বাঙ্গালা তরজমা

[Caution: Some Arabic names have been transliterated from their usual Bengali pronunciations. In particular for Arabic ث Bengali ছ and its equivalent Chh have been used in stead of Th.]

Madyan another name of which is Mughair Shuayb (Shuayb's oasis) is situated in northwest corner of present Saudi Arabia east of Sinai near the gulf of Aqaba. During the time of Hazrat Muhammad the Aslami tribe used to live in this locality.

Quite a few Aslami were among the Suffah Companions of the Messenger of God. The Noble Koran speaks of the grove Al-Aaikh (26:275) and Madyan (7:85,11:84-95). The locality was the area of Hazrat Shuayb. Hazrat Shuayb was the father-in-law of Hazrat Musa (Moses). In the history of the sufi khirka we find that Shuayb gave the khirka to Moses.

Khirka is the cloak the sufi master present to his disciple or disciples. Hazrat Shahabuddin Maneri wrote that Hazrat Adam presented his cloak to his son Hazrat Shichh (Seth). This cloak Hazrat Adam made with the leaves by taking permission from the trees. Can one understand the significance of this story without being mindful of the environment? Perhaps from it originated the custom of wearing patched garments.

Hazrat Shuayb was a Midianite. About two or three hundred years before him there was a kingdom called Mitanni. The name Zuleikha of the wife of Hazrat Yusuf (Joseph) was probably Mitanni in origin. Annemarie Schimmel [1] gave a variant as Sulaika which appears to be Sanskrit sounding. In fact the language of Mitanni shows much similarity with Vedic. A Mitanni king had the name Tusarath.

The earlier name of Medina also Yathrib which reminds Jethro a biblical name for Shuayb. Shuayb is called Jethro in the Elohist account of the Bible. One Yahwist account called him Hobab which can be taken as a variant pronunciation of Shuayb. But Numbers 10:29 called his son as Hobab and called him Reuel. Reuel could be a title signifying spirit of God (Ruhullah).

Midianites were probably related to the lost Indo-European people of Mitanni. The name Yahweh (Jehova) has been considered to be a variant of Shah (Sain, Swami). Again we have an Iranian and Indian sounding word that points to Mitanni. The story of the lost Mitanni legacy among Muslims can be found in the article "Bengali Nath and Midianite Arab Nasiku" [2] posted in the internet.

Everybody knows that Zuleikha saw Joseph in Egypt. Northeast Syria was in the kingdom of Mitanni. Mitanni had deep contact with Egypt. Madyan was near a principal road connecting Syria and Egypt.

In one story in the Bible Joseph was sold by his brothers to the Midianites. It appears that from the time of Joseph to the time of the wars between the Jews and the Midianites sometime after Moses, the descendants of Joseph were important in matters of Sufism.

Hazrat Ishaq (Isaac) had a colored belt. By virtue of being the first issue the eldest daughter demanded the belt and she later gave it to her nephew Joseph. Thus the belt was not inherited by the first son Judah of Hazrat Yakub (Jacob). Joseph, younger brother of Judah, inherited the belt. This incident could be the story of the passing of khirka from Jacob to Joseph.

One imagines that a Sufi tradition came to Moses from Joseph through Shuayb. It is for this reason one finds Midianite zofitim and Israili judges by the title Cephus in the Old Testament of the Bible.

That Cephus or its decayed variants survived outside the main Judaism till the formation of the Christianity can be understood from Shamun Safa (Cafa) and Kipa the Arabic and Syriac name of Simon Peter, a topic explained nicely by Benjamin Abu Dawood Caldani. The meaning of the word Safa is stone. Petros means rock. Safwan is hard stone or rock. "... rock on which there is dust" ... Koran 2:264.

In ancient time stones have some important uses. It is with the stone or ansab that a holy place was indicated. Ansabul haram is a sign after which no prohibited actions can be performed. Only that days the Tuareg of Sahara used to make their mosques or places of ritual prayers by surrounding a piece of the desert by stones. The encyclopedia of Glasse has a picture of this (page 391 [3]).

This Arabic word for stone came from root S-F. This S is Sowad (Sad). In fact the S-B sound of ansab came in a similar fashion. The stone of the locality was called sab. Here on one day of the week (Bengali saptaha seven days) everbody of the society gathered. Saptaha, sat, English seven, sabath, savaa (tatsama for meeting), Bengali tope (stup), tepe, dhap, thamba all these came from S-F of the stone or from some variants of it in old languages.

Arabic saabat and saabbat came from the root Sin-B-T. If one objects pointing to the difference of Sin and Sowad, then one cannot discuss the time of Adam.

Arabic word saaffaat originated from the root Sowad-F-F. The word mean class, series, ranks, troops arranged for the battle, wings spread out. Sura As-saaffat begins, "Those arranged in ranks." An old variant of the word may mean religious gathering for example Hebrew saba (host) or sebaoth (hosts, Yahweh sebaoth Lord of hosts). If one compares with the Sindhi variant (sabaya=assembly) of the word savaa, one may suspects that a native variant has been lost from Bengali.

In ancient times often instead of erecting a building a stone was partially dug in the ground. Later this became the foundation stone.The stone was a chair to seat (sofa). The sign of a hand or a feet was imprinted on a stone. Besides these contracts and instructions were inscribed on the stones. Stones were used to clean and to be ritually purified and so from S-F sound of the stone came a soap.

