Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Meet my son: Jihad
A Berlin court has decided that a German of Egyptian origin, Reda Seyam, can legally call his son "Dschihad" - the German spelling of Jihad. The bloke in question appears to be a bit of a holy warrior - in a recent TV documentary called "Der Gotteskrieger und seine Frau" (link, German) he praised the Taliban and defended the practice of stoning unfaithful women.
Evidently his disgust at German society doesn't go as far as rejecting its material benefits: apparently he and his wife along with their five other children live on "Hartz IV" unemployment benefit.
Posted at 7:57 AM in
Comments
Not that I wold dream of calling my son - ahem - Jihad, ABER... I had a Lebanese colleague in Paris called Jihad, who was Christian, so perhaps it does also double up as a regular name. I've got a feeling that in its non-political, just-Arabic version, it simply means 'struggle'. Wouldn't fancy being called Jihad in the German playground though.
Posted by: BiB | 2007-03-02 22:29
If my surname was Desbösen, I would name one of my children "Axel".
Posted by: Ian | 2007-03-14 08:20