Reply To: Rumaisa

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#115025 Reply

Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah,

Thank you for the reply. The sentence that said Rumaisah was also the name of a star is incorrect, we have removed it. As for Rumaisaa with a saad, it is one of the names of the star known as Sirius in English.

The mufti is unsure of the meaning of Rumaisah, he says “apparently it means…”. He is using what can be called an artificial etymology, he starts with the root (Rams), which means “to bury”, and thus he concludes that the name probably means “buried”, thus “corpse”.

But the actual meaning of the name is “a wind that buries things”, as mentioned in the Sultan Qaboos Encyclopedia of Arab Names. The mufti’s analysis gives you an idea of the name (that it has something to do with burying), but it cannot tell you the exact meaning, while the Sultan Qaboos Encyclopedia speaks of the name as it is (it is not creating an artificial etymology for it), thus it is the more accurate meaning.

Thus we have three names: Rumaisah (رميسة), which means “wind that scatters and covers”, Rumaithah (رميثة), whose exact meaning we do not know (but its root has to do with “increase”, thus an artificial etymology would tell us that it means “increase”, “something that increases or grows”), and lastly, Rumaisaa (رميصاء), which is the name of the star Sirius.

Earlier the article for Rumaisaa contained an artificial etymology that said Rumaisaa may mean “rheum”, but further research indicated that it means “Sirius”, thus this is the meaning that people use when they use the word as a name.