A Common Mispronunciation: Village vs. Disbelief

According to Lisan Al-Arab, the word kafr, meaning, "village" is Syriac in origin and is most commonly used for small villages named after individuals in the Levant. It is not surprising then, that one finds cities in Northern Jordan and Syria named this way. However, one of my peeves is the way the locals pronounce the word as kufr (meaning, "disbelief") instead of kafr. (In Arabic, short vowels are not normally written, but local pronunciation and transliteration renders it kufr.) One does not find this mispronunciation in Egypt: over there, it is Kafr El-Sheikh, Kafr Abdu, and Kafr El-Zayyat.

This mispronunciation of the a is not limited to the word kafr. Rather, one finds people in the Levant saying yokel ("he eats") instead of yakul and the Syrians will even say mughrib instead of maghrib. The interesting thing is that the active participle of Arabic is fa'il while the active participle of Hebrew is po'el. (The, "f" and "p" sounds are often interchanged in many languages.) Is it possible that this Levantine pronunciation of a as o has its origins in the native Semitic language spoken here before the arrival of Arabic?

Is it Really Ewe?

Arabic has a number of words for sheep and goats:

1. A billy goat is a tays.
2. A doe is a 3anz.
3. A male kid is a jady.
4. A female kid is a sakhlah.
5. A ram is a kabsh.
6. A ewe is a na3jah.
7. A male lamb is a taly.
8. A female lamb is a 3abour.
9. Sheep and goats are collectively known as ghanam, or in the Jordanian dialect, halal (as in, the opposite of haram).
   

A problem I face here is identifying whether the dairy that comes from ghanam is from sheep or goats. While there is no milk on the face of this planet that I'm able to drink in its natural form, I can consume goat yogurt (which I tried in the US), cheese, etc. However, people in Jordan don't distinguish between milk that comes from goats or sheep. For example, on their official website, Al-Sanabel refers to, "Goats Yoghurt Products" whereas the actual yogurt containers say, "Ewe Yoghurt".

After consuming ewe yogurt from Al-Sanabel and Al-Mazra`a, I concluded that I could only handle goat yogurt, as the ewe yogurt gave me trouble. However, what I found is that the yogurt I would buy from local farmers or bedouins would never give me any trouble. I found it hard to believe that this was always goat yogurt, as many of them own sheep. I began to suspect that the two companies mentioned earlier are mixing in cow milk products into their ewe yogurt. One day when I was in Marj Al-Hamam, I saw a container of Dabaa brand ewe yogurt. It said, "Made from 100% ewe's milk", so I decided to give it a shot. Not surprisingly, it didn't give me any trouble.

The same holds with the sharab (i.e. liquid that meat is cooked in) that is used for mansaf: I used to get sick when eating it. Now I know that if it is made from 100% sheep or goat shaneena, labneh, or jameed, it doesn't cause me trouble. However, a lot of people use cow products in it (which is technically cheating but is more economical). My mother-in-law also told me that some restaurants cheat by adding in tahini, another thing my largely-carnivorous digestive system can't handle.

So, I'm on the search for 100% ewe yogurt. The problem with buying from bedouins and farmers is that they're not that easy to come by in Amman, and Marj Al-Hamam is quite a distance from where I live.

Jordanian Paradise

Abu Jahl, one of the arch-enemies of Islam in Mecca, mockingly said, "Muhammad promises you gardens (i.e. in Paradise) like the Gardens of the River Jordan." The word used here, Al-Urdun, now means the political state of Jordan, but was originally the name of the river. For this reason, one of the older names of this area was East Jordan; i.e. east of the River Jordan. Urdun is the Arabization of the Hebrew yarden ("downward flowing") which is from the Hebrew triliteral root y-r-d (to flow or descend) which is related to the Arabic triliteral root w-r-d with the same meaning. The Arabic form would be warid, but rather, the Arabs refer to the river as al-shari`ah.

While the fertile basin of the Jordan River (known as ghawr or its plural aghwar in Arabic) is certainly not comparable to Paradise, let alone to some of the more beautiful areas on earth, Abu Jahl and his cronies were not that well traveled and could only make comparisons to what they had seen. Ever since Qusayy set up the Iylaf (mentioned in Surah Quraish), an agreement with tribes north and south of Mecca, Quraish would send out two annual caravans: one in the summer to the Levant and one in the winter to Yemen. The Arabs were taken by the natural beauty and relative cool of the Levant. They referred to Taif, a fertile, cool city close to Mecca, as, "a plot of the Levant in the Arabian Peninsula."

