Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Q&A Is Rahman OK as a Surname

okay with regards to the names of Allah that you cannot keep without

Abdul before it like Rahman is it allowed to have these names or

surnames are human? And if so, why? No, you're not allowed to

have those names or surnames. Unfortunately, in some of our

communities in some of our ethnicities, they just take some

name and add that as a surname. A surname is actually supposed to be

a distinctive family name. That's what a surname is. I just don't

understand why people would just take any name and say that's my

surname, because that's not distinctive, for example, somebody

to call themselves Roman, or somebody who calls themselves

Ahmed or ID or BUSA I mean that's not a certain those are first

names. surname is something that we be recognized by that, okay,

you're from this particular family. And in some of our

cultures, surnames change with every generation with every new

challenge, they changes, they just take the father's first name, I

mean, subhanAllah I mean, that's the father's name, why are you

making that a surname you know, take the Father's name and have a

surname. So if your father is Isley, and your name is Fatima, so

your Fatima Isley and then your surname whether that be chode the

year whether that be you know Patel or whether that be Desai or,

or whether that be unsalted or something like that. Make sure

that you have distinctive surnames and if you don't find your family

name and start using that, I don't know why people Allah subhanaw

taala gave us copper in Regina come shuru bomba Kedah. Elita

awful. Allah Subhana Allah says that we made you into clans and

tribes so that you can gain recognition of one another. I've

been given the name Mangueira, right, there's different could be

different reason why that where that name came from. But I have to

be proud of that name. That's my name. And why should I be ashamed

of that? And just, you know, take that away and put another name and

give me my children another name? Why should I do that? At least

this way we can tell that they're from this particular family.

Right. So don't shed your names. I know Patel's have a bit of an

issue but that's because Patel is not really a surname I know

they've used their surname, it's actually a designation of the

person who becomes like the the Sheriff of the of the village they

become Padilla's otherwise your your surnames or something else

like my mother was a Patel Rahim Allah but actually her real name,

she was a Desai originally. So find your surnames and use them.

But yeah, you can't use Rama and as a surname, right. That's why we

actually you know, we have Rayyan Institute. We started off as Rama

an institute. That was how it first started, we gave it the name

Rockland, because I just loved that name, because it's full of

mercy, not because it's my name, I'm actually proud of that name.

But the problem is, then people started to say, Are you studying

ramen? You know, I'm taking a course with ramen. No, man, you're

not. Ramen is Allah. So that's why we changed it to Rayyan. Okay,

that's why you shouldn't use those names. Unless, I mean, I guess I'm

not going to say it's completely hung up, people will probably

understand that. But no, you shouldn't have that name. Really,

the point of a lecture is to encourage people to act to get

further an inspiration, and encouragement, persuasion. The

next step is to actually start learning seriously, to read books

to take on a subject of Islam and to understand all the subjects of

Islam at least at the basic level, so that we can become more aware

of what our deen wants from us. And that's why we started Rayyan

courses, so that you can actually take organize lectures on demand

whenever you have free time, especially for example, the

Islamic essentials course that we have on the Islamic essentials

certificate, which you take 20 Short modules, and at the end of

that inshallah you will have gotten the basics of most of the

most important topics in Islam and you'll feel a lot more confident.

You don't have to leave lectures behind you can continue to live,

you know, to listen to lectures, but you need to have this more

sustained study as well. JazakAllah Heron salaam aleikum wa

rahmatullah wa barakato.