# 3almaany/niya (علماني/علمانيّة)



## Tajabone

Hello,

 The word 3almaany or 3almaniya (علماني/علمانيّة) is used to mean "secular (person)".
 It also could have a very bad connotation in radical religious groups or societies (yet, I dont' want to discuss this point in here).
 In North Africa we rather use the French loanword لائيكي (from laïc [noun] or laïque [adjective]).
 I'd like to know if you have more information about the lexical creation of the Arabic neologism "3almany": who used it for the first time and when (hope I'm not asking too much).

 Thanks again


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## CarlosPerezMartinez

I think is not 3almaani but 3ilmaani and in that sense comes from 3ilm, science, including all the possible meanings of the root including "scientific rationalism" ( I guess). Wait for the natives, anyway.


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## Abu Rashid

I've heard that explanation, but also I heard once that it's actually 3almaani and the meaning derives from the fact that they believe in "worldly" (or physical realm) things only, as opposed to the spiritual aspects of life.


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## CarlosPerezMartinez

Abu Rashid said:


> I've heard that explanation, but also I heard once that it's actually 3almaani and the meaning derives from the fact that they believe in "worldly" (or physical realm) things only, as opposed to the spiritual aspects of life.



My dictionary (F. Corriente) mentions 3ilmaani but not 3almaani. But I don't know which explanation is correct.


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## CarlosPerezMartinez

To make things more complicated, Sakhr (qamoos.sakhr.com) includes only 3almaani, as suggested by Abu Rashid.


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## Tajabone

First of all, thanks to both of you.
I was myslef wondering if it should be "3almani" or "3ilmani". I just decided to keep the "eastern" accent I heard in some debates in Al-Jazeera (some of them started to use their own accents or partly switched to their own dialect).
As for Abu Rashid's point, I can simply say it's an important aspect of the explanation since it relates the root to "world" rather than "science". I keep foolishly wondering why it hasn't come to my mind 

There's an article in Wikipedia dealing with "3almaniya": http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A9
At the end of it, there's a link on "Arab seculars" and their url mentions "3almani".
I wil do a search in it hoping to get more linguistic information on our word in question.
Once again, I thank you all for your suggestions !


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## cherine

The difference between the two pronounciations is already given by Carlos and Abu Rashid, so I'll only add hat I know about this word العلمانية :

I always heard it pronounced as 3almaaniyya, and never knew its meaning until I went to university and studied French literature, and learned the word "laïcité".
Many people -in my country at least- associate this word to الإلحاد which is a different concept of course, but they're both taken by many as synonyms meaning "not believing in God".

Very recently, a year or two ago, I started hearing the other pronounciation "3ilmaaniyya", with people trying to convince the "mass" that al-3ilmaaniyya is the concept of applying science to all aspects of "earthly" life, away from superstitions or mixing religion with things that have nothing to do with it, that it's not a negative thing, that it's not against religion, and that people can be 3ilmaaniyyin and still have a religion.

You can see the meaning of علمانية on the site of مجمع اللغة العربية بالقاهرة . It doesn't give the history of this word, but... I thought I'd share it anyway.

P.S. I think the word in Arabic first appeared with the Arabic translations of French writings, most probably the translations done by the Lebanese. If I find more info I'll post it here.

Edit: I found this page and thought it may be interesting.


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## Tajabone

Thanks Cherine for your precious information and links (Magma' i-lugha is unfortunately not readable: can't see the definitions in Arabic ...)
The confusion also exists in Algeria where "secularism" is mistaken for "atheism" ...
A last remark: through internet, the transliteration "3ilmani" is more used in North Africa.
Thanks again


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## Abu Rashid

I just looked up the etymology of the English word (secular), and it appears it comes from Latin sæcularis which means "worldly". Since the Arabic word is just a mapping from the European concept, I'd think it is probably based on the exact same meaning. It wasn't until later that secularists began to espouse the doctrines of science.



