Q&A: ‘The word Hindu is Arabic. Why don’t they throw it out?’ - Interview with Prominent historian Irfan Habib

[GodToons]

The best part I like about this celebrated historian is that even after so many years - He is unaware of the difference b/w ancient Persia and Arab. Hindu word came from Persia which was an altogether different civilization than Arab.
Older Indian govt made him big start.

The word Hi(n)du was first found mentioned twice by the Achaemenian emperor Darius (522-486 BCE) in 2 of his inscriptions dated 518 & 515 BCE.

Emperor Darius was Persian, not Arabic. Persia or ancient Iran is not Arab, & old/ancient Persian language had nothing Arabic in it. It’s only the modern Persian language that has many Arabic loanwords.

Now to think Irfan Habib once wrote our history textbooks, & of course, one must not forget he was among the leading figures who had turned the Saraswati River into a mythical one using distorted facts (check Michel Danino’s paper on this subject).

The word Hinduš is mentioned as one of 24 subject countries of the Achaemenid Empire, illustrated with the drawing of a kneeling subject & a hieroglyphic cartridge reading 𓉔𓈖𓂧𓍯𓇌 (h-n-d-wꜣ-y), on the Egyptian Statue of Darius I, now in the National Museum of Iran. Ref: RC Mazumdar “Ancient India” for king Darius inscriptions, p. 97.

He is in the same league as Romila Thapar, a certified scholar of Pali and Sanskrit scripts. Though she gave an affidavit in the Courts of India that she was unaware of scripts and used the English translation from other sources.

 

[Maira La]

Hindu word is not Arabic. Stupid thing to say as a historian.

This means that South Asian Muslims - aka Former Hindus - are Arabs.

I KNEW IT

Tbh you are not a Hindu/Sindhu either. It used to be an ethnic/racial identifier for people of Western Punjab and Sindh, until British turned it into a religious identity for South Asian non-Muslims.

 

[Asian.Century]

Wow News for me : Hindu is an Arabic word. Now will keep using it.

 

[Gendaswami]

Hindu word is not Arabic. Stupid thing to say as a historian.



Tbh you are not a Hindu/Sindhu either. It used to be an ethnic/racial identifier for people of Western Punjab and Sindh, until British turned it into a religious identity for South Asian non-Muslims.

The ancient persians and mesopotamians called the region east of Indus as India/Hindustan and the people inhabiting the land as Hindu. That covers sindh, Punjab and lands east thereof. Interestingly, regions of Balochistan and NWFP were not considered to be India.

 

[Maira La]

That covers sindh, Punjab and lands east thereof.

Where is this written, that lands east of Sindh And Western Punjab are India? Show me your ancient Persian and Mesopotamian text that says that! (Don't post fantasy maps.)

 

[Joe Shearer]

I agree. There was no word called Hindu locally.

It is a derived word, from the pronunciation that prevailed in the fifth and sixth centuries BC.
The Indians called the great river Sindhu; the Persians, who conquered two (three?) provinces in the river valley around 535 BC, didn't do well pronouncing 'S' and called the Sindhu the Hindu.
The Greeks, who travelled up and down throughout the Achaemenid Empire, long before Alexander III attacked it, had even more trouble, dropped the 'H' and called it the Indus, so, to Europeans, the land became India.
To the Persians and then the Arabs, it was Hind.
Hindu, to Persians, was not the name of the religious practices followed to their east; those practices had started from the pre-Zoroastrian common religion followed around 2000 BC, when the religious split between Deva worshipper and Ahura worshippers occurred (each calling the Asura as the anti-gods, and the Daiva as anti-gods respectively).
To the Persian, Hindu stood for various uncomplimentary things; those are not relevant here.

As you have stated above, the word Hindu was never ever in use in India.

The ancient persians and mesopotamians called the region east of Indus as India/Hindustan and the people inhabiting the land as Hindu. That covers sindh, Punjab and lands east thereof. Interestingly, regions of Balochistan and NWFP were not considered to be India.

Not exactly.

Where is this written, that lands east of Sindh And Western Punjab are India? Show me your ancient Persian and Mesopotamian text that says that! (Don't post fantasy maps.)

Please bugger off. If you don't know, you shouldn't be here. There is an entire travelogue by an Ambassador of those times that dealt with this. Verb. sap.

Your impertinence is unbelievable.

 

[Goritoes]

Hindu Sankat mai hai.

 

[-=virus=-]

Hindu Sankat mai hai.

all mazhabs are in sankat

 

[Goritoes]

all mazhabs are in sankat

True, but Hindu is in Sankat Pro Maxx.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Hindu Sankat mai hai.

True, but Hindu is in Sankat Pro Maxx.

 

[Goritoes]

Joe, still using the same old Email ? sent you an email, check and let me know if you get it.

 

[nahtanbob]

Q&A: ‘The word Hindu is Arabic. Why don’t they throw it out?’​

Hindu is definitely not Arabic. Maybe Persian.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Joe, still using the same old Email ? sent you an email, check and let me know if you get it.

So good to hear from you!

Hindu is definitely not Arabic. Maybe Persian.

<groan>

Don't people read any more? Has it gone out of fashion?

 

[-=virus=-]

Hindu is definitely not Arabic. Maybe Persian.

you know what's definitely not Arab ?

Bakistan

 

[nahtanbob]

you know what's definitely not Arab ?

How hard is it to conclude this one way or the other ?

Old Arabic stated in 100 BCE. Arabs were nobodies in history until the 7th century
The word Hindu was coined a few hundreds years BCE