Understanding Islamic Dynastic Names
As explained by Rod Walker . . .
Islamic dynastic names have 6 parts:
1. The ism. This is the given name. Thus, Yusuf..
2. The patronymic, or father's name. Thus, ibn-Ayyub. The "ibn" means "son of", and you might see it as "bin" or "ben". Sometimes more than 1 generation would be included. Use of the patronymic is an ancient tradition. In Aramaic, for instance, it would be "bar" ... thus the prophet Yeshua (Jesus) was often called Yeshua bar-Yusuf. However, a patronymic might be formalized into a family name ... so that princes of the Sa'udi royal family are often "Ibn-Sa'ud". And Yeshua was often referred to as Yeshua Bar-Da'uda, "of the House of David" [which in the Middle East is really odd because he was descended from David only through his mother and the female line is almost univerally ignored in Middle Eastern genealogy].
3. The kunia, which always begins "abu-", "father of". This doesn't necessarily refer to an existing son. Thus, abu'l-Muzaffar.
4. The nisba, which refers to the geographic antecedents of the individual: city, country, tribe, whatever. This is almost never used by hereditary princes, but might look like "al-Maghrabi", the Moroccan or the Westerner; at-Turki, the Turk; al-Quraishi, of the Quraish (the prophet Muhammad's tribe).
5. The laqab, which ends in phrases such as "-ad-din", "-al-mulk", "-ad-daula", "-az-zaman", "-al-'alam", and so on. These all have to do with the religious virtue of the individual. Thus, Salah-ad-din.
6. Finally, a further honorific, relating to the personal qualities of the individual, just as European monarchs to ... the Great, Lionheart, Lackland, the Confessor, the Sleazy, and so on. Thus, "an-Nasir".
The order is
usually: kunia, ism, patronymic(s), laqab, (nisba), honorific.
Thus: abu'l-Muzaffar Yusuf ibn-Ayyub [ibn-Shadi ibn-Marwan] Salah-ad-din
an-Nasir. Of course, no nisba. That is the full name of Sultan
Saladin. It became common practice during the 'Abbasid Empire (that is,
after 750 CE), to refer to rulers by laqab, rather than ism. So Yusuf I of
the Ayyubid house was normally referred to as Salah-ad-din, or Saladin.
And of course nowadays it's more usual to put the patronymic(s) dead last.
It also wasn't long
before everybody started using the laqab form for given names. The most
famous Khair-ad-din I know of was the late 16th-Century pirate and freebooter
also known as Barbarossa. (Even today there are plenty of Turks with red
hair. They are probably genetically far more Greek than most people now
living in Greece.)
As for Salah-ad-din ... that wasn't a very
common laqab. I can't recall anyone outside the Ayybubid dynasty
(1173-1534 in various places) that used it. The family, by the way, was
Kurdish, not Turkish. They generally eschewed Kurdish names, but Ayyub's
brother bore the name Shirkuh, as Kurdish as they come.
Hi...This is Rod in Encinitas CA.
> > Saw your posting on the net regarding abu'l-Hassan 'Ali
> > Jalal-al-mulk of the banu-'Ammar of Tarabulus (Tripoli) in Lebanon.
I'm
> > not sure when you posted this, so you may have gotten answers by now.
> > However:
> > It's extremely unlikely 'Ali had an opportunity to live up to
> > his agreement, even if he intended to do so...which I doubt. He died
in
> > 1099. I do have a genealogy for you. 'Ammar, the eponymous founder of
> > the dynasty, had 2 sons: Muhammad and al-Hassan. The latter ruled at
> > Tarabulus as abu-Talib al-Hassan Amin-ad-daula, c.1050-1072. The
former
> > also had 2 sons, 'Ali and 'Ammar. The first was abu'l-Hassan 'Ali
> > Jalal-al-mulk, ruling 1072-1099. The second, abu-'Ali 'Ammar
> > Fakhr-al-mulk, ruled 1099-1109. He had a co-ruler, his cousin and son
> > of al-Hassan, dhu'l-Manaqib. Muhammad had one other son,
> > Jamal-ad-daula, who was Qadi of Alexandria until his death in about
> > 1092. Zambaur (my primary source) lists no other members of the
family.
It forms the basis for a short item in an encyclopedic reference I'm working
on. It may be published one of these days ... It isn't particularly concerned
with genealogy, but when it
comes to the patronymic style of Muslim dynastic names, it's sort of part and
parcel of my primary concern with political history.
There are some sites on the net if you search under "banu-ammar" and
use Google, and the people who maintain them may have more information than I
do. Good luck with your research. The notion than an 'Ammarid prince converted
to Christianity and moved to Europe is intriguing, but seems unlikely to me. I
didn't mention before that the family was Shi'a (although which branch I'm not
positive) and apparently devoted to the Fatimid cause -- one of their number, as
I noted, Zambaur says was a qadi in (Fatimid) Cairo. Be that as it may, a family
name like "Turk" has got to have something interesting
behind it.
My sources are, primarily, Zambaur, as I said, and at least one of the
large-scale histories of the Crusades...Seton, I believe. Since Zambaur was
originally conceived as an aid to coin collectors, it's probable that
other coin
references have some information -- but probably not any more than Zambaur
already has although that work dates to something like 1898.