State control
All aspects of life in a totalitarian society are controlled
by the state. The name that parents are able to choose for their
child does not escape the long arm of totalitarian regimentation.
Maldive birth registrars (described by some as "Name
Nazis") are under strict orders not to approve
"kaafaru" (infidel) names.
In the Maldives, an ancient culture with a proud and independent
heritage, the current definition of a name that is permissible is
that it has to be:
- Arabic or
- Urdu or
- Farsi
Approval of Divehi (Maldive language) names is
left to the vagaries of the discretion of the "Name Nazis".
In a system where rules are made by mullahs trained at the el-Azher
Islamic seminary in Egypt, the Jamia Salafiyyah Islamiyya in Pakistan
and others such as the Nadwatul Ulema Deobandi in India, this all
makes sense. The mullahs are bent on obliterating the ancetral heritage
of Maldivians and replacing it with that of their Arab colonialist
masters.
Given this, one would think it would make more sense to permit just
the Arabic names. Why Farsi and Urdu names are permissible can only
be explained by the fact that many Maldive mullahs receive their
basic training in Islam (including jihad combat) on the Indian subcontinent
where some Muslims have both Farsi and Urdu names.
Traditional rationale
A generation ago, most people were not commonly known by their
birth names. Instead they were called by an alternative name such
as Dohuttu, Lahuttu, Tutteedi, Kudamaniku, or Don Goma.
Sri
Lanka Naming conventions: The traditional Maldive naming convention
seems to be remarkably similar to the Sri Lankan Sinhala naming
convention. As a result of contact with other Sri Lankan peoples
and various Indian ethnicities such as Chola and Bengali,
what Maldivians have as a naming convention can best be described
as a lack of a uniforn convention.| details |
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The rationale behind this practice was that if
the evil spirits did not know one’s real name, one would be free
from their spells. On occasion there had even been the odd child
who was called Maraduru (Death-distant) or Rakkalu (Protection),
reflecting the high frequency of infant mortality and a superstitious,
yet ingenious and thoroughly Maldive solution to the problem.
Maldivians seriously believed in a whole pantheon of pre-Islamic
spirits until quite recently. Chief amongst them was Rannamaari,
the supreme goddess of the sea. Others included Kissaddevi, Buddevi,
Kaddevi Muladevi, Kafikolu, Miskiyddaara, Badi-Edurukaleyge, Afirinfaara,
Haamundi and Oditaan.
The terms devi and deo, suffixed to some of these names, in classical
Maldive meant god or goddess, as they do in many other tongues of
the Indo-European family of languages. No doubt, at one time these
spirits would have been worshipped as gods.
Although still secretly feared, and clandestinely supplicated by
sorcerers, this pantheon of spirits has long been officially superseded
since the imposition of Islam eight and a half centuries ago and
with it, the worship of Allah commonly known in the Maldives
as Maaiy-Kalaange (Respected Deity) prior to the mullahs gaining
absolute power.
Until recently, only a handful of birth names have commonly been
used. These have included those of the prophet Mohamed and his better-known
disciples and kin. Eg.: Mohamed, Ahmed, Ali, Fatima, Aysha, Omar,
Hussain etc. In addition to these names, a few of the apocryphal
and canonical Judeo-Christian names mentioned in the Koran have
also been used. Eg.: Ibrahim (Abraham), Ismail (Ishmael), Moosa
(Moses), Isa (Moslem Arabic name for Jesus; the Christian Arabic
name for Jesus is Yeshua), Adam, Sarah, Hawwa (Eve), Maryam (Mary)
and so on.
Exotic names
Towards the middle of the Twentieth Century,
Maldive parents gathered enough courage, spiritual and political,
to call their children by more exotic names, which were nevertheless
thought to be Islamic because they were either Arabic (eg.: Majid)
or perceived to be Arabic. In fact many of these names were pre-Islamic
Persian (eg.: Iqbal or Sheereen) or even Greek (eg.: Sophia).
Most Maldive parents do not seem to realise that orthodox Islamic
laws and traditions have always been fairly liberal as to one’s
personal name. The only sanction is against names of polytheistic
gods and goddesses. This rules out such names as Laat, Uzzah, Janice,
Diana, Thor, Maya, Shiva, Oditaan and Rannamaari as possible names
for one’s child if one were a law-abiding Moslem.
