A linguistic question

Submitted by Motke (Israel), Feb 14, 2011 at 08:29

You mentioned "Deen Om el-Bolees". I have a little question. In Hebrew's slang (borrowed from Arabic) we say "il'an deeno" to curse somebody. (We actually switch the letters in "il'an" to be "in'al", to avoid this negative word.) Does "il'an deeno", in Arabic, really mean "curse upon his religion"? But isn't (virtually) every Arab's religion Islam? Surely they don't curse their own religion. Could somebody please explain "il'an deeno" to me?

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