Mo-town record
By Khaled Diab
Twenty thousand Muhammads in one place is not
a world record, it is an everyday reality.
August 2008
In Zawia, Libya, they
have tried to set a new Guinness world
record for the number of people with the same name they could gather in one
place. A pointless exercise but no more so than eating
a plane to get into the record books.
Given that Muhammad (which means Praiseworthy)
is the most common Muslim name and probably the most popular men’s name in the
world – it’s even climbing the birth charts
in Europe – this can’t have been a very challenging exercise.
The organisers claim that some 20,000 Muhammads from across Libya and beyond turned up to the
event. Quite frankly, I’m not really that impressed. There are probably more Muhammads in Cairo Stadium on Cup Final night or passing
through the city’s central train station during rush hour.
As anyone who has lived in a Muslim country
will know, there’s no getting away from Mo. Wherever you go, there’s bound to
be a Muhammad and possibly several. If you see your friend Muhammad walking
down the street and call out to him, you may get the baffled attention of a
dozen strangers.
Conversely, Jesus is not at all popular as a
name in Christian countries, because it has traditionally been viewed as
tantamount to taking the Lord’s name in vain. Interestingly, it seems that only
Christians who have come into intimate contact with Islam name their children
Jesus (the Spanish) and Eissa (Arab Christians).
The profusion of Muhammads
fuels quite a few jokes, such as:
Caught
in the act, a burglar threatens the owners of the house with a knife. “What’s
your name?” he asks the wife.
“Sa’adiya,” she stutters.
“That’s
my mother’s name. I’ll let you live. And what’s your name?” he turns to the
husband.
Hoping
to guess the father’s name, the husband desperately tries: “Muhammad.”
The
burglar says that his father’s name is Ahmed. “Wait,” the man implores as the
blade moves closer, “my friends call me Sa’adiya!”
Some people even go on naming sprees. I once
read an article about a man who named all his numerous sons Muhammad.
Apparently, this was to avoid the evil eye and so he could fool the government
by sending one of the Muhammads to school and getting
the others to work. With that kind of attitude to fatherhood, I suspect it was
also a memory trick.
There are parents who give their offspring a
double helping and call them Muhammadeen (dual form,
i.e. two Muhammads). It’s as if the poor child were
twins or something. This bizarre name has even found its way into humour. After
Muhammadeen walked into a lamppost, they each went
off their separate ways in a huff, one intentionally corny classic goes.
Of course, Muslims choose this name mainly out
of reverence for the prophet, while some are thinking of a beloved family
member or a famous Muhammad, such as Ali (the Egyptian Khedive) or Jinnah (Pakistan’s founder). And if you include other
popular names of the prophet – Ahmed, Mahmoud, Hamid and Mustafa – that’s a large chunk of the Muslim
world’s male population accounted for. In fact, it would be a rare, and perhaps
even record-setting, Muslim indeed who did not have a sibling, father, uncle or
grandparent bearing that prophetic name.
But with so many Muhammads
in the world that they could probably form their own nation (Mo-rocco?), I can’t help thinking that the name has lost its
lustre. It has acquired something of a production line flavour. It’s almost as
if hospitals give all newborn Muslim boys the default name Muhammad unless the
parents declare otherwise.
In fact, in light of the sheer proliferation of
the name, I was totally baffled by the Sudanese reaction to Gillian
Gibbons and her class’s decision to name a teddy bear Muhammad especially
since children in other parts of the Muslim world give their toys and even pets
this everyday name which actually predates the prophet.
I am glad that my name is not Muhammad.
Although by no means uncommon, Khaled (which means
eternal) affords me more a sense of individuality. A rose may smell just as
sweet, and all that, but there comes a tipping point when a name becomes too
cramped for comfort.
In addition, I enjoy the relative ambiguity my
name affords me in Europe. People know its foreign but
a surprising number are unable to place it, confusing my first name with the
Hebrew Caleb and my surname for the Spanish Diaz. Besides, a non-believing
Muhammad would be something of an irony!
Besides, being a Muhammad can be tough. People
bearing the name come up with elaborate variations to distinguish themselves
from their namesakes. Hamada and Mimo are popular
nicknames for Muhammad. In the west, Mo is the most popular.
The name carries other disadvantages. At Cairo
University’s Faculty of Engineering, where I’d landed for a year due to a
miscalculation, the student body is divided according to first name. This means
that, in the prep year, there is a block of a couple of hundred Muhammads who have to attend lectures and seminars
together.
This may have been convenient for the faculty –
who could address the entire assembly with a simple “Good morning, Muhammad.” –
but for the students it was a bummer. The poor blokes
were forced to go around using their fathers’ names to tell each other apart.
Another disadvantage was that they were all boys. “You’re lucky because a lot
of girls’ names are clustered around yours,” an envious Muhammad once
confessed.
Parents should exercise discretion when naming
their children because variety is the spice of life and less is Mo.
This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 2
August 2008. Read the related
discussion.
ã2008 – Khaled Diab. Unless
otherwise stated, all the content on this website is the copyright of Khaled Diab.