Etymological Musings: On Camels, Women, and Gulliblity

There are two common patterns in Arabic etymology:

1. A root word that has a very concrete meaning branches out into more abstract meanings. Examples of this include: khabra', which originally meant "soft earth" evolving to mean, "news", as a rising cloud of dust in the horizon typically meant some news was arriving; dhikr (remembrance) being derived from dhakar (penis), as that is the means by which a man is remembered (i.e. through his offspring); and `aql, which originally meant "tying down" coming to mean "mind."
2. A letter is changed in a root word, forming a closely-related new root, such as: hadama, `adama, and haḍama all being related to destroying something; ḥajaba and ḥajaza imparting the meaning of blocking or veiling something; and khabar and ghabar both being related to dust.

However, I learned of yet another mechanism that plays a role in Arabic etymology. But before I spoil it for you with a picture of the destination, let's discuss the journey.

Recently, when I read that the English word hysteria is derived from the Greek word for uterus (and hence hysterectomy) , it got me thinking about the Arabic word for simpleton, ahbal, and whether it was related to the word for vagina: mahbil. As Ibn Faris points out, there are three root meanings derived from the triliteral root hbl:

1. The first is related to a woman whose child has died. Such a woman is called a habool or habil. This is related to the word mahbil, which most likely originally meant, "uterus" but could also possibly mean vagina or cervix. Ibn Faris says that the original word was likely with a ḥ in place of the h. Maḥbil would literally mean, "the place of pregnancy", as the verb ḥabala, means, "to be pregnant", which is in turn related to ḥamala ("to carry").
2. The second is related to all things large and heavy. Arabic lexicographers point out that a large man can be called hibil, which is related to the word, ibil, a collective word for camels.
3. The third meaning is related to gullibility and taking advantage of something: ihtabala al-ṣayda means, "to capture prey."
   

It is likely that this final meaning is derived from the second, since overcoming prey often means that the predator or hunter is light-footed in relation to the prey, thereby deeming it heavy or bulky; this fits well, as ihtabala would appear to mean exactly that. Another, less likely, possibility is that the Arabs compared the possibly hysterical state of a woman whose child has just died with a simpleton. This is less likely because habal is closer to being simple-minded than hysterical.

Getting back to patterns, what seems to be going on here is phonetic confluence. Unrelated meanings are merging into a single root word because of the phonetic similarity of one of the root letters. In this case, the ha is similar to the glottal stop (hamza) as well as the ḥa; the former brings in the meaning of camels and, by extension, bulkiness, while the latter brings in the meaning of pregnancy.

Finally, it does not appear that there is actually such a word as ahbal in classical Arabic; it appears to be a modernism.