Ya Hussain

Ya Hussain is a Arabic phrase used by followers of Shiism to ask for help or remember Husayn ibn Ali (who is the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad). The phrase is used commonly in the Mourning of Muharram.

The British in the British Raj heard Shiites chanting "Ya Hussain! (O Hussain!) Ya Hassan! (O Hassan!) during the Mourning of Muharram, and made a similar term called "Hobson-Jobson", which became a term referring to the similarities on how a English word and a foreign-language word were derived from by adapting English words or names that sound similar.[1][2]

References

  1. ↑ Yule & Burnell, 419
  2. ↑ Sir Henry Yule; Arthur Coke Burnell (1903). "HOBSON-JOBSON". In Crooke, William (ed.). Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive (The University of Michigan ed.). J. Murray. p. 419. ISBN 9780710028860. Retrieved 15 September 2014. It is in fact an Anglo-Saxon version of the wailings of the Mahommedans as they beat their breasts in the procession of the Moharram -- "Yā Hasan! Yā Hosain!' It is to be remembered that these observances are in India by no means confined to Shī'as. Except at Lucknow and Murshīdābād, the great majority of Mahommedans in that country are professed Sunnis.