Re: Good/Beneficient (was: More Nyenya'a)

In Indonesia, I usually heard the "bismillah" phrase as "bismillah arrahman
arrahim", and was familiar at least with "arrahman" from Spanish history (a
great Muslim king was "Abderra(h)mán" in the usuall spelling).  An
Indonesian friend translated the phrase for me as "in the name of Allah, the
almighty (or all-powerful) and all-merciful".  It had not occured to me
before now that rahman and rahim were related.

Other Arabic phrases cropped up in public addresses, of which I sat through
a great many,-- any time the name of the Prophet was mentioned, and after a
deceased person's name.  I never quite caught them....

The learner of Indonesian tends to pick up quite a bit of (probably
corrupted) Arabic, e.g. asli 'original', asal 'origin' and many others not
quite so obvious.

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