> who used it for the first time and when



I think its useage in Arabic would be very recent. In European languages the concept and the word have been  used and believed in for probably a few thousand years at least, but the concept and the word I think were virtually unknown to the Arabs until very modern times.


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## HKK

Abu Rashid said:


> it appears it comes from Latin sæcularis which means "worldly".



According to Wikipedia, and to my intuition as well, saecularis means "of the age", with saeculum meaning century. Compare French "siècle".


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## Abu Rashid

> According to Wikipedia, and to my intuition as well, saecularis means "of the age"



You are correct. The reference I provided actually stated Late Latin, but I just removed the "Late" in order to avoid confusion, not knowing a Latin buff such as yourself would pick it up.


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## HKK

Glad to be of service, Abu Rashid


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## CarlosPerezMartinez

cherine said:


> You can see the meaning of علمانية on the site of مجمع اللغة العربية بالقاهرة . It doesn't give the history of this word, but... I thought I'd share it anyway.



Very interesting, Cherine. I went to the site of the Academy of the Arabic Language in Cairo as suggested by you and in the search word section I typed علماني with no vowels. I got the following result: 

*secularization
* *عَلْمانِيَّةُ التَّعْلِيمِ**
* *
* *secular trend
* *اِتِّجاهٌ عَلْمانِيٌّ**
**
* *secular state
* *دَوْلَةٌ عِلْمَانِيَّةٌ**
**
* *secular society
* *جَمْعِيَّةٌ عِلْمانِيَّةٌ**
* *
* *secular school
* *مَدْرَسَةٌ عَلْمانِيَّةٌ**
**
* *secular
* *عِلْمانِيّ**
**
* *lay investiture
* *التَّقْلِيدُ العَلْمانِيُّ**

*
  As you can see sometimes you have fatha and sometimes you have kasra. May be it is not clear even for the wise guys of the Academy.


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## Tajabone

Tiene razón, Carlos. 
Indeed, I came across these two variations as well.
The word derived from 3aalem (world, then worldly matters) seems to be a credible path.
As for the semantic opposition secular vs religious, it's rendered in Arabic this way:
*علماني vs رهبانيّ*


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## cherine

Yes Carlos, this is what I meant: it's obvious that this word accepts the two interpretations.


Tajabone said:


> The word derived from 3aalem (world, then worldly matters) seems to be a credible path.


Excuse me Tajabone, but I'd transliterate عالم as 3aalam , because 3aalem/3aalem is scientist, or man of science.


> As for the semantic opposition secular vs religious, it's rendered in Arabic this way:
> *علماني vs رهبانيّ*


Yes, this is the context where things are much clearer


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## Tajabone

According to a single and repeated (religious) source (Muhammed Al Qarni), *علماني *as a neologism was proposed by a Christian Lebanese *إلياس بقطور* in a dictionary, followed by *Al Bustaani*.
As for _Tashkil_, the two forms evoked in this thread were mentioned.


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## jdibrahim

Tajabone said:


> According to a single and repeated (religious) source (Muhammed Al Qarni), *علماني *as a neologism was proposed by a Christian Lebanese *إلياس بقطور* in a dictionary, followed by *Al Bustaani*.
> As for _Tashkil_, the two forms evoked in this thread were mentioned.



As already mentioned this neologism might be a foreign concept ie loan translation and thus be the cause of this difference in pronunciation ie the similarity or the confusion between between 3ilm (3ilmaani ) and (3aalamaani shortened to 3almaani). But even if it is pronounced 3ilmaani it can only mean worldly otherwise it is supposed to read 3ilmi and not 3ilmaani. BTW 3aalim (present participle) is a scientist and not 3aalem.


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## Libyan_Girl

Hi 

what I know is that it is " 3almani - عَلماني " 
As I found in " Al-mo3jam al-wajeez " 

*من يعنى بشئون الدنيا*
*نسبة إلى العَلْم بمعنى العالم *
*خلاف الكَهَنوتي *​


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