Date: Tue, 24 May 2005 14:12:25 -0700 (PDT)
From: Juergen Hahn <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Maria Magdalena?
To: [log in to unmask]
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Original-recipient: rfc822;[log in to unmask]

Alicia, I have pondered your Maria Magdalena idea with
great interest, because you make an effort to stay
close to the text.

You suggest that the difference beween Zoraida's  use
of "Maria" and "Lela Marien" points to different
identities. I am not sure that is enough proof. And
since I so much believe in proof, let me say why:

I see "Lela Marien" as the Koranic name of "the"
Maria, the one that Zoraida would have been intimately
familiar with since childhood. When she is on Spanish
soil she calls herself "Maria," because it is the
Western, Christian version, the one that symbolizes
her asprired conversion. I realize she still thinks
mostly in Arabic when she says "macange", but being a
bright woman, and having spent time with her novio,
she must have realized that calling herself "Marien"
would have sounded severely out of place here.

I have always been impressed that even today at least
half the women in Spain seem to have the name "Maria"
attached to their name, as a good-luck charm by doting
parents, I am sure, who want to give their child the
best send-off possible for their life. Unless I am
mistaken, all of these are meant to refer to "the"
Maria. If one wants to have maximum connection to God,
she is the one to invoke, not Magdalena, it seems to
me.

Perhaps we could try a simple empirical test: We could
ask all the members of the audience whose name is
Maria, which Maria they feel most associated with.

Juergen Hahn





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