IMPACT of ARABIC on BENGALI LANGUAGE and CULTURE Afia Dil*
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Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (Hum.), Vol. 57(1), 2012, pp. 101-152 IMPACT OF ARABIC ON BENGALI LANGUAGE AND CULTURE Afia Dil* Abstract This paper is a sociolinguistic study of the impact of Arabic language on Bengali language and culture beginning from the earliest contact of the Arab traders by sea routes with the Chittagong bay area and inland areas like Sonargaon and Dhaka; the coming of Muslim saints from the 7th century onward and later as conquerors from Western and Central Asia. The essay covers: 1) Survey of historical contact of Arabic with Bengali with focus on influence of Muslim missionaries and sufis notably Shah Muhammad Sultan Rumi in Mymensingh (11th century), Shaikh Jalaluddin Tabrizi in Pandua (12th century), Shah Jalal in Sylhet (14th century); Muslim rule of the region (1204-1764); British rule (1764-1947); period of East Pakistan (1947-71); and, Bangladesh (since 1971); 2) Muslim Bengali literature beginning with Shah Muhammad Saghir (14th century), translation of Islamic and Perso-Arabic literature , emergence of Dobhashi literature and Baul poems of Lalon Shah and others; 3) Linguistic impact of Arabic language on the phonology, morphology, syntax and selected semantic domains of Bengali language; 4) Influence on Bengali life and culture in general; 5) Concluding remarks on current trends in the field. Transliteration of Arabic and Bengali Phonemic Sounds I have chosen to use in this essay the standard English alphabet for the following phonemic consonants in Arabic and Bengali: b,d,f,g,h,j,k,l,m,n,p,q,r,s, t,w. For vowel sounds I have used: /i/ (bit), / ī / (beet), /ā / (father), /ɔ/ (ball), /e/ (bet), /æ/ (bat); /o/ (note), /u/ (pull), /ū/ (boot), au (now), /ɔi/ (boy); /ai/ (buy). Arabic Consonant sounds: /ṭ/ (Arabic ṭakhṭmeaning seat), /ṯh/ (Arabic ṯhum meaning garlic), /ḥ/ (Arabic ḥalwa meaning sweetmeat), /ǩ/ (Arabic ǩaas meaning special); /ḍh/ (Arabic ḍhikr meaning recitation), /š/ (Arabic šiḍḍaṭmeaning trouble), /ṣ/ (Arabic saaf meaning clean), /đ/ (Arabic đaman meaning security), /ŧ/ (Arabic ŧalab meaning search/, / ẓ/ (Arabic ẓulm meaning cruelty), /’/ (Arabic ’ilm meaning knowledge), /ğ/ (Arabic ğareeb meaning * Professor Emeritus, Alliant International University, San Diego, California, USA 102 Afia Dil poor), /q/ (Arabic qabil meaning capable), /h/ Arabic hḍ meaning guidance in called Hamzah or Alif / / ء the right path). The first character of Arabic alphabet has the sound of the glottal stop which can occur initially, medially and finally. Arabic Vowel sounds: Arabic has a simple vowel system with only three short vowels /i a u/ where /a/ corresponds more or less to /ə/ as in English “but” and three long vowels /ī ā ū/, where ā corresponds to English /æ/ as in “bat”. Bengali Consonant sounds: /chh/ as aspirated ch as in Bengali chhara (rhymes); /jh/ as aspirated j as in Bengali jhar (storm); /kh/ as aspirated k as in Bengali khal (canal); aspirated /gh/ as in Bengali ghar (house); dental /ṭ/ as in Bengali tui (you, intimate or junior); aspirated dental /ṭh/ as in Bengali thala (plate); dental /ḍ/ as in Bengali dana (grain); voiced aspirated alveolar /dh/ as in Dhaka; retroflex / ŗ / as in ghoŗa (horse). Bengali Vowel sounds: /i e æ a ɔ o u/. Bengali does not make any distinction between long and short vowels, though the Bengali alphabet has two letters to show the difference in writing. All the Bengali vowels adjacent to a nasal consonant are nasalized, for example, chāñd (moon). 1. The Historical Contact of Bengali with Arabic Bengali, one of the major Indo-Aryan languages of South Asia is estimated to be spoken by about 80 million people in the West Bengal province of India and about 150 million in Bangladesh. The language belongs to the Eastern branch of the Indo-European family of languages, and is closely related to Assamese, Uriya and Bihari, which were the Prakrit languages of the area, as well as Sanskrit, which was the classical language limited to the Brahman class. Other languages that have close affinities to Bengali are some non-Aryan languages like Kol and Munda. The history of the Bengali language goes back to the eighth century A.D. and the earliest record of written Bengali known as “Old Bengali” is a collection of mystic songs called “Charyapadas”, composed by Buddhist mystics. The rulers of Bengal at that time were Pala kings, who were Buddhists with Pali as the language of their religion. They had substituted Pali for Sanskrit as the language of administration in the country. They were followed by Sena kings, who were Impact of Arabic 103 Hindu Brahmans who again replaced Pali with