Nitnem & Namaaz

[singhbj singh]

ਦਿਲਾਂ ਦੀ ਸਾਂਝ ਹੋਵੇ ਤਾਂ ਧਰਮ ਆੜੇ ਨਹੀਂ ਆਉਂਦਾ

https://www.facebook.com/BaruSahibHP/photos/a.312356885474161.72764.294820193894497/1028592450517264/?type=3&theater

[JagsawSingh]

Nice picture.

I can add another interesting and perhaps rather strange aspect to this:

We Punjabis have a word for 'bathroom' and that word is 'Gusalkhanna'. So, perhaps a Sikh will say he is 'going to the gusulkhanna to prepare himself to read nitnem.

But what does the word 'gusulkhanna' actually mean ?

Well, the 'khanna' aspect of the word is straightforward enough as it obviously means room, so the question is what does the word 'gusul' mean ?

Now this is where it gets interesting because the word itself was first uttered by the Muslim's prophet Muhammed and it comes to the Punjabi language directly from the Islamic Koran. Muhammed said every Muslim must perform a ritual called 'gusul' before he reads namaaz, and that ritual involves spraying his face with short bursts of water as well as throwing a few drops over each shoulder. So, our word for bathroom....that all of we Sikhs throughout the world use when speaking Punjabi, literally translates as 'the room we go to prepare ourselves to read the namaaz'.

Now there's food for thought.

[Ranjeet01]

Nice picture.

I can add another interesting and perhaps rather strange aspect to this:

We Punjabis have a word for 'bathroom' and that word is 'Gusalkhanna'. So, perhaps a Sikh will say he is 'going to the gusulkhanna to prepare himself to read nitnem.

But what does the word 'gusulkhanna' actually mean ?

Well, the 'khanna' aspect of the word is straightforward enough as it obviously means room, so the question is what does the word 'gusul' mean ?

Now this is where it gets interesting because the word itself was first uttered by the Muslim's prophet Muhammed and it comes to the Punjabi language directly from the Islamic Koran. Muhammed said every Muslim must perform a ritual called 'gusul' before he reads namaaz, and that ritual involves spraying his face with short bursts of water as well as throwing a few drops over each shoulder. So, our word for bathroom....that all of we Sikhs throughout the world use when speaking Punjabi, literally translates as 'the room we go to prepare ourselves to read the namaaz'.

Now there's food for thought.

Gulkhanna sounds more Persian than Arabic. The kh bit gives it away as well the Gul bit.

[JagsawSingh]

Gulkhanna sounds more Persian than Arabic. The kh bit gives it away as well the Gul bit.

Not sure what you mean by 'Gulkhanna' Ranjeet but the Punjabi word for bathroom is 'Gusul-khanna'. The khanna bit of course, as you quite rightly point out, comes to Punjabi from the Persian, and this is perfectly natural as Persian and Punjabi are positively joined at the hip as Punjab was always part of Persia long before anyone came along and made it part of India. The interesting aspect there though is the fact that the Iranians have maintained their pre-islamic, classical persian word for bathroom, i.e dashtoohi, i.e, even though they embraced a form of Islam, they did not incoporate that particular Arabic word into their language. In contrast, Punjabi did, somewhere along the line, abandon its traditional word and instead, incorporate the Arabic word that came directly from the Koran. Like I said, food for thought.

[Big_Tera]

Nice picture.

I can add another interesting and perhaps rather strange aspect to this:

We Punjabis have a word for 'bathroom' and that word is 'Gusalkhanna'. So, perhaps a Sikh will say he is 'going to the gusulkhanna to prepare himself to read nitnem.

But what does the word 'gusulkhanna' actually mean ?

Well, the 'khanna' aspect of the word is straightforward enough as it obviously means room, so the question is what does the word 'gusul' mean ?

Now this is where it gets interesting because the word itself was first uttered by the Muslim's prophet Muhammed and it comes to the Punjabi language directly from the Islamic Koran. Muhammed said every Muslim must perform a ritual called 'gusul' before he reads namaaz, and that ritual involves spraying his face with short bursts of water as well as throwing a few drops over each shoulder. So, our word for bathroom....that all of we Sikhs throughout the world use when speaking Punjabi, literally translates as 'the room we go to prepare ourselves to read the namaaz'.

Now there's food for thought.

I have never used that word in my life. Sound like some foreign non Punjabi word.

[JagsawSingh]

I have never used that word in my life. Sound like some foreign non Punjabi word.

Its the Punjabi word for bathroom and has been so for the last 500 years at least.

[chatanga]

I can add another interesting and perhaps rather strange aspect to this:

Did you used to post as West London Singh?

[Big_Tera]

Its the Punjabi word for bathroom and has been so for the last 500 years at least.

Did bathrooms exist 500 years ago? I though everyone just found a spot behind a tree or a bush.

[JagsawSingh]

Did bathrooms exist 500 years ago? I though everyone just found a spot behind a tree or a bush.

By 'bathroom' I think we're talking in the 'wash your face and body' sense rather than a place to do number 1s and number 2s. Indeed, in the much cleaner eastern sense, as opposed to the relatively unclean western sense, it was always considered inconcievable that anyone would want to crap and pee in the very place that he goes to get clean.

And, the persian 'khanna' literaly translates as a sort of compartment or small specific partitioned area rather than a 'room' as we would know it in the western sense.

[Pakandi baba]

What is this topic about? what the other posts are babbling on about has no relevance.