A person who has never left Amman might wonder what Abu Jahl was talking about: everywhere you look, there are beige buildings, beige rocks, and beige soil. In the winter, Amman feels like a plot of the North Pole in the Levant. Once when I traveled to Damascus, I checked the weather forecast and found that it was supposed to be colder than Amman. Upon arriving, I found the opposite to be true. The weather forecasts for Amman must be for the low-lying areas like downtown. For those of us who live in K-Town and other areas of high elevation, it's usually colder than the weather forecasts indicate. Amman is a mountainous city, with some areas having an elevation of about 800 m (that's half a mile for the metrically challenged) above sea level. A short trip westwards towards the Aghwar gives one a very different experience of Jordan.

This past Saturday I decided to escape from Amman's dull cold to the hot springs of Northern Shuna. We took a bus to Irbid from the bus depot in Amman, followed by a bus to the depot of the Aghwar followed by a bus to Northern Shuna. (Once you get out of Amman and into the greater Jerash area, the scenery is quite pleasant.) The bus to Northern Shuna dropped us off at an intersection and we walked about half a kilometre up towards the hot springs. The road was lined with banana and citrus trees. A shepherd guided his flock of sheep and goats over the shrub-covered hills. I asked him if he had any rams to which he said, "no." In other words, these were dairy sheep. I wanted to compare the prices of meat sheep to the prices in the area around Amman. (In Jordan, the distinction between dairy and meat animals is not based on breed, but rather, on the sex of the animal.)

We paid 25 piastres per person to get in to the hot springs complex. There is a spring for men and one for women as well as a number of private springs. We rented a private spring at 10 JD for one and a half hours. We arrived at 11 am, and they were still setting up. We went in to the room, bolted the door shut, and ran the hot water. The pool was about 2.5 m on each side and 165 cm in depth. The pool was in a separate room, so occasionally my son and I would get out and open the door of the room to get some air in. While it's not airtight, the steam can be overpowering at times. The only downsides to the area are that the water is very high in sulphur, which stinks like rotten eggs, and the cleanliness is not up to par with a real touristy area. The upside is that there are no tourists. It's all local Jordanians. Also, don't bring silver jewelry with you, as my rings got rusted by the sulpur-heavy steam. By the time we left the springs, there were a lot of visitors.

After leaving the springs, we headed to downtown Northern Shuna to try to buy some fresh ewe milk or yogurt. Unfortunately, it was too late: they had sold out for the day. After boarding the bus in downtown Northern Shuna, I noticed a monument to Mu'adh ibn Jabal, the great Companion (Allah be pleased with him). The next time I go, I will definitely make a point of visiting his grave, insha' Allah.

Finally, try to get out of Irbid before sunset. The regular buses stop early and you'll be stuck with relatively expensive options after that.

Eid Al-Adha Recipes

(Note: I've personally tried all of these recipes.)

Recipe 1: Raw Meat

After slaughtering the animal and opening up its belly, take a small piece of raw liver, tail fat, or meat, chew, and swallow. There's something quite different about meat that is still warm from the animal's own heat. If you're not slaughtering a fat-tailed type of sheep, then you can also take some of the fatty lining that surrounds the stomach. Another variation is beef sashimi: take very thin strips of lean beef and dip in Flicken Sauce: a mixture of Sriracha and Soya sauces.

Coming from an Egyptian background, eating raw meat has never gone along well with my family. Egyptians perceive eating raw meat as being disgusting, and some even think it's Islamically forbidden. My aunt once started crying when my brother ate grilled meat that was browned on the outside and raw on the inside. Once a Lebanese man was explaining to an Egyptian butcher that he was planning on preparing raw kibbeh only to have the butcher kick him out of his shop saying, "We're Muslims!" I have long been a fan of raw meat, but to my delight, I found that my brothers-in-law are as well, but only when extremely fresh.


Recipe 2: Egyptian Fetta

This is the national dish of Egypt on Eid Al-Adha. As usual, I don't give measurements.

Peel and quarter onions, throw in a pot of water with salt, pepper, cardamoms, and mastic (if available). Once the water starts boiling vigourously, throw in some fatty lamb, wait for it to boil, and then lower the heat and leave it covered until the lamb becomes tender. In the meantime, break up some pita bread into small pieces and dry until crisp in the oven. Make some plain white rice. (Prepare the rice with lamb broth for extra flavour.) Pound some garlic into a mash and fry with butter or olive oil.

