African Ancestored Resource Area
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africa
Posted by muhammad abdullah <dawah_ma_90221@yahoo.com> on Wed, 25 Jun 2003, in response to Is there somebody who knows the origin of Alkebulan, posted by kader on Wed, 18 Jun 2003
as-salamu-alaikum" " where does the word africa come from?"-the origin of the word" africa"has been difficult to elucidatre.it became the acepted term from roman times onwards in the form,' africa' re[lacing the originally greek or egyptian word'libya',the land of the lebu or the lubins in genesis.from designating the north african coast,the word ' africa' came to be applied to the whole continent from the end of the first century before our era. but what was the original meaning of the name?*the word ' africa' is thought to come from the name of a berber people who lived to the south of carthage,the afarik or aourigha,whence afriga or africa to denote the land of the afarik.*another derivation of the word africa is that it comes from two phoenician terms,one of which means an ear of corn,a fertility symbol in that region,and the other,pharika,means the land of fruit.*it is further suggested that the word comes from the latin adjective aprica[sunny]or the greek aprike[free from cold].*another origin might be the phoenician root faraq,which suggests the idea of separation or in other words diaspora.it may be pointed out that the same root is to be found in some african languages,for instance bambara.*in sanskrit and hindi the root apara or africa denotes that which,in geographical terms,comes ' after,' in other words the west.africa is the western continent.*an historical tradition subscribed to be leo africanus has it that a yemenite chief named africus invaded north africa in the second millenium before our era and founded a town called afrikyah.but it is more likely that the arabic term ifriqiya is the arabic transliteration of the word' africa.'*one version even suggests that afer was a grandson of abraham[ibrahim]pbuh and a companion of hercules.[from:general history of africa[unesco]vol.1,general introduction by joseph ki zerbo,director of the vol.,p.21]insha-Allah email my son to get sheikh muhammad sharef's email to add more insight to your question.' askiya@hotmail.com-muhammad abdullah-p.o.box 338-compton,ca.90223Responses
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