Red and purple.
As languages add colour words to their lexicon, the colours a word refers to can get shifted around. Portuguese roxo, related to the same Proto-Indo European (PIE) word reudh, used to mean red and red-related colours, including pink, orange, and purple. When the bright red pigment vermilion was imported from China, Portuguese began using vermelho to refer to red, and pushed roxo aside to refer exclusively to purple. (here)
Purple.
Purpura is the Latin name of a particular kind of shellfish which, when ground up, produces a bright purple dye, which in turn was taken from the Greek word porphura to describe the same sea creature. The word purpura later began to refer to the dye, and eventually the colour of this dye. This dye was very expensive, and purple was considered a colour of royalty throughout Europe. When this dye was exported to England, the word purple was imported into English as well. Today "purpura" is used by medicos to describe purplish discolorations of the skin. (here)
Image from the stunning gallery of works by Shaheen Kasmani.
Beautiful, subhanAllah... And those drops! (Image: Strange Plant by TarikB)
"Among Muslims none should be known as Turks, Arabs, Kurds, Ajem, Afghans, Indians or English. They are all Muslims, and verily the True-Believers are brethren. Islam is erected on the Unity of God, the unity of His religion, and the unity of the Muslims. History demonstrates that the True-Believers were never defeated while they remained united, but only when disunion crept into their ranks." —- Abdullah Quilliam (previously William Henry Quilliam), a C19th revert from Christianity to Islam. He founded England’s first mosque and Islamic centre, and in 1894, Sultan Abdul Hamid II, the last Ottoman emperor, gave Quilliam the title of “Sheikh al-Islam of Britain”, leader of British Muslims. (Image: condense for effect)
"Vast and powerful Empires are founded on a religion. This is because dominion can only be secured by victory, and victory goes to the side which shows most solidarity and unity of purpose. Now men's hearts are united and co-ordinated, with the help of God, by participation in a common religion..." --- Ibn Khaldun (Religion as the Basis of Empire, Vol. I, p.284)
"With every choice we make some detail is added to the picture which, when it is completed, will show what we are uniquely and unrepeatably, and the effects of this choice will spread out, as rings spread from the stone tossed into a pool. The people around us will undergo some change, however small, but, far beyond this neighbourhood, the effects reach out to shores of which we scarcely dream. The choice we make is ours and no on else's; ours too are its numberless repurcussions. We are responsible and answerable, here or elsewhere, now or later, for all that bears our stamp." -- Gai Eaton, King of the Castle
"For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for the battle?"
"Intelligent life on a planet comes of age when it first works out the reason for its own existence." --- Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
