Al-Nassaj

Overview

Al-Nassaj (al-Nassāj) is built on n-s-j. In Lisān al-ʿArab nasaja al-thawb yansijuhu nasjan is to weave it, the minsaj is the wood on which the weaving is stretched, and the nassāj is the weaver by trade. The root is not confined to cloth: the wind is said to weave the dust, the spider weaves, and a poet weaves his speech, so nasj in the lexicon is the general act of drawing one thing through another. The faʿʿāl form makes it a habitual occupation, and from there a family name.

Nassāj and ḥāʾik

Both words name a weaver, and the sources use them differently. Al-Ḥāʾik, from ḥ-w-k, is the concrete man at the loom, and the classical adab attaches a social colouring to that word which n-s-j does not carry. Al-Nassāj is the broader and more neutral term, at home in the general sense of weaving as well as the trade. A house that bears one of them is not thereby connected to a house that bears the other. In writing, al-Nassāj is also easily read as al-Nassākh, the copyist, from n-s-kh — a single dot apart and an entirely different occupation.

Bearing the name

An occupational or toponymic family name records what an ancestor did or where he was from, 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 word itself.