{"id":17937,"date":"2019-06-03T12:19:38","date_gmt":"2019-06-03T19:19:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/?p=17937"},"modified":"2019-06-03T12:19:38","modified_gmt":"2019-06-03T19:19:38","slug":"haal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/2019\/06\/03\/haal\/","title":{"rendered":"haal"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p>As I was following the cricket today, the <cite>Grauniad<\/cite>\u2019s Rob Smyth commented that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/live\/2019\/jun\/03\/england-pakistan-cricket-world-cup-2019-live?page=with:block-5cf526498f087dd73466d0d7#block-5cf526498f087dd73466d0d7\">The early signs are that Pakistan\u2019s bowlers are in a state of <i>haal<\/i>, and when that\u2019s the case they are seriously hard to withstand.<\/a>.\r\n<p>I was unfamiliar with the term <i>haal<\/i>, which, it turns out, has been used in the cricketing world for a few years now, mostly I think since <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wisden.com\/stories\/archive\/the-nightwatchman-features\/the-haal-of-pakistan-osman-samiuddin-long-read\">Osman Samiuddin wrote about it in 2013<\/a>, to mean something like <i>in the zone<\/i>, only largely applied to a team getting in the zone at the same time. <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Haal#%E1%B8%A4%C4%81l_in_the_Persian_arts\">According to Wikipedia<\/a>, the word is used to describe a similar moment for a musical group (and among the things Mr. Samiuddin compares Pakistan\u2019s cricket team to is devotional music) that I think would be described as <i>in the groove<\/i>. No? No. I\u2019m old. There\u2019s probably a term for it that is more recent than, say, 1937.\r\n<p>Anyway.\r\n<p>The term is derived from Sufi spiritual practice, and in that context describes a particular kind of religious ecstasy or grace, so I personally would be cautious about slinging it around in any context whatsoever. But it was tremendously evocative\u2014much more so than the zone\u2014when someone less cautious used it today.\r\n<p>Oh, and Pakistan won.\r\n<p>Thanks,<br>-Ed.\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Also, sports commentators always need new words that are easy to pun off of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-to-me-words"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17937"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17939,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17937\/revisions\/17939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}