Now comes the assembly: put the crispy bread pieces on the bottom of a flat serving dish, followed by the rice, followed by the meat. Pour hot broth over the whole mixture. Heat up the fried garlic and pour some vinegar on it. Make sure to gasp while pouring the vinegar on the garlic as it sizzles loudly. (That's a part of the tradition.) Pour the garlic and vinegar mixture on top of the meat and rice.

Note: My wife is Jordanian and loves this dish. I took the dish to work once for a potluck and most people didn't like it. Then again, these are people who don't eat fresh meat or olive oil because they're afraid to get fat and instead share a pack of corn grits with cheese flavouring among themselves for lunch.


Recipe 3: Flicken Lamb Brains

This recipe is my own invention.

First, acquire boiled lamb brains. One such way is to cook a sheep head in the same way that you'd prepare fetta. After eating the cheeks, eyes, tongue, and skin, you are left with nothing but brains and bones. While you can open the skull with a hammer or saw, my favourite way is to find the sutures of the fused cranium and wedge a strong knife in and saw across them. You can then usually pull the skull apart with your hands. Remove the brains and put in a plate.

Mash the brains. In a separate bowl, beat two eggs. If you have Jordanian clarified butter (which comes from ewes and has a herb called smeinah added to it), then you're set. Otherwise, you can use regular (cow) clarified butter with a bit of curry powder added to it. Add salt, fry the brains a bit, and add eggs. Eat with fresh bread and possibly some hot sauce.

Eid Sightings & Calculations

I wish you all a belated, impersonal Eid Mubarak.

The position of the Shafi'i school regarding the establishment of Islamic dates is that every locale must sight the moon itself. This is what is called ikhtilaf al-matali`. Jordan has historically done this for Ramadan and the Eid that follows it. However, this year they decided to follow Saudi Arabia. Of course, all four schools are acceptable and taking the Hanafi position that a single sighting suffices all Muslims (known as ittihad al-matali`) is also acceptable. Rather, when the established Islamic authorities in one's locale take a position from another school, it is generally obligatory to follow them. However, what is disturbing is how Saudi Arabia's sightings fly in the face of astronomy too often. It is worth noting that Saudi Arabia offers awards for moon sighting.

The Shafi'i school distinguishes between absolute calculations and approximate calculations. Absolute calculations are facts that can only be rejected when the number of people reporting the contrary are so many in number that it would not be possible to reject their testimony. In essence, this would amount to a miracle being witnessed. Approximate calculations are rejected by the sighting of a single witness whose testimony is acceptable by an Islamic court. (Disclaimer: my knowledge of astronomy is nothing to be proud of.) While many visibility criteria are approximations, things like the birth, rise, and setting of the new moon are absolute: they are known well ahead of time and exactly. This past Eid Al-Fitr, Saudi Arabia sighted the moon when, in fact, it set before sunset. (The moon of a new lunar month can only be seen after sunset.) As such, I made up a day of fast after Eid Al-Fitr. This past Eid Al-Adha, Saudi Arabia sighted the moon even though it wasn't even born before sunset. I asked a top Shafi'i scholar what I should do regarding Eid Al-Adha, given that I was convinced that the day it was being celebrated officially was, in fact, the 9th of Dhul-Hijja. He told me that I could fast it, but would have to do so secretly. Also, I could always slaughter the next day. He also said that in the Shafi'i school, fasting the day of Arafah was the type of act that could be made up, so I could always break my fast on the 9th of Dhul-Hijja and then make it up later. I followed this latter opinion, as it was more in the spirit of unity.

One of the fundamental problems among Arabs is that they can't quite grasp that Eid Al-Adha is not Hajj. As I pointed out in Muslim Intellectual Stagnation and Abraham's Sacrifice, Muslims have stopped studying classical Islamic texts. If most Arabs had any sort of Islamic education, they'd realize that the Shafi'i school (which many Arabs follow) states that Islamic dates are to be established by local sightings even in the case Dhul-Hijja. Even Ibn Othaimeen, the late Mufti of Saudi Arabia, indicated that every country should follow its own sighting, saying that this opinion was supported by the preponderance of evidence and was the position of Ibn Taymiyya. When ISNA tried to follow ikhtilaf al-matali` consistently, the Arabs broke rank with them, forcing ISNA to return to its lopsided policy of following local sightings for Ramadan and Eid Al-Fitr and Saudi Arabia for Eid Al-Adha. Mufti Taqi Usmani firmly rejected this inconsistent approach. (Lately, ISNA has not been using sightings at all for Ramadan and Eid Al-Fitr but still follows Saudi Arabia for Eid Al-Adha, so the criticisms still hold.)

