Venue 1: John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York, USA
An immigration officer, while checking the passport of a passenger saw that his name began with 'MD'. He asked the passenger if he was a medical doctor; the passenger replied in the negative. The officer was surprised to see such use of 'MD'.
Venue 2: Shahjalal Medical Centre, Tower Hamlets, London, UK
An English General Practitioner (GP) doctor was having a small trouble keeping time according to the serial because it takes a little longer for him to see the patient. In this situation, according to the custom, he called a person named Mohammad Islam with a middle name or a given name and a surname/last name or a hereditary name, leaving the middle name uncalled. Some Mohammad Islam appeared. He could find out by looking at the papers that there were a number of patients by that name-- Mohammad Islam. Only their middle names were different, such as-- Mohammad Kabirul Islam, Mohammad Sabirul Islam, or Mohammad Dabirul Islam. He noticed that although their middle names were different, their first names and hereditary names were all the same. He further learned that none of them belonged to the same clan. He also noticed that many of them had birthdays on January 1 or January 31 -- much to his surprise. He was even more surprised to see that everyone was given the first name Mohammad, thinking that Muslims love their beloved Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), but no parents in Arabia themselves name all their children Mohammad.
Venue 3: Auckland International Airport, New Zealand
An immigration officer while checking the passport of a gentleman who came with three passengers, including his parents, noticed that the gentleman's last name 'Islam' did not match his father's last name 'Uddin'. Again, the gentleman's own and his father's last names did not match with his mother's last name 'Khatun'. In this case, the immigration officer thought that the gentleman could be from his mother's previous marriage-- his mother's previous husband's family name might have been 'Uddin' and his mother might never have changed her original family name 'Khatun'. But he later learned that the gentleman's mother had never been married before; besides, due to religious restrictions, she did not become the mother of the child outside wedlock. The issue of different last names in the same family surprised the immigration officer.
Now let's analyse the situations. In the first case, regarding the practice of using 'MD' can be said that many Muslims in Bangladesh write 'MD' without using the full name 'Mohammad' in their sons' names. It has been happening in this country for a long time but the reason for such a short use is not known. Even though foreigners do not understand, Bangladeshis read and pronounce 'Mohammad' and 'MD' as 'Mohammad'. However, such an abbreviation of the name is not desirable in any country for official use. In Bangladesh, this happens probably due to the ignorance of our parents, guardians, relatives, socialites, imams of mosques, registration officers or primary teachers who often name the children or record them with the school register. In many countries, Bangladeshis are embarrassed by the short use of names. To get rid of such embarrassment, our passport office once issued a notice prohibiting the use of abbreviated names such as Mohammad's 'Md', Sheikh's 'SK', Mosammat's'MST' and many more in the passport. However, as the notification has not been integrated with the system to issue e-passports recently, many people are having trouble getting a passport with Mohammad, Sheikh, Mosammat and others due to the abbreviation of names used in the NID card such as 'Md.', 'MD', 'SK', 'MST' and many others.
In the second case, as for the embarrassment of using the word 'Mohammad' in the name, it can be said that many Muslims in Bangladesh use the word 'Mohammad' before the names of boys and 'Mosammat' before the names of girls. By the way, 'Mohammad' is the name of the beloved Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him) which means praised and the word 'Mosammat' means someone has been named or in some cases it is also used as an adjective. After these words, Muslims use at least two more words like 'Mohammad' followed by Kabirul Islam or 'Mosammat' followed by Shukjan Khatun. But in reality, they are known as Kabirul Islam or Shukjan Khatun or some of them do not use the word 'Mohammad' or 'Mosammat' before the name in formal or informal work. Although the name 'Mohammad' is used in the subcontinent to express love for the beloved Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him) or religious distinction in some cases, many Muslims in Bangladesh do not consider it an important part of the name. They think the middle of the name is the real name. But officially 'Mohammad' is their first name; Kabirul or Sabirul or Dabirul is the middle name of their names. For example, President Obama's official name is Barack Hussein Obama; however, most people here do not know about his middle name Hussein. In addition, because most people in this country are not aware of birth registration, and hence registrars or primary teachers give a simple date of birth such as January 1, January 31 or whatever when registering students in the school register. In addition, many parents reduce their child's age and, in many cases, change their names several times so that they do not have to worry about getting a government job due to the age limit set therein or they allow their children to sit for school admission tests a few times.
In the third case, the embarrassment of using last names can be said to be due to ignorance. However, it is supposed to be passed down through the generations. For example, one of the ancestors of Nani Ardeshi Palakhivala, a famous Indian constitutionalist, used to work in the palanquin; hence the last name was Palakhivala. However, subsequent fame did not distract them from using hereditary names. In our society many times due to lack of awareness or sometimes the profession of the previous descendants is identified with the hereditary name, many people irrespective of religion and caste are seen to change the hereditary name as the last name. Note that hereditary names as family names are usually used at the end of names. There are also some people in the country having only one part of the name; in this case, they have to face many problems to get a foreign visa or fill out digitally archived forms.
Therefore, in this age of globalisation, people are moving from one country to another for different needs. In order to reduce confusion and embarrassment over names and to facilitate their movement, a national policy can be formulated in the light of the universally accepted practice of using names consisting of at least first names and last names of people. This policy will spread among parents, guardians, relatives, socialites, imams of mosques, registration officers or primary teachers to motivate them in naming children in the right way and thus free people travelling abroad from the embarrassment associated with their names.
Dr Mohammad Towhidul Islam is a Professor of Law, University of Dhaka.