In the words of etymology enthusiast Mark Forsythe, “Occasionally, people make the mistake of asking me where a word comes from.”

This mistake, during a social media scroll on a weekday morning and a sudden pique of language possession in Ramadan, paved the way for an apt and overdue piece on 2012-era discourse involving translations, transliterations, and the oddments of language. 

Why is it suḥūr in Arabic and sehri in Urdu but fotha bala in Sylheti, and why does it matter?

Words have a linguistic definition and a shar’i definition—how the fiqh or sunnah defines it. For example, a dictionary definition of salah is often simply prayer, but prayer is a general term. From a shar’i standpoint, salah has a specific definition; there are conditions, stipulations, and a specific form a prayer must take to constitute salah. In other words, the shari’ definition often narrows or refines the broader linguistic meaning. 

As Islam spread from Andalus to China through Arab traders, conquests, and the establishment of dynasties, a plethora of languages provided a linguistic backdrop as Islamic identities were formulated. These languages became linguistic vehicles for the transmission of Islamic values and knowledge. This process is not static; it continues till today.

Identity and the language we use to articulate our faith evolve alongside it. Sometimes, the Arabic term is preserved. 

A good example of this is Lafdh al-Jalal: Allah ﷻ. While we might use the word God on some occasions, we are conscious of the fact that the word God, to most English speakers, carries theological connotations shaped by Christian, polytheistic, and even secular frameworks that differ from Islamic theology. In retaining Lafdh al-Jalal in our native languages, we do more than preserve linguistic fidelity—we assert a specific, perfect name of the Divine. Other times, the Arabic term transforms into something entirely different. 

When someone uses those instead of the Arabic word, how does that influence our perception of their religiosity? And does it matter?

To begin answering this question, I approached it from a linguistic angle. When words move between languages, they can transform in various ways, such as in sound, meaning and grammar. Some foreign borrowings keep aspects of their original pronunciation, while others go unnoticed. Take the word sofa, for example, borrowed from the Arabic ṣuffa (صُفَّة⁩) meaning bench or some sort of raised platform (note, this is the same word in the phrase Ashab as-Suffa, referring to the Companions of the Prophet ﷺ who lived in a cordoned off part of the mosque in Medina). The term entered English through French, where speakers naturally matched phonemes with those that approximated the sounds of the original Arabic word. The result was “sofa,” which maintained a phonetic similarity to “ṣuffa” while fitting comfortably within English pronunciation.

Alternatively, a calque (also known as a loan translation) involves substituting each component of meaning with a native equivalent rather than preserving the sounds. A favourite of mine is the English metaphor “double-edged sword,” possibly calqued from the Arabic sayfun ḏū ḥaddayni (sword with two edges). “Peace be upon him” is also a calqued phrase; it is a faithful translation, but sounds entirely unnatural in everyday English and is seldom heard outside Muslim communities.

The Case of Suḥūr, Sehri, and Fotha Bala

The Arabic word suħur, referring to the pre-dawn meal in Ramadan, is a masdar (verbal noun) of the root (س ح ر). The same root gives way to the word saħar, meaning dawn.

Why is suħur, then, sehri in Urdu? 

From a technical standpoint, one explanation is what’s called ‘phono-semantic matching.’ Unlike direct borrowings (loan words) or calquing, phono-semantic matching adapts both the sound and meaning of a word to fit the phonetic and grammatical structure of the recipient language. 

In this case, the Arabic suḥūr underwent phonetic adjustments when borrowed into Farsi and, further to Urdu. The first shift is the transformation of ḥ (ح) into h, a common phonological adaptation in Urdu, where ḥ and h often merge in pronunciation. The second shift is the replacement of the Arabic -ūr (وُر) with -ri (ری), aligning with common phonotactic patterns in Urdu. More simply, this may have been influenced by the presence of the Urdu word sehr (سحر), meaning dawn, making sehri an intuitive and semantically resonant term for the pre-dawn meal. As it is known by Urdu (and Hindi) speakers that only Muslims eat sehri, it is by all means a “religious” word, despite it looking and sounding different from the Arabic suħur.

In Sylhet, suħur to fotha bala (“ফোথা বালা”) is a different story. Fotha bala is unique to Bangladesh and specifically, Sylhet, though it may be found in other regions. Most other Bangla language varieties don’t use fotha bala, but the term has acquired notoriety for deviating from other languages’ incorporation of the Arabic suħur as a loanword or through phono-semantic matching. Instead, Sylheti likely borrowed through calquing. 

