hindu once again

[S Krishna]

Irfan Omar writes:

Dear Members of the List:

The word 'hind' is always understood as referring to the region east of 
the Indus, that is India. Both in Arabic as well as Persian it has no 
derogatory meaning. I am not too familiar with Turkish though. I know of 
several Arabs having their last name 'hindi', implying either
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This is what I've been told also. In fact, Ayatollah Khomeini
who wrote his opus in the early part of this century i.e. 30s 
signed himself as "Hindi"( belonging to Hind). His ancestors migrated
to Kashmir from Iran and lived for 2 generations.His great grandfather
remigrated to Iran. The family moved  around quite a bit in Iran before 
Khomeini settled down in Qom. During their travels, his family owned and 
ran a garage for some time which was called "Garaaj-e-Hindi"
locally. In this case however, when the Shah tried to discredit him 
before his return to Iran, the Savak apparently passed pamphlets
which refered deregatorily to Khomeini as an outsider i.e. Hendi who had 
no right to be running IRan. This MAY be the reason why "Hind" may have 
had had negative connotations over a short period of time.


Krishna


 


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