First of all, its my pleasure to announce that I became a proud father of a little baby boy last week (MashaAllah). After nine months of patience and toil, my wife and I were truly rewarded with the most precious of gifts anyone can imagine. The feeling seems a bit unreal at first. You don’t understand how your life has changed. But its the first time your little one holds tightly on your finger, or looks at you with melting innocence or simply cries in anguish that it hits you that now you’re in a very special bond. A bond that can’t be explained in words. Alhamdulillah.
A little after the birth of my son, we thought of giving him the name that we had thought for quite some time: “Muhammad”. We chose it out of the love we had for the Prophet(SAW), the various blessings attached to naming your child with that name and also because it sounded sweet to us. However, it was here when I was yet again exposed to a mentality that scars the nation these days.
Nearly everyone who congratulated me afterwards had some sort of strange reaction to naming my child simply “Muhammad”. Some paused awkwardly as if I was about to add something (“MashaAllah. Muhammad what?”). Others gave a disgruntled look at me curtly inquiring: “Umm…Just Muhammad?” and some even shared their enlightening logic for their stark disapproval. Here’s the conversation:
Random Fellow: Congrats! What did you name him?
Me: JazakAllah khayr! Named him “Muhammad”
Random Fellow: Oh MashaAllah. Muhammad what?
Me: Um…Just Muhammad…full name’s Muhammad Aatir. We’ll call him Muhammad though.
Random Fellow: *confused face* Only Muhammad? Is that…like allowed?
Me: Sure. What makes you think otherwise?
Random Fellow: Well, people don’t usually name their sons just Muhammad. They make sure they add another name to it. Are you sure you can call him just Muhammad?
Some might argue that this expression of surprise was due to the fact that its an uncommon practice to name a baby this way and not necessarily a judgment deeming it as a forbidden act. I’m sure some might fall in that bracket. But others will definitely not. How many people around of you are called Muhammad? How many actually have the name “Muhammad” as their official first name and yet are strictly addressed by their second name? Some people will confess that they think its taboo to do so because you are somehow infringing on the sanctity of the name which shall belong to the beloved Prophet (SAW) for eternity. However, if one would find a couple of minutes to contact their local muftis, the would find that such propositions are quite baseless.
These reactions brought forward another basic underlying problem we face in comprehending and following the deen: blurring the line between culture and religion. For some odd reason, there’s this unwavering tendency to grant a societal norm the status of a religious principle. Another example would be how “dowry” is perceived in our society…or maybe calling the 3-time hug after Eid-ul-Fitr a Sunnah of the Prophet (SAW).
We can only pray that Allah guides us all to the right path and makes us realize that the Deen of Islam needs to be learnt (Ameen). It’s not going to be revealed to us while we’re procrastinating on Facebook and drooling on the latest gadgets in town.
Posted by ran591 on January 21, 2012 at 7:33 am
My son is 11 now and I went through this again, all over again … when will it end? when will people mind their own business and stop thinking they know more!