The latest <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/arts-culture/music-stage/2024/02/14/valentines-day-best-arabic-love-songs/" target="_blank">Arabic</a> word of the week, thiqa, translates to confidence, and is both straightforward and complex. Confidence allows people to communicate directly while expressing their thoughts and feelings in a clear and concise way. Often this appears effortless and straightforward, but in truth, confidence is partly a personality trait that people are born with and partly a skill one has to continuously improve. In both cases, confidence is considered by many as key to a fruitful and successful life. In Arabic, the word thiqa, while used mostly to mean confidence, is also strongly connected to the idea of trust. This allows the concept of confidence to extend into other scenarios outside of the standard western definition of the word. Thiqa is a noun made up of the three Arabic letters, tha, qaf and tah. It’s derived from the verb wathiqa, which is defined as the action of trusting in yourself, someone or in a situation. Officially, thiqa means to be a person who possesses or is in a state of complete trust in their stance or position. This can be in reference to themselves, another person or about any tangible or intangible point of view or scenario. Used in the context between two individuals, thiqa is the idea of trusting a person or trusting in the relationship you share with them. When someone possesses thiqa it’s considered a powerful feeling. It infers that they are free from suspicion, worry and fear, while lacking in thiqa can make one feel and look anxious and weak. Most of the words derived from wathiqa are also connected to the idea of confidence as well as trust. There is the verb wathaqa, which refers to the idea of something strong, stable, immovable or unchangeable with a thread of trust and confidence intertwined. Wathaqa can mean different things in various contexts. In a physical sense it refers to stability – a nail that has been hammered into a wall or a table with very sturdy legs. for example. In an official way, wathaqa refers to a certified decision or decree, or a stamp on an authorised document to legitimise any decision or piece of information. It’s also used in the context of a professional who is confident in their findings due to actions they have taken. For example, a journalist who is confident of his story because of the sources he interviewed, or a scientist assured of his research because of his findings in the lab. There is also watheeqa, a document that describes verified information while wathaqa refers to a person who bears witness to a situation, or initiates a document to verify it as a trustworthy source of information – for example a government employee stamping a document.
