THE TORTURING OF BOTH NATIVE AMERICANS AND A SUFIS IS HISTORIC

Mansur al-Hallaj (died 922 CE) is renowned for his claim "Ana-l-Haqq" (I am The Truth). His refusal to recant this utterance, which was regarded as apostasy, led to a long trial. He was imprisoned for 11 years in a Baghdad prison, before being tortured and publicly dismembered on March 26, 922. He is still revered by Sufis for his willingness to embrace torture and death rather than recant. It is said that during his prayers, he would say "O Lord! You are the guide of those who are passing through the Valley of Bewilderment. If I am a heretic, enlarge my heresy."

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mansur al-Hallaj (Arabic: منصور الحلاج‎ – Mansūr al-Hallāj; Persian: منصور حلاج – Mansūr-e Hallāj; full name Abū al-Muġīṭ Husayn Manṣūr al-Ḥallāğ) (c. 858 – March 26, 922) (Hijri c. 244 AH-309 AH) was a Persian mystic, revolutionary writer and pious teacher of Sufism most famous for his poetry, accusation of heresy and for his execution at the orders of the Abbasid Caliph Al-Muqtadir after a long, drawn-out investigation.

American

1570s (n.); 1590s (adj.), from Mod.L. Americanus, from America (q.v.); originally in reference to what now are called Native Americans; the sense of "resident of North America of European (originally British) descent" is first recorded 1640s (adj.); 1765 (n.).

Sufi

A member of a Muslim mystical order, 1650s (earlier Sufian, 1580s), from Arabic sufi, lit. "man of wool" (i.e., "man wearing woolen garments"), from suf "wool." So-called from the habit of "putting on the holy garment" (labs-as-suf) to devote oneself to mysticism.

As noted in the above etymological entries for the English words AMERICAN and SUFI the dates of 1640 and 1650 may be easily seen as transitions in the etymological history of these two English words that continue to be spoken in this age.

As a linguistic anthropologist, I will go directly today to the easy to access internet encyclopedia that is free, Wikipedia. I will research the events taking place during this decade beginning in 1640 and ending in 1650.

This very simple free internet encyclopedia provides a historical backdrop for the time period of the decade between 1640-1650 in history. The meaning of those two words AMERICAN and SUFI were spotted as gaining additional meanings when spotted in writings of that particular time period by etymologists that were experts in reading and writing a host of foreign languages.

For example from Wikipedia:

1640s

• 1640: King Charles was compelled to summon Parliament due to the revolt of the Scots.
• 1640–1668: The Portuguese Restoration War led to the end of the Iberian Union.
• 1640: Torture is outlawed in England.
• 1641: The Tokugawa Shogunate institutes Sakoku- foreigners are expelled and no one is allowed to enter or leave Japan.
• 1641: The Irish Rebellion.
• 1641: René Descartes publishes Meditationes de prima philosophia Meditations on First Philosophy.
• 1642: Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman achieves the first recorded European sighting of New Zealand.
• 1642–1649: Civil War in England; Charles I is beheaded by Cromwell
• 1644: Giovanni Battista Pamphili is elected Pope Innocent X at the Papal conclave of 1644.
• 1644: The Manchu conquer China ending the Ming Dynasty. The subsequent Qing Dynasty rules until 1912.
• 1644–1674: The Mauritanian Thirty-Year War.
• 1645: The death of Miyamoto Musashi, legendary Japanese Samurai warrior of natural causes.
• 1645–1669: Ottoman war with Venice. The Ottomans invade Crete and capture Canea.
• 1647: Seven-year-old Mehmed IV becomes sultan.
• 1647–1652: The Great Plague of Seville.
• 1648: The Peace of Westphalia ends the Thirty Years' War and the Eighty Years' War and marks the ends of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire as major European powers.
• 1648–1653: Fronde civil war in France.
• 1648–1667: The Deluge wars leave Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in ruins.
• 1648–1669: The Ottomans capture Crete from the Venetians after the Siege of Candia.
• 1649–1653: The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.

1650s

• 1652: Cape Town founded by the Dutch East India Company in South Africa.
• 1652: The First Anglo-Dutch War begins.
• 1654–1661: Mehmed Köprülü is Grand Vizier.
• 1655–1661: The Northern Wars cement Sweden's rise as a Great Power.
• 1658: After his father Shah Jahan completes the Taj Mahal, his son Aurangzeb deposes him as ruler of the Mughal Empire.

What personally catches my eye in the above historical backdrop is the term TORTURE seen above attached to the date of 1640. Torture will be applicable to both Native Americans and also those referred to as a Sufi during that time period of history in Western Civilization when Christianity had taken a very strong stand in Europe and carried to the Americas. During this time period a Sufi was seen only in the culture that today we now generalize with the broad terms Muslim or Hindu in contrast to Christianity or Judaism.

torture (n.)

late 15c. (implied in torturous), from M.Fr. torture "infliction of great pain, great pain, agony," from L.L. torture "a twisting, writhing, torture, torment," from stem of L. torquere "to twist, turn, wind, wring, distort" (see thwart). The verb is 1580s, from the noun. Related: Tortured; torturing.