Saturday 16 February 2013

A lingustic aside

On the etymology of Jamaat-i-Islaami or Jamaat-e-Islaami: the 'i' or 'e' presumably originates in the Persian ezafe, used to express belonging or adjective-nouns. The usage in "Jamaat-e-Islaami" seems to be of the latter kind. Perhaps the usage of this construct foreign to the Bengali language in the party name indicates that the party is a kind of historical relict, from a bygone age preceding 1971. This is in my view is connected to the causes of the Shahbag protests and sheer amount of hatred shown towards JI, in a way I'll try to elaborate later on.

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