In the literal sense, fotha means sunrise, and bala means time. Together, it means sunrise time, but it’s not used to indicate that time generally. Rather, it is used as the equivalent of suħur. The exact origin of the term fotha bala is not documented (as far as I could find in English resources), but it’s possible that it emerged within the Sylheti-speaking community as a colloquial or regional variation to denote a pre-dawn meal in Ramadan. 

The use of fotha makes sense given the meaning, but why suhur was adopted by other languages as a loan word or phono-semantic matching while Sylheti through calquing is unclear. Generally, the process a language uses to incorporate a foreign word depends on a mix of phonological adaptability, cultural integration, historical contact with the source language, where the term is a core religious term, the recipient language’s geographical context, etc. 

So which is correct and better to use? Suhur or sehri or fotha bala? 

The answer is all of the above. Sehri, fotha bala, and even the phrase ‘pre-dawn meal’ are correct in day-to-day uses, depending on your location and who you’re talking to. Sabrina Amrane notes, “like how the Western world uses their hegemony to put their worldview on a pedestal, certain dominant Muslim immigrant communities in the United States can unintentionally take their own cultural understanding to be the de facto foundation of practicing Islam in the country.” This can manifest in the assumption that Arabic terms are more “Islamic” than their counterparts in other languages, even outside contexts in which Arabic specifically is required (such as in salah).

Enforcing linguistic uniformity risks flattening the rich diversity of Muslim expression across different regions and histories and alienating the interplay of how Islam as a way of life, and the language to talk about it, is actualised by native populations.

Although this debate rarely extends beyond meme fodder on Twitter and TikTok, it reflects a deeper issue of linguistic discrimination that plays out in more insidious ways—especially in India. For example, among Hindu nationalists, the use of Arabic-origin terms is framed as treasonous of Indian identity, feeding into a long-standing narrative that Indian Muslims are foreign, Arabised interlopers rather than indigenous. Some take it further, construing Arabic pronunciation or terminology as evidence of extremism. 

At the same time, another critique emerges from within: what linguist Dr. Rizwan Ahmed refers to as an idea of cultural insecurity. Indians on social media routinely debate whether Muslims who favour Arabic terminology embody a form of cultural insecurity and want to align with a “Saudi-influenced brand of Islam.” Ironically, this position is often championed by those who themselves function in English, a colonial import that, in their view, does not seem to pose the same existential threat to Indian culture.

Additionally, this pressure to conform to a linguistic and cultural ideal extends beyond nationalist anxieties. Within some Muslim communities, there exists a parallel expectation that an “authentic” Islamic identity is one that mirrors not just the language but the aesthetics, customs, and even dialectal preferences of Arabs. (One should note here that Arabs are as diverse in dialects as there are spoken languages.) 

This conflation of Islam with a specific cultural framework, one that erases regional expressions of the faith in places like West Africa, Southeast Asia, or the Subcontinent, creates an unspoken hierarchy of legitimacy. Whether through the rejection of local clothing styles in favour of Gulf attire or the assumption that an Arabised accent reflects deeper piety, the linguistic element is just one facet of a broader phenomenon: the global homogenisation of Islamic identity in ways that are often more political than spiritual.

Arabic today is not spoken as it was by the Prophet ﷺ and his Companions, just as modern Urdu and Hindi bear only a passing resemblance to their classical forms. Yet, there remains a false equivocation between specific terminology and a valid claim to a religious identity. This mindset not only misrepresents the relationship between language and faith but also places undue emphasis on the outward alignment of cultural vestiges that are perfectly permissible to engage in.

Unlike the violent erasure of native languages and traditions under colonialism, the prototypical Islamic approach was one of refinement: preserving what was good and removing what was harmful.

None of this diminishes the centrality of Arabic. It is a language of unparalleled depth, carrying meanings and nuances that no translation can fully convey. It is the language of salah, and mastery of its sciences—nahw, sarf, and ishtiqaq—is essential for the authoritative interpretation of the Qur’an. Most importantly, Arabic is the language of the Qur’an, the word of Allah promised to be preserved letter-by-letter until the end of times. 

All of this to say: The Arabic language is absolutely crucial to Islam and Muslims. But it is not the only language of Islam and Muslims, and fotha bala is an exercise in that.