Al-Awjami

Overview

Al-Awjami (al-Awjāmī) is the nisba to al-Awjām, a settlement of the al-Qaṭīf district within the shore the geographers call al-Khaṭṭ. The form is a plain toponymic taken from a plural: the nisba is built on the name as it stands, with the definite article kept, which is ordinary for place-names of this shape.

On sources

The classical works this reference is permitted to cite do not carry al-Awjām. Yāqūt does not enter it among the places of this coast, and no lexical entry plainly belongs to it. The page accordingly records the name and the country, and no history.

The word

Lisān al-ʿArab enters wajam, from the root w-j-m, as stones heaped one upon another and set up as a mark on high ground, with awjām as its plural. A place-name of this shape is therefore readable as a plural of that word, and the reading is offered as what the lexicon supports and not as a documented etymology for this settlement; the permitted sources do not connect the two. The same root also gives wājim, silent from anger or grief, which is a separate sense and no basis for a place-name here.

Bearing the name

A toponymic family name records a place an ancestor was attributed to — born there, settled there, known by it — as the name was applied to him, not a lineage. It attaches to no tribe, and two families bearing it need have no connection to one another beyond the place itself.