English word for the Urdu "Amanat"
The Urdu word amanat is inherited from Islamic-era Parsi, which is inherited from Arabic.
The word amanat is common to Arabic, Aramaic and Hebrew. It is also found in Indonesian/Malay which inherited it from Persian traders. The difference between the three languages in this group of words are the vowelization. Modern/Quranic Arabic is derived from Aramaic, not paleo-Arabic. The word Allah is derived from Aramaic.
The root word is AMN (amen, amin) = we agree/concur.
So, the girls' name Aminah is from this word.
Amunah/Emunah = confidence/trustworthiness, which English Bibles translates into the ambiguous and often meaninglessly aliased word faith.
Amanah = participle/gerund of placing trust/confidence and hence privacy.
Amanat = a verbal noun of an entity you can place your trust/confidence and hence privacy.
The cognate of AMN is AMT (amat/emet) = truth.
Therefore in Arabic, an amanat could mean either
- a democratically elected government agency.
- a trusted agency appointed by a government or by a cooperative.
- an entity set up to manage inheritance for children.
- an entity set up to jointly manage/preserve assets you are unable or not allowed to manage by yourself.
Therefore, the equivalent English word that you could apply to amanat is
Trust- A legal relationship in which one party holds a title to property while another party has the entitlement to the beneficial use of that property.
- The confidence reposed in a trustee when giving the trustee legal title to property to administer for another, together with the trustee's obligation regarding that property and the beneficiary.
- The property so held.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
e.g., A trust set up by dead parents to preserve the value of their assets for their children. A trust set up by a girl's rich parents that can only be used for the girl's benefit, when she is married away to another family.
See also trust fund: A financial trust.
See also Custodian (kʌsˈtəʊdɪən)
n- (Law) a person who has custody, as of a prisoner, ward, etc
- (Art Terms) a guardian or keeper, as of an art collection, etc
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003
The word you are looking for is trust:
charge, custody, or care:
to leave valuables in someone's trust
To be "in trust" (idiom), means to be in the position of being left in the care or guardianship of another:
she left money to her uncle to keep in trust for her children.
It's the same word in Arabic ( أمانة ). It can be translated into trust, deposit, consignment, custody.
http://www.almaany.com/en/dict/ar-en/%D8%A3%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%A9/