Aurat

Aurat is a word which means "woman" in many Asian languages including Arabic, Bengali, Hindi-Urdu, Persian, Punjabi, and Sorani Kurdish. It occurs in Azerbaijani as "arvad" and Ottoman Turkish as "avret". Etymology and socio-cultural construct The word "aurat" originally comes from the Arabic word "awrah". In Arabic, the words awrah or awrat denote defectiveness, imperfection, blemish, weakness, genitalia, loins, private parts, pudendum flaw, defect and fault. According to Nurhan GÜNER avrat/avret in Turkish is borrowed from Arabic and is not related to Old Turkic uragut. The word is used in the Quran to denote "privacy", "vulnerability" and "nakedness" as well. Aharôn Layiš' book on family laws among Druze attributes a quote to al-Tanukhi that says "..Women are all nakedness (awrat) and all nakedness should be covered" Moshe Piamenta, in his book "Islam in Everyday Arabic Speech", notes that in the language of the Bedouin, synecdochic usage of word 'awrat' denotes 'woman'. In the Kurdish language, the word 'Aurat' for women is spelled as 'avarat' where as in (Ottoman) Turkish it is spelled as 'Avret'. Before entering South Asia, it was used in the Persian language in Iran to mean 'woman'. In Mohammad Moin's Persian dictionary, awrah has two different meanings: "nakedness" and "young woman". But subsequently, Iranians started avoiding the word "aurat" for 'women', due to its meaning of "nakedness". In (Ottoman) Turkish, the word 'avret' was used more for common married or adult women, whereas the word "hatun" was used for more respected women. In Ottoman times any unmarried adolescent girl was called "kiz" and her silence was assumed as consent for marriage purposes. Kiz were freer and less controlled, but once married and considered avret their mobility and sexuality came under drastic social control, so that they would not engage in adultery, in order to preserve male right of linage and patriarchal honor. According to Heidi Stein avrat / avret meaning woman (Arab.“‘aurat, privy parts”) is among 78 early (9th to11th centuries) Arabic cultural words found it's way in everyday Turkish language during first Arabic linguistic import stage through Persian language. In Turkish since the twentieth century, use of word avret has been limited to intimate body parts.