Lies Regarding the Mediterranean Diet

We all know that the Mediterranean diet is good for you. Jordanians have a life expectancy higher than Americans. Rural Palestinians in particular are known for their longevity. (People in the Middle East have a paralyzing fear of the evil eye. Once I mentioned Palestinian longevity at work and a superstitious Palestinian woman told me that my statement would be worse for the Palestinians than Israel.) I will use the rural Palestinian diet as an anecdotal case study.

First of all, let's start with the truths in the popular media: rural Palestinians don't eat much meat compared to Americans. This may be because of poverty, but regardless of the reason, they're certainly not eating meat on a daily basis. They eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, especially leafy vegetables. In fact, there's a joke about a guy who married a Palestinian woman: The first day, she made him molokhiyya; the second day she made him spinach; the third day, she made him khobbayzah. The fourth day, he told her, "Don't bother cooking; I'll just go out and graze on my own." They certainly also eat a lot of legumes and a fair amount of seeds and a ton of grains. The main fat is olive oil.

The Palestinians also eat a lot of dairy, so much so that you'd think that someone was trying to take it away from them. They cook meat with yogurt or jameed, put yogurt on their rice at dinner time, and even their sweets are stuffed with cheese. Virtually every meal has dairy in it. However, the whole idea of low-fat dairy is a farce. Virtually all of the dairy they eat is full-fat. (Read the last two sentences a few more times until they register.) When they make sweets, they used clarified butter (samn baladi). Dairy fat that comes from grass fed animals is high in CLA, which helps reduce atherosclerosis. In other words, stop giving dairy fat from grass-fed animals a bad name. It might actually be one of the secrets behind the Mediterranean diet.

Although rural Palestinians don't eat a lot of meat, when they do, they certainly don't go for low-fat meat. The sheep in this area are the fat-tailed variety. When buying ground beef, it is common practice for a chunk of tail fat from a sheep's carcass to be cut off and thrown in to the mix because beef is too lean for local taste. When grilling, chunks of sheep tail fat are put on the skewers alongside the meat, onions, and tomatoes. When a sheep is slaughtered, the tail is sometimes melted down and purified into tallow (much in the same way that lard is produced) to be used for cooking. Once again, we find that the popular notion of shunning animal fat in the Mediterranean diet is a farce.

What you don't find in the rural Palestinian diet is: tofu, soybean, corn, canola, and cottonseed oils or hydrogenated fats. However, things are changing now. People now, "realize" that animal fats are bad for them and have started switching to vegetable oils. Over the next couple generations, this will probably be followed by a decrease in life expectancy.

Some Comments Not Delivered

At least two comments have not reached my inbox for some strange reason. I even checked my spam folder and they weren't there either. I am getting some comments, though.

Thus, if I don't reply to your comment within a week, please forgive me.

More Transliterations for the Hard 'G'

In Transliterating the Hard & Soft 'G' Into Arabic, I neglected to mention one of the more common transliterations for the hard 'g': kaf. Descendants of Abd Al-Qadir Al-Gilani often write their names as Al-Kilani (الكيلاني), as well as Al-Jilani (الجيلاني). Similarly, in Jordan, you'll often find the word, "garage" written with an initial kaf as كراج.

Also, as I approached Jean's Grill at the Seventh Circle, I noticed that the hard 'g' was written as a Persian cheh (ﭺ) while the soft 'j' was written as a jeem. This is the exact opposite of how Egyptians would write it. I've only ever seen this method of writing the hard 'g' once, though, so it doesn't appear to be a norm yet.

Jerash

On Saturday, December 1, I took the family to Jerash to see the Roman ruins.

We started by riding a cab from Sports City to the new bus terminal next to Queen Alia's military hospital. We boarded the bus to Jerash but there were only four seats and there were five of us, so we got off and waited for the next bus. The people on the first bus were upset by this because buses don't leave the terminal until they're full. I suppose if they were really upset enough, someone could have given us their seat. I wasn't about to stand or have someone sit on my lap from Amman to Jerash.