Mohamed, after all, was not fussy about "Islamicising"
or Arabicising the names of his non-Arab disciples, converts and
concubines. Both his Ethiopian disciple Bilal and Persian disciple
Salman kept their foreign names, as did his Greek-Egyptian concubine
Maria, sent to him as a gift by George son of Muttaq el-Mukoukis,
governor of Alexandria. The sultans of Constantinople who were the
last of the caliphs (temporal successors to the Prophet Mohamed)
regularly married women from amongst their Christian subjects. They
were allowed to keep their native names and even allowed to pass
them on to their descendants, eg: Roxelana or Roxana.
A generation of tentative experimentation with exotic "Islamic"
names demonstrated that Rannamaari, Oditaan and company have clearly
spared the Majids, and Sofias of the Maldives - although it is unclear
if some of the Majids have in fact been spared by Rannamaari.
This and increased contact with "infidel" peoples through
travel, English education, Hindi movies, tourism and television
has resulted in children whose names are obviously not Koranic,
Arabic or even Persian or Turkified Greek. Such names include Maria-Teresa,
Sunil, Shizni, Sheena and a whole host of others. The most obvious
"infidel" names such as Maria-Teresa, Roy, Philomena,
Jennifer, Susan and Daniel were registered before the institution
of the mullah-led "Name Nazis" in the late 1970s.
The Dual Name
With the advent of these names, a practice that
was first introduced at the time when people started using the non-traditional
"Islamic" names, have become institutionalised or even,
by some people’s reckoning, mandatory. This is the practice of giving
a child two names. The original motive behind the dual name was
probably taking precaution against any negative spiritual consequences.
For instance, the boy who is commonly known as Ameetabh (an Indian
name adopted from Hindi movies) would have been registered at birth
as, say, Ahmed Ameetabh; only not many people would know or would
be encouraged to find out that he is also called Ahmed. Ahmed is
an old-fashioned, fuddy-duddy name. Instead of manipulating Oditaan
or Kissaddevi, the sly Maldive parent is, in this case, trying to
deceive Naakir and Nakeer.
In Islamic mythology, when Michael, the Archangel of Death departs
after performing his macabre duty, each of us will be visited by
the two angels, Naakir, the Recorder of Virtue and Nakeer, the Recorder
of Vice.
When this celestial pair visits Ahmed Ameetabh in his grave, Nakeer
will gleefully say to Naakir, "He is mine! Isn’t he an infidel
Hindu, a worshipper of idols?" Naakir would confidently reply,
"No, he is mine! Isn’t he Ahmed, a follower of the Prophet
of the Almighty (Allah)?"
A quick check of the heavenly database would confirm that Naakir
was in fact right. A couple of Maldive parents have yet again beaten
the system!
Jewish Names (May
Allah perish the mere thought)!
The "Name Nazis" are paranoid about even a remote hint
of Jewishness in a name. However the paradox lies in the fact that
Ibrahim (Abraham), Shamoon (Shimon) or Ishag (Yitzhak), all Jewish
names are acceptable while Cain, Rebecca and Haïm are not,
because they are Jewish!
The resourceful and politically unconnected Maldive parent will,
no doubt, find a way around this minor problem!
An acquaintance recently pointed out that even
the mighty "Name Nazis" appear to bend to those with political
connections. Special dispensation is given to those with political
connection to adopt names such as Jude. The acquaintance said that
those with the right connections with the mullahs know the direction
of Jannah, the Islamic paradise. The unconnected do not
have the means of steering clear of Jahannam, the Islamic
hell at the last moment and cannot be allowed to bend the rules.
Tongue Twisters
Maldive parents have sought actively to have
fellow Maldivians embarrassed by having to pronounce tongue-twisting
names.
Until fairly recently, Maldivians could not pronounce several Arabic
and other foreign consonants adopted into Maldive. Sheen
was pronounced as seen and javiyani and zaviyani
were pronounced as daal.
Today, names with combinations of these consonants are highly sought
after with pride. The zaviyani- sheen combination
seems to be a particular favourite. There is no doubt that all the
permutations and combinations of these two consonants have nearly
been exhausted as personal names. Eg: Shizni, Zishni, Zishaan, Shinaaz,
and so on.
Acquiring copyrights over the remaining combinations could well
be an enterprising money-maker. There is bound to be a lucrative
market for these names- but then respect for copyrights, patents
and other intellectual property is a decadent foreign conspiracy.
The Surname
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