (Ibrahim) is often more of a source of conflict among the three faiths which claim him than a unifying factor, but he is a shared Patriarch of all three "Abrahamic" faiths: Our Father Abraham to Jews, the "first Muslim" and "friend of God" to Muslims, and a familiar patriarch to Christians, though he is not quite so central for them. Whether you consider Abraham a historical figure, a mythic culture hero, a Bronze Age myth or some combination of these, he is a potent symbol, and as I have noted, his tomb in Hebron is second only to the Temple Mount/Haram in Jerusalem as a disputed holy place.

The story of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son, whether Isaac or Ishmael, strikes most modern people as something incomprehensible, but his absolute obedience is central to the symbolic message of the story: his profound obedience is what led God to proclaim his covenant with Abraham.

The hajj itself is profoundly linked to the Abraham story: the running between Safa and Marwa, part of the ritual, reflects Hagar's search for water for the infant Isma‘il, rewarded by the discovery of the well Zamzam, the water of which is drunk by every hajji, and the sacrifice of an animal today represents the sacrifice of Abraham. The Ka‘aba itself is said to have been first built by Abraham.

Despite the profound divisions Abraham's legacy sometimes creates today, the Abrahamic core of this particular feast could potentially, in some alternate universe, make it a potential meeting place for the three "Abrahamic" faiths.

Interestingly, Arab News, a Saudi English-language daily whose readership includes not only Westerners but many South Asians, including non-Muslims, takes this sort of "ecumenical" tack in its editorial today, seeking to link the interfaith dialogue promoted by King ‘Abdullah with the Abrahamic common ground the feast invokes. If such sentiments could prevail year round and not just on holidays, the region might be a better place.

‘Id Mubarak wa Sa‘id.

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Hajj 1431: The Day of ‘Arafat

Yesterday an estimated two million or more Muslims gathered at the locale in Mecca known as Mina; today they proceed to Mount ‘Arafat, as they continue the ancient (in fact, pre-Islamic even by Muslim accounts) rituals of the hajj. Muslims around the world are preparing to celebrate the Feast of Sacrifice (‘Id al-‘Adha)simultaneous with the concluding rituals of the hajj.

King ‘Abdullah is said to be suffering from a slipped disc; Interior Minister Prince Nayif is accordingly overseeing this year's hajj.

The hajj is most likely the largest annual gathering of human beings at one time for a common purpose. More as it continues.

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