Recently some newspapers carried photographs of Daniyal, a young son of Pakistani cricketer, Yusuf Youhana, who embraced Islam sometimes back to become Mohammad Yusuf. Apparently, this piece of photograph does not deserve any attention. Yusuf is, no doubt, a devout Muslim and certainly better than many other cricketers of his country.
But there is something related to his conversion to Islam which needs to be discussed here – not for raking up controversy, but just for the sake of knowledge. That is in his name. He simply followed the later Muslim tradition of changing name after converting to Islam. Even during the time of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be with him) not many of his Companions changed their names after coming to the fold of Islam. In fact, there was no need of it unless and until the name sounds somewhat blasphemous or openly un-Islamic. Abu Bakr was the one who changed his name.
Yusuf Youhana would have gone as perfect Muslim name had he not decided to drop the last name. After all both Yusuf and Youhana are the names of Prophets, whom all the Muslims have faith in. The maximum he could have done is just add Muhammad – even without that it would not have created any problem. Muslims usually name their children after different Prophets and angels. Daniyal itself is Daniel, just as Jabreel is Gabriel and Mikhail is Michael. In fact, in Russia the spelling for the angel is Mikhail just as the Muslims used to pronounce. But Michael Wolfe did not change his name even after conversion.
The most interesting point is that while Yusuf Youhana, in all respect for Islam, chose to drop his last name, there is no dearth of Muslims who have names like Khusru Parwez or Firoz, when the fact is that these names have very negative sentiments attached to them. Khusru Parwez was the Emperor of Persia who tore Prophet Muhammad’s letter into shreds. The Prophet got letters written to the Emperor of Rome and Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia) too. While the last two responded a bit positively Khusru tore it into pieces. Upon this the Prophet said that his empire would soon be torn into pieces. And this happened soon.
Firoz Lulu is the name of the slave who killed Caliph Umar. Yet we do not hesitate in having Khusru Parwez and Firoz as our names. These aspects have more to do with culture than the real Islam or its teachings. We are so particular about our names that we hardly come across any person now named Yazid – both in Sunni or Shia worlds – though in the earlier Ummayad period we find many such names. And there is nothing blasphemous in the name. Only the king who had this name committed a heinous crime.
There is some more interesting aspects about the names. A certain gentleman with Israel being part of his name was looked with suspicion by the embassy of an Arab country when he applied for visa. The official concerned suspected him to be a Jew. This notwithstanding the fact that it was clearly mentioned that he was a Muslim. Israel is as much our Prophet as that of anyone else. In contrast there is no suspicion in the eyes of the Arabs when they come across names like Pharaoh or Firaun as it is still a common name in Egypt. Just see the contrast.
Changing of names is not a phenomenon confined to Islam or Muslim. In fact, it is much more rampant in the United States, the self-proclaimed most open-minded society. There is no dearth of young Muslims who had to rename themselves from Osama to Sayem – sounds like Uncle Sam – after 9/11. This is simply because kids having Osama as name were ridiculed and lampooned in the classrooms. At times they were subjected to physical harassment too.
Osama is not the only case. There is craze in the West to cut the names short be it of Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Chinese, Japanese, etc. A singer Salman is now Sal. And there is a growing tendency, especially among Hindus and Jews to have Christian-sounding short names, even if they do not convert to Christianity. Dr Danny Patel, a prominent physician of the US, is one such example.
In the film world too there is a culture of changing names, be it in the United States or India. For example a certain budding Muslim US actor, Sarwar, is known as Alexander in the Hollywood circle. He seems to be imitating Yusuf Khan, who took the name of Dilip Kumar to become successful in the world of Bollywood in that immediate post-partition period. Dilip was not alone. Many others followed. It is only after 1970s that the Indian film actors and actresses started flaunting their Muslim identity more openly. One may dub it as a development.