One of the first responsibilities of being a parent is to provide a name to your child. As a Muslim parent, the name has to be a name with good meaning because calling your child is like making du'a.
Choose your child's name wisely... Nowadays there's a lot of books in bookstores providing various choices of names with good meanings. You surely wouldn't want your child to be jeered at or being made fun of by their friends just because the name of your choice sounded 'different' to a layman's ears.
The best choices are names which have the meaning of 'the slave of God' . Such names are like : 'Abdullah, 'Abdul Quddus, 'Abdur Rahman, 'Abdur Rahim etc. Next are the names of the prophets such as : Muhammad, 'Isa, Musa, Ibraheem, Ismaeel etc. Next are the names of the sahabas such as : Abu Bakr, Omar, Ali, Osman, Mu'az, Mus'ab just to name a few.
Naming your child after a pious person is also considered as a good choice. You can then tell your child how that name originated, to whom that name belonged to once upon a time , how that pious man/woman lived, how he/she behaved, what positive contribution he/she gave to the world and so on and so forth. At least your child has someone in his mind that he can associate himself with. Someone that he can emulate and be proud of.
Hmmm... For all your trouble in finding beautiful and well thought out names... alas.... you discovered that your precious son " 'Abdullah" is called only "Dolah" or your precious "Ahmad" is called "Mat" among their friends.... If only this piece of knowledge can be spread out to more people out there....
2 comments:
Salam,
I've read someone post in his blog regarding the problem of naming the children.
He narrated that in Turkey you always find that the name MUHAMMAD often spell as Mehmet, Mohat and so on. When he encountered this, he asked them why and they said, "Muhammad is a good name. Imagine I name my son Muhammad as he misbehave, then surely it will give Muhammad bad name while in reality Muhammad is the perfect role for all of us. Thus, we named our children with Mehmet, so that Muhammad stays as Muhammad SAW..
What do you think?
Walaikumussalam.
Dearest Miss Fisha,
Dato Dr Fadhilah Kamsah once said that a negative thought is like a negative (bad)du'a.
Before, during and after a woman conceives her baby, the parents should always make du'a to Allah Azza Wajalla, praying that the unborn baby will one day become a pious Muslim or Muslimah.
Read through the Quran what kind of prayers Nabi Zakariyya, Nabi Ibraheem recited for their descendants. Imran and Hannah prayed for a pious descendant and they got Maryam (Nabi 'Isa's mother).
I can understand their worries. I myself, wasn't born with this name, i.e. Taaherah (which has the same root word like Taharah). When I was contemplating about choosing this name, one of my worries was that 'what if I couldn't live up to this name?' sort of question. Then I would be giving a very bad impression of Islam. It's not just the name. When I first wanted to wear my jubah, the same question propped up in my mind also.
Finally, I brushed aside all those negative thoughts and set my niyat. I want to use this name, I want to wear jubah for the sake of seeking Allah's pleasure...so help me God.
So, using this name and this kind of dressing infact has sort of done me good. They have become my shield, 'protecting' me against doing anything unbecoming of a Muslimah.
If we were to name our children Muhammad (or anything else), be sure to instill in their minds Rasulullah's seerah, his character, his behaviour, good manners etc. We as parents must be examplar role models to them which is easier said than done. When we've done all that, make du'as and leave the rest to Allah. The hidayah is from Allah. Only He has the right to choose whomever He pleases. Not us. Remember the story of Prophet Noah and his son, Prophet Lot and his wife. The guidance is surely from Allah and Allah alone.
In conclusion, always think positive thoughts and remember syaitaan is always alert in finding ways to deviate us from the true path.
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