Al-Tajir

The word

Lisān al-ʿArab gives al-tijāra as trading in property — buying and selling with gain in view — and al-tājir as the one who does it; the plurals it lists are tijār, tujjār and the collective tajr. The verb is tajara and ittajara. The word is old in the language and unremarkable in it: unlike the names of the crafts, which the lexicon defines by tools and materials, tājir is defined by an activity, which is why it takes in the man with a shop in a market and the man who moves goods between towns under one word.

Trade as a way of living

Ibn Khaldūn puts trade among the ways of making a living and defines it without ornament: the attempt at increase by buying goods at a low price and selling them at a higher one, either by holding them until the price moves or by carrying them where they are wanted. He treats it as belonging to settled society rather than to the life outside the towns, and he is plain that it depends on dealing — on other people willing to buy from and sell to the merchant. That is the frame in which the byname was earned: the man was known in his town for what he did in its market, and his neighbours named him by it.

Bearing the name

An occupational family name records what an ancestor did, as the name was applied to him — not a lineage. It attaches to no tribe, it says nothing about the trade, the means or the standing of anyone who bears it now, and two families bearing it need have no connection to one another beyond the word itself.