Posted by Loren (67.160.23.233) on August 20, 2003 at 02:08:07:

In Reply to: "Fixed Star" - Persian translation? posted by Brett Zamir on August 16, 2003 at 17:06:28:

Allah-u-Abha Brett,

I don't believe there is an Arabic or Persian version of Gleanings, do you know from which tablet the verse is originally from? If you find out let me know, and I can investigate the original text.

Without seeing the text, three possibilities comes to mind.
The word sayaara سيار means planet, and is derrived from the root سير sayara which has too many meanings to list, but all having to do with motion traveling, orbiting, etc. However, I can find no reference indicating it being used to mean star. But sometimes Baha'u'llah derrived unique forms of roots to have a unique meaning.

The word najm نجم means star, and can also mean planet, although it usually means star, and najm would be much less common in use for planet than sayaar, or al-kuukib as-sayaar الكوكب السيار . If the word najm was used by Baha'u'llah to refer to both star and planet, possibly the Guardian used fixed star to make the distinction while preserving the sense of the same noun.

Of course without seeing the origional this is wild speculation and Bahau'u'llah made have said something like najm al-thaabit نجم الثابت "fixed-star" more or less.

Sorry I couldn't help but it was fun speculating for you! (-;

Loren

this topic is closed - post at bahai-library.com/forum