Queen Xenobia

I finally created a website that I want to commit myself to. I started several blogs over the years, news articles, opinions, ... trying my best to look professional, relevant, or smart, and I never carried them on. At one point it became more a task, than a pleasure to share my thoughts. I was hard on myself for the sake of some kind of perfection. An idea of perfection that was arbitrary delimited by God knows who, which ended up ruining my creativity.

So here it is, I will start again this time, but with no pressure. With no arbitrary standards. I will share the things I want, the way I feel to share them. Sometimes unprofessional, sometimes unfinished, sometimes irrelevant in the eyes of the public. But relevant to me. I want to feel sincere, I don't want to say ' closer to my true-self ' because it was who I was, but closer to my peaceful-self. And it will resonate with the people it will resonate with.

 

Why Queen Xenobia ?

 

My name is Zeyneb. I always wondered its meaning, I knew it was the name of the daughter and grand-daughter of our beloved Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him. But I didn't know its signification.        I was told it was the name of a flower in the desert, but what I wanted was its literal meaning. Etymological meaning. I knew "zeyn" meant beauty. Then I supposed that "eb" could possibly refer to the word "father" in Arabic. By adding the two words, the name could mean "a father's beauty", as " a beautiful daughter". Even if it sounds patriarchal, it is actually quite fitting for a prophet's daughter to hold that name. 

But then I stumbled upon the name Zenobia. Which was an ancient Greek name, and the name of the Queen of Palmyra, today's Syria. At the death of her husband the Prince Odénat, Queen Zenobia auto-proclaimed herself Empress of the Kingdom and conquered many lands from the Romans.

I felt that the two names were very similar in their construction. Queen Zenobia was born in 240, so her name was maybe more ancient that our Prophet's daughter name, who was born around year 600. 

So maybe, Zeyneb was the Arabic deviation of the Greek name Zenobia. So I looked into the meaning of Zenobia, and the first signification was " Life of Zeus". "Zeno" as a deviation of the name Zeus, and       "-bia" from "bio" which means life in Greek. It actually made sense.

But then! I found that " zeno" could also be a variant of the word " xenos " meaning "stranger". And this really spoke to me.

In my life, I always was considered as a stranger, wherever I was. In France, my home country, I am the daughter of immigrants, in Algeria, my mother's home country, I was the "immigria" as the immigrant, and in Turkey, my father's country, I was the "yabanci" which literally means the "stranger". So here I am. Auto-proclaiming myself  Queen Xenobia, the Stranger Queen. Queen of Strangers.