Al-Sarraf

Overview

Al-Sarraf (al-Ṣarrāf) is built on ṣ-r-f. In Lisān al-ʿArab ṣarf is turning a thing from one state or direction to another; ṣarf al-darāhim is exchanging one coin for another with a difference between them, and the man who does it is the ṣayrafī and the ṣarrāf, the plural ṣayārifa and ṣayārif. The same root gives taṣrīf, the turning of words through their forms, which is why Arabic grammar borrowed it. As a trade name it belongs to the money market of a settled town, where coin of many mints and metals had to be weighed, assayed and exchanged.

Al-Ṣarrāf and al-Ṣayrafī

These are two family names for one occupation: ṣarrāf on the faʿʿāl pattern of habitual trades, ṣayrafī on a different formation from the same root, both current as surnames and neither derived from the other. Nothing distinguishes the bearers except which word their town used. Al-Ṣarrāf should also not be read as a variant of any name on the root sh-r-f, such as al-Sharrāf: the roots are separate, the sense is unconnected, and the trade name carries no title, office or rank of any kind.

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.