[New post] Who was she? – The familiar name Fatima(h) which non-religious people might wonder about
Earthpages.org posted: " I grew up as a non-religious person. My memories of Easter go back to easter egg hunts and my mom's mentioning something about Jesus rising from the dead and how we were supposed to give up something (like chocolate) for Lent, which we never did for m" Earthpages.org
Statue of Fatima al-Fihriya (800 - 880 CE) at The Jordan Museum
I grew up as a non-religious person. My memories of Easter go back to easter egg hunts and my mom's mentioning something about Jesus rising from the dead and how we were supposed to give up something (like chocolate) for Lent, which we never did for more than a day or two. True, my dad taught Sunday school for a while but that was before my time or maybe when I was really, really young. Christmas was about getting a new pair of skis or the latest gadget.
Amidst all that apparently crass cultural materialism, I nevertheless remember Christmas as a magical time---especially Christmas Eve, when I would contemplate the beauty of peace of our Christmas tree, all lit up. And then there was Alastair Sim's Scrooge, A Charlie Brown Christmas, the (original) Grinch, and our extended family dinner. All these things made it a wonderful time.
So I guess I was 'spiritual' without really knowing it. And my family too. If we are all created by God, who is not spiritual when you get right down to it?
However, when it came to names like Fatima, I really had no clue. So my title here might more reflect me than most people, I'm not sure.
Three main meanings for the name Fatima(h):
Fatimah is the daughter of Mohammed who, among certain Shi'ite Muslim groups, has become an object of veneration, arguably with some similarities to the cult of the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM) in Catholicism.
In Portugal Fatima is a town with a shrine of the BVM where it's believed that Mary appeared to three young children in 1917, a claim apparently supported by countless miracle stories.
Fatima al-Fihriya, also known as Fatimah al-Fihri, was an influential and pioneering woman in the history of education and Islamic culture. She is best known for founding the University of Al Quaraouiyine in Fez, Morocco, which is considered to be the world's oldest existing, continually operating degree-granting university.
According to Joyce E. Salisbury, this third Fatima was commissioned to travel and gather material for a Mosque that would become the world's first degree-granting university. Wikipedia questions the historicity of some of this story but the idea of a medieval woman traveling and gathering scholarly texts is fascinating.
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