Is Aurat, the Urdu term for woman, a “dirty” word? If that’s the case, why aren’t we talking about it? I had often wondered about the linguistic roots of the word Aurat, which, in Urdu, means woman. I knew that the word originates from Arabic, signifying something along the lines of ‘hidden’ or ‘covered.’
But recently, I discovered that it meant something else.
Not long ago, when I met a Moroccan friend, I asked him what the word Aurat meant in Arabic. His reaction was most peculiar; he started laughing and said that the Arabic word “awrat” was a “profanity,” which means “genitals,” in Arabic.
Upon further research, I discovered that the original word in Arabic means “genitalia,” “nudity,” “weakness,” “defectiveness” or “imperfection.” Furthermore, I discovered that, like most Arabic words, the word “awrat” had entered Urdu via Persian.
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