From the same Sowad-F root came the Arabic word isfa (to choose with fondness), istafa (he/she has chosen with fondness; "servants who God has chosen" Koran 27:59 Sura Naml), Mustafa (one who has been chosen, excellent; "in our opinion they are the elected among the excellent" Koran 38:47-48 Sura Sowad). Saffa and musaffa (pure or cleaned, "pure honey" Koran 47:15 Sura Muhammad).

Stone was the metaphor of steadfastness. Stone was the metaphor of patience. Stone was the metaphor of a pure quality. Stone was the metaphor of a high character.

Sabbar in the sense of unrelenting and incessant faith, trust, patience, persistent commitment from the root Sowad-B-R: "Go be stuck to your gods!" (Koran 38:7 Sura Sowad). "... those who are wholly patient and deeply grateful for them ..." (Koran 14:5 Sura Ibrahim). Chhabbata in the sense of being firm from the root Chh-B-T: "when you meet an army, be firm ..." (Koran 8:45 Sura Al-Anfal).

Sabar (patience), saabaaraa (to be patient), sabir (patient), sas'abara (to excel in patience) are parts of an often repeated theme in the Koran. For example 3:200, 90:17, 103:3, 11:11, 13:22, 7:128, 2:153, 8:46, 8:66 and 3:146.

Patience is a station of the sufi path. In a poem of Kabir Shah we find (page 200 [4] Indian edition),

The function of a Sufi was to "watch" this stone. So one can say that Adam Shafiullah was the first Sufi and the black stone of the Kaba was his stone.

Later we shall see the connection of this "watching" to the old Nazarene aspect of the Sabian-Nazarene thoughts.

Hazrat Adam was the first man, the first Muslim and the first Sufi. This is one aspect of the Pre-Islamic Islam. The other aspect is the light of Muhammad. A historical part of the second aspect is described in the article "Ahmad, Himdat, Mnahhmana and Parakletos before Muhammad."

Hisham al-Kalbi in his "The Book of Idols" described how idolatry started (page 73 [5]). .....................................................(Translation is not complete yet).

REFERENCES

[1]. Annemarie Schimmel, "My Soul Is a Woman".

[2]. "Bengali Nath and Midianite Arab Nasiku," Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh Date: 9 Aug 2004 04:38:48 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Lines: 647 Message-ID: <b632ba23.0408090338.41448ac6@posting.google.com>

[3]. Cyril Glasse, "The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam," HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1991.

[4]. C. Vaudeville, "Kabir", Oxford Univ. Press, 1974. The book was published in India by OUP Delhi in 1993 as "The Weaver Named Kabir".

[5]. Javier Teixidor, "The Pagan God", Princeton Univ. Press, 1977. See also Hisham Ibn al-Kalbi, "The Book of Idols" tr. N. A. Faris, Princeton Univ. Press, 1952.

[6]. Andrey Korotayev, "Ancient Yemen", Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement 5, OUP, 1995.

[7]. M. Dahood, Psalms I (1-50), 1966; Psalms III (101-150), 1970, Anchor Bible.

[8]. S. R. Driver, Mizpah, Dictionary of the Bible, J. Hastings edited, Charles Scribner's sons, 1927.

[9]. H. Lazarus-Yafeh, "Judaism and Islam-Some Aspects of Mutual Cultural Influences", pp72-89, in "Some Religious Aspects of Islam", E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1981. See also
Paul Fenton's article in Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman ed. "History of Islamic Philosophy".
S. D. Goitein's "Abraham Maimonides and his Pietist Circle" in A. Altmann ed. "Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies", Harvard Univ. Press 1967.

[10]. R. A. Trotter, "The Christianity in Sind," Conference, February, 1947. See also Leslie Brown, "The Indian Christians of St Thomas," Cambridge Univ. Press, 1982.

[11]. "India in the Fifteenth Century", The Hakluyt Society, ed. with introduction by R. H. Major. Sulaiman's work was translated by M. Reinaud, 1845.

[12]. এককড়ি চট্টোপাধ্যায়, "বর্ধমান জেলার ইতিহাস ও লোকসংস্কৃতি", কলকতা, ২০০১৷

[13]. "Plutarch's Lives", vol. VII, tr by B. Perrin, Harvard Univ. Press, 1919 (1971 reprint).

[14]. Robin Lane Fox, "The Search for Alexander", Little, Brown & Company, Boston, 1980.

[15]. Brenda Z. Seligman, "The Veddas", Cambridge 1911.

[16]. Nora Chadwick, in "Oral Epics of Central Asia" by N. Chadwick and V. Zhirmunsky, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1969.

[17]. E. S. Drower, "The Secret Adam, A Study of Nasoraean Gnosis", Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1960.

[18]. P. R. Amidon, "The Panarion of St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, Selected Passages", Oxford Univ. Press, New York, 1990.

[19]. Alfredo Lopez Austin, "Tamoanchan, Tlalocan Places of Mist", tr. Bernard and Thelma de Montellano, Univ. Press of Colorado, 1997.

[20]. Joan Corominas, "Breve Diccionario Etimologico De La Lengua Castellana", Editorial Gredos, Madrid 1961.