The word umma

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Dec 30, 2010 at 07:35

The word umma as per Lisan al-3Arab really means the "community of Muslims" and it would include those that reside in dar al-Islam and those that reside is dar al-harb and the most interesting fact about the word is that it is a loan word from Hebrew ('am ha-ares) so an ummi (or member of the umma) is really a gentile or non Jewish as in the Quranic al-nabi al-ummi and al-ummiyyun (plural). So one can very much argue that the word really means gentiles or non Jewish. The ulama read the Quranic word ummi as uneducated but i very much doubt that this is correct

However, the word umma also has a very secular meaning so in let us say in the case of Egypt al-umma al-masriyya means the Egyptian Nation and Copts would be included

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".