(3) As the son of a certain one, e.g. Ibn ʿUmar, the son of ʿUmar; Ibn ʿAbbās, the son of ʿAbbās, &c.
(4) By a combination of words, e.g. Nūru ʾd-dīn, “Light of Religion”; ʿAbdu ʾllāh, “Servant of God.”
(5) By a nickname of harmless signification, e.g. Abū Hurairah, “the kitten’s father.”
(6) By the trade or profession, e.g. al-Manṣūr al-Ḥallāj, Manṣūr the dresser of cotton.
(7) By the name of his birth-place, e.g. al-Buk͟hārī, the native of Buk͟hārah.
These rules, guiding the nomenclature of the Arabians, give a strange sound to western ears in the names of celebrated authors. For instance, the celebrated compiler of the chief book of authentic traditions is known as “Abū ʿAbdi ʾllāh, Muḥammad, ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Mug͟hīrah al-Juʿfī, al-Buk͟hārī,” which means that his name is Muḥammad and that he is the father of a son named ʿAbdu ʾllāh, and that his own father’s name was Ismāʿīl, the son of Ibrāhīm, the son of Mug͟hīrah, of the tribe of Juʿfī, and that he himself was born in Buk͟hārā.
Arabic names have undergone strange modifications when brought in contact with western languages, e.g. Averroës, the philosopher, is a corruption of Ibn Rashīd; Avicenna, of Ibn Sīnā; Achmet, the Sultan, of Aḥmad; Amurath, of al-Murād; Saladin, the celebrated warrior of the twelfth century, of the Arabic Ṣalāḥu ʾd-dīn, “the peace of religion.”
AN-NAML (النمل). “The Ants.” The title of the XXVIIth Sūrah of the Qurʾān, in the 18th verse of which the word occurs: “They came upon the valley of the ants.”
NĀMŪS (ناموس). The angel, spirit, or being, which Waraqah is related to have said appeared to Moses. See Ṣaḥīḥu ʾl-Buk͟hārī, p. 3, where it is said, when Muḥammad told Waraqah, the Jew, what he had seen on Mount Ḥirāʾ, Waraqah exclaimed, “It is the Nāmūs who appeared from God to Moses.”
ʿAbdu ʾl-Ḥaqq says Nāmūs means one who can take knowledge of the secret thoughts of a man, and is used in contradistinction to the word Jāsūs, “a spy,” who seeks to know the evil deeds of another.