Sanskrit. Bengali as a language had no prestige till the advent of the Muslim rulers who came there by the early thirteenth century. The Middle Bengali period coincides roughly with the period of the Muslim rule in Bengal, which lasted from 1204 A.D. till its replacement by the British rule in 1764. Muslim rulers in Bengal were first Turks, then Afghans, and later the Mughals, but the language of administration had continued to be Persian all throughout. The language of religion of these rulers as well as the growing Muslim population of Bengal was Arabic, and the common everyday language was Bengali, for the Hindus, the Muslims and people of other religions. The distinguished Islamic historian Syed Sulaiman Nadvi (1934) established that there were a number of Arab traders’ colonies in Southern India and the Chittagong coastal area going back to very early times. The rise of Islam in the 7th century A.D. and the unification of the Arab tribes under the banner of Islam under the centralized state at Medinah helped the Arabs to spread their influence to distant areas. Some of the routes from the Arabian ports to China passed through the Bay of Bengal that was known to the Arabs as Schelahath and Kalahabar. A number of Arab historians notably Abu Zaid Sirafi in the 9th century and Masudi in the early 10th century describe these sea routes. The first documentation by an Arab geographer-traveler who recorded his observations of what is Eastern Bengal was Sulaiman Tajir – a merchant who wrote in his book Silisilatul Tawarikh (The Sequence of History) in 851 A.D. Some scholars take the position that Sulaiman’s observations of the Mulkul Dharami (Kingdom of Dharmi or Dharma) after the name of the ruler of the Pala dynasty called Dhamma or Dharma was misheard or misread by him as Ruhmi (perhaps the Arab’s variation on Ramu – an area near Cox’s Bazar) is about a part of Eastern Bengal as he describes the elephants and muslin cloth which was a great specialty of the area, and the use of kaudis that was the coin in use at the time. The famous Arab historian Masudi (956 A.D.) mentioned the kingdom of “Rahma” (another variation of Ramu). Both Sulaiman and Masudi mention the inhabitants to be good looking. A number of future historians during the Mughal period especially noted the beauty and charm of the women of the region. One of the earliest authentic historian who wrote on the region because of his personal observation was not Al-Biruni (1048 A.D.) but Ibn Batuta who travelled to China and on the way stopped in Bengal (1345-46) and wrote: “… 104 Afia Dil we spent forty-three nights at sea, arrived eventually at the end of Bangala. This is a vast country, abounding in rice and nowhere in the world I have seen any land where prices are lower than there. … The first city in Bengal that we entered was Sudkawan [he meant Chittagong], a large town on the coast of the great sea. Close by it the river Ganges, to which the Hindus go on pilgrimage, and the river Jun (he meant Jamuna) unite and discharge together in the sea.” He mentioned Fakhruddin Mubarak Shah as the ruler of the region. He also mentioned that he went from Sudkawan to Sylhet to meet the great Sufi Shah Jalal and returned to Chittagong by river via Sonargaon. It is important to note in this context that the Brahmaputra-Meghna passing through Bangladesh connected Sonargaon with the Bay of Bengal near Sandvip. It must be mentioned here that historically these areas of Bangladesh were very active since the early years of the Christian era and Buddhist missionaries like Atisa Dipankara travelled to China, Korea and Japan in the East and the port cities of Arabia in the West. The sea-raiders had made the Bengali textiles and woodwork very famous in many parts of the world including Europe even during the pre-Christian era. A number of books have described the rare beauty of Bengal muslin and silk cloth, for example, Chanakya’s Arthashastra (4th B.C.) and Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (1st century A.D.) write of “muslin of the finest sorts” as a major export of Bengal. Sulaiman Tajir (9th century A.D.), mentioned above, wrote in his Arabic book that he had seen: “a stuff made in this country which is not to be found elsewhere; so fine and so delicate is this material that a dress made of it may be passed through a signet ring.” 1.1 The Muslim Saints Muhammad Enamul Haq wrote in his history of Sufism in Bengal 1 that probably Sufism was introduced in Bengal in the 11th century with the arrival of Shah Muhammad Sultan Rumi who is reputed to have come to Mymensingh in 1053 A.D. His tomb is in Madanpur in Netrakona area of Mymensingh. His influence spread so fast that the Hindu ruler Koch became afraid of his growing power.