(US Admin 2) Excerpt: The use by Westerners of the word hudna highlights an anomaly. Whenever journalists, diplomats, or commentators covering the Middle East use a non-English word, it will almost always be Arabic or perhaps Persian; seldom do they use any Hebrew words. Never has a U.S. or British newspaper, for example, used the Hebrew word for cease-fire (hafsakat esh). This is odd as Israel is the other side to these cease-fires. The majority of Arabic terms reproduced in Western language newspapers are concerned with either military topics (jihad, mujahideen, fidaiyin, shahid)[1] or religious affairs (fatwa, mulla, ulema, ayatollah, Sharia, Allahu akbar).[2] There is nothing wrong with borrowing Arabic words. However, doing so without understanding the words nuance and historical development will render deficient any understanding of that words true meaning. Here, it might be possible to consider hudna somewhat of an exception—it can be translated accurately as truce or cease-fire. Its contemporary usage — at least in English and other European languages — is exclusive to the conflict between Israel and its adversaries, whether Islamist terror groups in Gaza, the West Bank, or southern Lebanon, or states such as Syria. In Iran, it is used alongside the Persian term aramesh.[3] Still, hudna retains a historical context that colors its meaning, if not in Western papers, then in Arabs understanding. The concept of hudna deserves a close look: It is not a Quranic term, nor is it the only Arabic word for a cease-fire or truce; others include: muhadana, muwadaa, muhla, musalaha, musalama, mutaraka, and sulh. But hudna is the most prominent. It is the first word used in Muslim history to mean cease-fire, specifically in the context of the seventh century Truce or Treaty of al-Hudaybiyya, often termed the Sulh al-Hudaybiyya (peace of al-Hudaybiyya).
Posted on: Thu, 05 Dec 2013 02:53:36 +0000
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