We got off the bus at the ruins and passed through security. (When you look like me, you get searched. It's a part of life. Once in an airport I told the lady at the boarding gate that I would bet her $20 that I would be randomly selected to be searched for security purposes. She refused, and good for her. By chance, I was randomly selected. Yes, I know that gambling is haram, but it's not gambling when you're sure of the outcome. I had discovered the pattern to the security characters on boarding passes so I knew I'd be checked.) After walking through a bunch of vendor shops, we came to a ticketing centre. I asked to purchase tickets for the RACE (Roman Army and Chariot Experience) show but the guy said he sold tickets for another purpose and the show tickets were further up ahead, next to the hippodrome. As we approached the hippodrome, a police officer asked me if I had tickets. I said no, and that the guy at the ticket counter told me to get them over here. He said I had to go back to get tickets. I told him that I had just come from the guy and he told me he didn't have any tickets for the show. He said, "tell him I sent you." So, off I went, futilely, not sure what I was supposed to do. The guy at the ticket counter told me, "I told you I don't have tickets." I said, "Explain that to the police officer." An older man who worked in the ticket booth called a young boy and said, "Show him where to go." The young boy directed me back where I had come from, past the police officer (who either realized he was wrong or thought that I had bought tickets) to the ticketing table next to the hippodrome.

At the ticketing table, the man wanted to charge my oldest daughter adult fair. I told her she's my daughter and is 11. However, I was unsure whether or not I should pay adult fair for my son, who is 13. I tried asking him what the upper age limit was for children and he kept repeating, "Children three years and older are 2 JD." Finally, I said, "Two years until fifteen?" And he said, "Yes, fifteen." So I paid the child rate for all three children. Yes, I know the website says that children thirteen and over are charged as adults, but that's what the Ministry of Tourism told me as well about Petra, but when I got there, they told me children fifteen and under are free, so I just depend on what employees tell me.

The show starts with a display of Roman legionary practice, moves on to a gladiator show and ends with a chariot race. The gladiator show was OK, but they didn't actually kill the loser when we requested it. After the show, members of the audience are allowed to take pictures next to the actors.




When done with the show, we headed towards Hadrian's Arch. A police officer asked us where our tickets were. I told him we didn't have any and asked him where to buy them from. He said way back at the entrance. When he saw that it was going to be a hassle for us to head all the way back to buy tickets, he asked me if we were Jordanians. I told him that I had an annual residency, so he asked to see it. "You're Canadian?", he asked. Upon answering in the affirmative, he asked the obligatory second question, "Where are you from originally?" "Egypt", I told him. He gave the generic Jordanian cordial response, "May Allah preserve your life." He said to go ahead without tickets. I told him I'd buy tickets on the way out but he said not to worry about it.

A short distance past Hadrian's Arch, you'll see the Oval Forum (first picture in this blog entry) on your right and a series of steps and columns to your left. If you continue walking forward and circle around to the left, you'll find your way to the amazingly well-preserved Southern Amphitheatre. If you stand at the centre of the performance area and speak, your voice resonates throughout the theatre. At the top of the amphitheatre you get a wonderful view ofthe lower ruins including the Oval Forum and the colonnade.

On the way out, we stopped at the vendors near the entrance and got our names written in a sand-art bottle. One of the vendors also taught me how to distinguish between a genuine ring stone and plastic: if you touch a stone to your lips, it feels colder than plastic. I ended up buying two more silver pinky rings: one with a turquoise stone and the other with carnelian (Ar. aqeeq).

Bedouin Nursery Rhymes

(To be sung to the tune of, "Mary Had a Little Lamb.")

Watfa had a chubby ram
Chubby ram
Chubby ram
Watfa had a chubby ram
And Khalaf struck it dead.

Now Watfa takes her ram to school
Ram to school
Ram to school
Now Watfa takes her ram to school
Wrapped in some shirak bread.

Animelles are Halal

I asked Sheikh Nuh Al-Qudah, the Mufti of Jordan, the ruling regarding eating animelles in the Shafi'i school, as eating them is prohibitively disliked in the Hanafi school. He said that all meat (from a properly butchered animal) is permissible to eat as long as it is not harmful.

Bon appetit!

Yo Mama in Arabic Poetry

In Qatr Al-Nada, Ibn Hisham quotes the following line of poetry:

والتغلبيون بئس الفحل فحلهمو فحلا وأمهمو زلاء منطيق

meaning,

The Taghlabis, how deplorable their sire is at being a sire
And their mother is a belt-wearing bow.

The author of the lines of poetry (not Ibn Hisham) is insulting Bani Taghlab (a Christian Arab tribe) in a low-blow: their men aren't really good at being men, and their mothers are very thin. He describes their women as, "bows" (as in, what an arrow is shot from) in reference to their extremely thin buttocks. Not only that, but they wear belts to make themselves look fatter.

So, there you have it, "Yo Mama so skinny..."