It is to be counted among the beauties -- nay, the graces --
of Classical Arabic,
as indeed still practiced by the more observant in our own
day,
that, before reading-forth Scripture
(or indeed any text indited in that language
wherein the Koran was revealed),
(or indeed any text indited in that language
wherein the Koran was revealed),
you utter the word
-- just this! -- :
“Bismillah.”
Which, being Englished, is as much as to say: In
nomine Dei.
(Let us pause as we contemplate the majesty of al-ism -- ha-Shem.)
~
And now this
winter evening, reading poetry by
candle-light,
and savoring a bit of brandy
(forbidden to the devotees of al-Rasûl,
(forbidden to the devotees of al-Rasûl,
but mercifully permitted to those of Moses,
or of the Nazarene Carpenter)
I happened upon these passages,
from the pen of Charles Reznikoff (1894 - 1976; born in America
of emigrant Ashkenazi parents):
of emigrant Ashkenazi parents):
How dificult for me is Hebrew:
even the Hebrew for mother, for bread, for sun
is foreign. How far have I been
exiled, Zion.
I have learnt the Hebrew blessing
before eating bread;
is there no blessing before reading
Hebrew?
~
Time was, one time,
back in the day,
that I fared forth at lunchtime in the company of damsels:
a lovely Jordanian muslimah, whose name in Arabic means
‘gentle rain’,
and a stern German, a Swabian Christian
(brought along quasi
as chaperone)
at a time when I myself, all pagan and unbaptised,
was quietly Christianizing:
and requested that the Muslimah should say grace before our meal.
Expecting something elaborate, along the lines of
words I had heard
at the table-grace
of comfortably Protestant-raised relatives,
(“Bless this food to our use,
and us to thy
service … “)
instead she said,
just this:
“Bismillah.”
(Such polyvalent brevity
is actually not characteristic of Arabic,
which seems to have a distinct blessing for every occasion,
along with an appropriate rejoinder.
As, to someone who has just had a haircut:
“Na`îman !”
℞ :
“Allah yin`im `aleek
!” )
~
E’en so! May
not the Hebrew words
that bless the bread,
thus bless the text?
O ye of Zion and of Judah,
of all the Diaspora,
℞ !
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