A Note on the Term Huwiyya as ‘Identity’ in Arabic

Of all the neologisms produced within the Greek-Arabic translation movement of the Abbasid era, the abstract huwiyya is arguably one of the most successful. This term is notable for its dynamism, as evidenced by its dissemination throughout the Mediterranean, encompassing a multitude of languages and cultures, including Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Latin,14 Turkish, and Persian. The history and genesis of huwiyya show the history of a Hellenized Mediterranean and serve as an exemplar of an important aspect of the common background of pan-Mediterranean interculturality as well as of its epistemic community.15 All this shows that ‘identity’ in Modern Arabic is a concept whose roots go back to Greek philosophical thought.