Bismillah   

The Arabic word for “name” is “ism”:

“My name is Rick” = “ism-ee Rick”

The phrase “name of God” would be constructed in Arabic as follows:

“ism” + “allah” = “ismallah”

But for linguistic reasons, the first “a” in “allah” is changed it “i”:

“ismallah” >> “ismillah”

The prefix “b-“ covers a wide range of meanings in the Arabic language, one of which is “in”:

“b-“ + “ismillah” = “bismillah = “In the name of God”

The term “bismillah” is generally used as part of longer statement we’ll cover next lesson. For now, let’s just look at the phrase itself. The “Allah” should be familiar. It is preceded by “ism” with prefix “b-“:

“bismillah = “In the name of God” =

Again, sometimes the marks are omitted:

In other instances, decorative marks are added:

Note the second letter (reading right to left) - it looks like a “w”, connected on either side. Sometimes the “w” is ironed out:

Sometimes the words can be repositioned to create a more interesting design:

[The large figure-eight at the beginning is only decorative.]

Sometimes straight lines are exclusively used:

Again, the phrase “bismillah” is almost exclusively used as part of a longer phrase covered in Lesson 3.

End of Lesson