Please excuse the deviation from English etymology but I need a little help with an Arabic term.

What Jews call “The Temple Mount” (Har HaBayit) is a plateau in Jerusalem that features a complex of mosques and the Dome of the Rock.  In Arabic this is referred to as Al Haram Al Sharif (sometimes, “Al Haram Al Quds Al Sharif") translated as “The Noble Sanctuary”.  I sense that “al sharif” means “noble”, but “quds” means “holy” or “sacred”.  Does “al haram” mean “(the) sanctuary”?  Does Al Haram Al Quds Al Sharif, therefore, mean “The Noble Holy Sanctuary”? 

thanks, and glad to be back, for those who remember Reb Will(iam James).

Glad to have you back. Sorry, I can’t help with the translation.

I believe you are right about “haram”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haram

al Quds is also an Arabic name for Jerusalem.

so the phrase might read “the noble sanctuary in Jerusalem”

wish I knew more Arabic --- sorry, reb Wm.

“quds” means “holy” or “sacred”

related, I presume, to the Hebrew “qadosh.” Good to have you back Reb

Relevant quotes from Wikipedia article, for easy reference:

As used in Islamic urban planning, the word ḥaram (حرم) means “inviolate zone”, an important aspect of urban planning in Muslim civilization. Such protected areas were sanctuaries, or places where contending parties could settle disputes peacefully. ...

Ḥaram can also mean an Islamic holy site of very high sanctity. The two sites whose Islamic sanctity is unchallengeably the highest of all are Mecca and Medina in Arabia, so that the Arabic dual form ... الحرمين or al-ḥaramayn refers to these two places…

In addition, the term ḥaram is commonly used to refer to certain other holy sites, such as the Haram ash-Sharif in Jerusalem…

related, I presume, to the Hebrew “qadosh.”

Yes, it’s this root (the Arabic forms haven’t made it into English).

Two naïve questions from someone who knows NO Arabic or Hebrew (and the original posts have been replaced with the reply screen, so I’m spelling from [failing] memory):

1) Is qadosh the same (or related to) kaddish, the prayer for the dead (I think)?

2) Is haram--the inviolate zone--related to (or same as) harem?

Yes to both; all these forms exemplify the basic Semitic word structure, with a fixed “root” of consonants and a varying pattern of vowels for different grammatical and syntactic forms.  For the q-d-sh root, see my “this root” link above; for the ḥ-r-m root, see the Wikipedia link in the third comment.

the original posts have been replaced with the reply screen

If you click on the “+ Thread Review” link at the bottom center of the reply screen, all will be revealed (all the earlier posts, that is).

Thanks all.  My confusion was that the Semitic root that produces “ram” in Hebrew means “high” or “elevated” and I thought it possible that “al haram” meant “mount”. I now see that the word is actually “charam”, which of course matches the Hebrew word root “ch/r/m” which means “banned” (and other things).

Quds means holy, not “Jerusalem” “Yerushalayim” (the meaning of which is unclear, “ir shalem”—whole city? city of peace? or yeru-shalayim, shortened of yarum shalayim—May the shalom (of God) be raised?)

The Islamic name for Jerusalem is “al Quds”—the “the Holy (city)”

and, as has been noted, the Hebrew word root k/d/sh produces “kaddish” (actually, this is Aramaic, and refers the sanctification prayer, one of form of which is recited by mourners), the “kedushah” (the central prayer of traditional Jewish worship), “kiddushin (also Aramaic influenced, means “betrothal"), “kiddush” (sanctification, but refers to prayers that honor the sanctity of the Sabbath and other Holy Days, recited over a cup of wine), “mikdash” ( a sacred place), and many other words.

I didn’t say “Al-Quds” means “Jerusalem”. I said that it’s an Arabic name for Jerusalem, meaning that is what Arabs often call it. Just as Jews, when they say “Ir ha-kodesh” (the holy city), are referring to Jerusalem.

Al-Quds is a comparatively recent development, a sort of “short form” of the earlier Arab/Islamic name, Madinat Bayt al-Maqdis ‘City of the Temple’ (where maqdis is from the same q-d-s root as quds).  You can see earlier forms in the nisbas (personal names based on place of origin) al-Maqdisi and al-Muqaddasi, both meaning ‘the person from Jerusalem.’

Thanks for coming back. It is a pleasure to have you on this site.
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