Islamic Names.

• Author: Malti-Douglas, Fedwa

What is in a name? Scholars who work in the medieval and modem Islamic world know only too well that a simple question like this hides an elaborate set of problems. One has only to look at social-historical work, like that on conversion by Richard Bulliet, to realize the complexity of the Islamic onomastic system. And for onomastics, the medieval Islamic textual corpus is extremely obliging. Guidebooks for the proper vocalization of a name exist, as

do lists of nisbas and their origins. Anecdotal material also abounds explaining the reason for such and such a nickname. Today, on many a street in the Arab world, books on the meanings and significance of individual names are available cheaply. Annemarie Schimmel's terse and erudite work is a guide to the complex world of Islamic names. She has brought to bear on this scholarly area her wide knowledge of the Islamic world, including the central Islamic lands and the Indian subcontinent. Schimmel's presentation uses a wide variety of sources, from historical to poetic, from classical to modern.

While the medieval Muslims themselves discussed quite consciously and extensively their onomastic systems, and while much modem European scholarship (like the fundamental work of Caetani and Gabrieli) has both surveyed and deepened the traditional understanding of Islamic onomastics, little of this material is in English. Certainly, there is nothing in English remotely comparable in its completeness and its accessibility to Annemarie Schimmel's little book. She has done (again) the scholarly world a great service.

The author walks the reader through a number of issues relating to names. "The Structure of a `Name'" deals with...