WE RELATE FROM the book of Ibn as-Sunnī that ‘Abdullāh ibn Busr al-Māzinī
, a Companion—and [Busr] has a ḍammah on the bā’ and a sukūn on the sīn—narrated: “My mother sent me to the Messenger of Allah
with a bunch of grapes. I ate some of them before bringing them to him. When I came to him he caught hold of my ear and said: ‘Yā Ghudar’ (‘O Cheat’).” [1].
We relate in the Ṣaḥīḥs of al-Bukhārī and Muslim that ‘Abd ar-Raḥmān ibn Abū Bakr
reported, in a long hadith which includes the manifest miracles of Abū Bakr aṣ-Ṣiddīq, that Abū Bakr invited a group of people and had them sit in his house. He went to the Messenger of Allah
and delayed in returning. On his return he asked [his family]: “Did you give them dinner?” They said: “No.” He turned to ‘Abd ar-Raḥmān and said: ‘Yā Ghunthar’ (‘You miser’). Then he derided and insulted him. [2].
I say that the word Ghunthar (‘You miser’), with a ḍammah on the letter ghayn followed by a silent nūn, and with the letter thā’ having a fatḥah, means ‘O mean, ignoble one.’ Fa-jadda‘a (‘then he derided’) with a jīm and dāl means he supplicated against him that his nose be cut off and suchlike. And Allah knows best.
References
[1] Ibn as-Sunnī (403).
[2] Al-Bukhārī (602), Muslim (2058), Abū Dāwūd (3270).