Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 24/07/2004 23:06, MarianneLuban AT aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 7/24/2004 2:14:22 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
> uhurwitz AT yahoo.com writes:
>
>
>  
>
> > "... the name "Abdul" ..."  --- BTW there's no such name: it is the 
> > word/name ABD plus the aricle Al.... which never stands alone in Arabic. The Alif 
> > drops out in a construct chain.
> >
> > Uri
> >
> >
> >    
>
> What about "Abdullah"?  Surely that contains the word for God.
>  

Yes, it's Abd-ul-(i)Lah, servant of God, just as Allah is al-(i)Lah, 
with the first syllable of ilah = Hebrew eloah = God elided after the 
article prefix al-. Your basic point was correct: abd-ul-X means servant 
of X, but it is meaningless if the X is dropped.


--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/