![\"Evening](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/06\/Evening_in_Istanbul_15852868549.jpg\")
<\/a>(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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But we return to our investigation of words that the West has borrowed from Arabic. Several common items of Western furniture bear Arab names. The \u201cmattress\u201d that we sleep on, for example, was at first merely a matrah, <\/em>a place where something is \u201cthrown down.\u201d (I suppose, then, that it is perfectly appropriate for us to \u201cthrow\u201d ourselves on our beds.) And our \u201csofa,\u201d a long, upholstered seat with raised arms at each end, is simply a softer, more comfortable version of a sulfa<\/em>, a stone molding or ledge. An \u201cOttoman,\u201d on the other hand, a long, upholstered seat that has neither back nor arms, recalls the name of the third caliph, Uthman. Actually, though, it refers to another individual of the same name. Uthman, or \u201cOsman,\u201d was also the name of the founder of the great Ottoman Turkish Empire, of whom we shall speak in a later chapter, and it was the Ottomans who favored the low \u201cOttoman\u201d seat in their gov\u00adernment offices. French and Italian diplomats in Istanbul liked it, too, and they brought it back to Europe with them.<\/span><\/p>\n The type of seat known as a \u201cdivan\u201d comes from the same source as the \u201cOttoman,\u201d and, in fact, the two seats are rather simi\u00adlar. Divan<\/em> derives originally from the Arabic word diwan<\/em> (\u201cregis\u00adtry,\u201d \u201cgovernment office\u201d), and it is related to another word that travelers to continental Europe will recognize: Upon entering France or Belgium or French Switzerland, tourists are required to pass by the customs officials at the border or in the airport. \u201cCustoms,\u201d in French, is douane. <\/em>(Amusingly, the Arabs, having given Europe one of its names for \u201ccustoms,\u201d in their turn borrowed a European word for the same institution. Sounding a little like something one of J.R.R. Tolkien\u2019s ores or goblins might say, the ugly word gumruk<\/em>, \u201c<\/sup>customs,\u201d comes from the old Latin commercium<\/em>\u2014<\/em>in which the let\u00adter c<\/em>\u00a0is pronounced like our k<\/em>.) Another governmental term that comes to us from the Arabs, one for which we are probably not entirely grateful, is tariff<\/em>, from the Arabic ta\u2018rif <\/em>(\u201cnotification\u201d).<\/span><\/p>\n Finally, a grab bag of word derivations: Once in a while, a par\u00adticularly splendid personage, or one who wishes to be thought<\/em> of as someone particularly splendid, is called a \u201cnabob.\u201d (In a more negative vein, Richard Nixon\u2019s first vice president, Spiro Agnew, once referred to \u201cthe nittering nabobs of nihilism.\u201d) The word nabob<\/em> comes from the Arabic na\u2019ib <\/em>(nuwwab<\/em> in the plural), meaning a governor of a province. (Governors were once regarded as splendid.)<\/span><\/p>\n In music, tambourine<\/em> comes to us from Arabic, as does the name of that most Western-seeming, most apparently Renaissance European of all instruments, the lute.<\/em> Our word cable<\/em> somehow managed to substitute a c<\/em>\u00a0for the h<\/em>\u00a0of Arabic habl <\/em>(\u201crope\u201d), but still can\u2019t hide its origin in the Near East. Fanfare<\/em>, a word we use to describe a showy or ceremonial sounding of trumpets, generally used to introduce some important person or event, apparently derives from Arabic. So, too, does our word carousel<\/em>, which once meant a kind of knightly jousting tournament and only later came to refer to the common carnival ride for children on sculpted horses. Whenever we buy a \u201cream\u201d of paper, we use a distorted Ara\u00adbic word. The Arabs \u201cbundle\u201d or \u201cwrap\u201d (razama) <\/em>things in paper and buy paper by the rizma<\/em>. Whenever we are stuck in \u201ctraffic,\u201d we may wish that the word still meant what its apparent Arabic origi\u00adnal: tafriq <\/em>means \u201cdivision,\u201d \u201cdispersion.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n One friend of mine even argued that our farewell So long!<\/em> derives from the Arabic salaam <\/em>(\u201cpeace\u201d), which is used in much the same way. After all, he points out, So long!<\/em> doesn\u2019t make much sense, does it? If we used it as a greeting, maybe we could interpret it as a shortened form of \u201cIt\u2019s been so long since we\u2019ve seen each other!\u201d or some such thing, just as Good day!<\/em> is a short\u00adened form of \u201cHave a good day!\u201d But we never use \u201cSo long!\u201d to say \u201cHello; we use it only to say \u201cGood-bye.\u201d So he contends that \u201cSo long!\u201d was brought back from the Near East by returning Crusaders and then turned into a fairly nonsensical phrase by Europeans who couldn\u2019t understand it but at least wanted it made up of words that they knew.[1]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Whether or not my friend was right in his guess about So long!<\/em> and salaam, <\/em>the word salaam <\/em>itself is probably worth a line or two. Many readers will recognize that it is very similar to the Hebrew word shalom, <\/em>which also means \u201cpeace.\u201d And, of course, the two words are closely related, just as the Arabic and Hebrew languages themselves are closely related. But there is something more that can be said. The slightly formal greeting salaam alaykum <\/em>(\u201cPeace [be] upon you!\u201d) is still a commonly repeated phrase in Arabic, much like its Hebrew equivalent, shalom aleichem. <\/em>My knowing this has altered the way I read Luke\u2019s account of the resurrected Savior\u2019s appear\u00adance to the apostles: \u201cAnd as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.\u201d[2]<\/a> I have heard good sermons on the theme of peace that were based on this very passage. They read a deep and useful meaning into it. But I can\u2019t help but wonder if it wasn\u2019t simply the Savior\u2019s formal way of greet\u00ading the eleven apostles\u2014more dignified than \u201cHello,\u201d but serving essentially the same purpose.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n