When I first became a Muslim, about ten years ago, people kept trying to give me a Muslim name. Today I am known as Abu Hurairah (Father of Kitten), a name which I chose for myself. For the first few years, I kept brothers at bay by quoting hadith …
It is sunnah to keep the name of your father.
And then I would explain that my mother named me Dennette, Jr., so they should address me as "Dennette ibn Dennette" (ibn means "son of", abu is "father of", and abd is "servant of").
This Tell is about the time a brother tried to name me "Musa" (Moses), and I had a meltdown. :-)
You see, one of the things I identified independently from any classroom book-learning about religion, was this thing I liked to call a Moses Complex.
Moses Complex: A predisposition to lead the way for the emancipation of others. Moses was a bodhisattva, one who forsakes achieving nirvana in order to help others come closer to achieving it. It is Moses karma to lead others to the Promised Land, yet not cross over himself. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a Moses Complex.
You see, I faced the question of how much I was willing to sacrifice for others at an early age … was I going to grow up to be a Role Model … a "credit to my race".
Whenever I think of Moses, I think of the night that my father and I were stopped by a New York State Trooper. Out of state plates, two black males … suspicious in 1968 in rural Rochester, NY.
We had come to my college admissions interview at RIT … a 400 mile drive each way from DC. I had my portfolio in the trunk. The Smokey made the mistake of saying, "credit to your race", so Pop decided to keep him off the road for a while and blow his mind.
I showed him my portfolio … I bedazzled him with my talent … I showed him pictures of naked women that I had taken in the woods near my home. Yeah, I was a "credit to my race", and I was gonna start out in The Real World making more than he was ever going to earn in his life. For sure I was going to see my name in print more often that he ever would.
But the S.O.B. had a gun on his hip. And he could make us spend the night in jail. And he'd lose his shield if he did.
My initial terror turned to rapturous joy as I slipped zingers at him that went right over his head … dropping names of famous people with whom we were aquatinted … Pop's six months in the Saigon Embassy during the '64 Tet Offensive … how I got these (white) women to take their clothes off in front of a camera.
Yeah, this Gommer learned real quick that he was out of his league, and that pulling us over was surely the biggest mistake he'd made in a while. We let him go after half an hour.
No, thank you very much … I'd already had my brush with the FBI, and had decided to become a "lesser target". Later in life, I learned a Ferengi Rule of Acquisition:
Employees are the rungs on the ladder to success; don't hesitate to step on them.
I learned at a very young age that I was not like Other People … that I was a Climber, not a Rung … that I was the Hammer, not the Anvil.
This Moses thing is probably just a variation on the Prometheus thing … steal fire from the gods, get your guts ripped out by an eagle every day while they heal overnight for the rest of eternity. I don't think so!
So, anyway, this Righteous Brother, Abd-Al-Rahman (Servant of The Most Merciful), on learning that it has been a year since my shahada and I haven't changed my name yet, decides that I should be henceforth known as Musa, for he could see the Leadership qualities within me.
I'm tired now ... more later. :-) -=DAH=- 1997-02-28
1997-03-08 … And now, the rest of the story.
After giving this brother the story about how it is sunnah to keep the name of your father, if that is that name your parents gave you, I proceeded to give him the story of being stopped by the NY State Trooper (in three part harmony with the twenty five eight by ten color glossy photographs with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what it was about) and gave him a whole bunch of reasons why I did not want to be a Moses.
When I was growing up, Pop kept telling me, "There are chiefs and there are braves." By the time I reached high school, I realized that there was a third option … scouts. Pop had been trying to say that there are leaders and there are followers, and he wanted me to be a leader. But he forgot to tell me about the mavericks, the rouges, the ones who lived on the edge of the tribe, who had no leaders and no followers.
I decided that I did not want to be a leader any more than I wanted to be a follower … I wanted to find my own roads without the responsibility and consequences of taking people places where they could not go … places no one had been before.
Islam teaches a kind of humility that stifles initiative and creativity … people are always saying, "I am not worthy of being the leader," and to actively seek leadership is viewed as a kind of pride that should be avoided by a righteous True Believer.
In such an environment, I can keep a low profile, and decline offers of any kind of "leadership" role in the community. I think that one of the things I like most about Islam is that each person worships God in private, even though there may be a room full of people who are all performing their worship in unison … it's still a direct and personal thing.
The name which I ultimately chose, Abu Hurairah, is well known and recognized in the Muslim community from hadith, because he is often cited as the source. For example (Sahih Al-Bukhari, volume 4, number 422) …
Narrated Abu Hurairah (May Allah Be Pleased With Him): The Prophet (Peace And Blessings Upon Him) said, "The sun and the moon will be folded up (deprived of their light) on the Day of Resurrection".
Abu Hurairah was one of the first Companions of Allah's Messenger, sort of like the Apostles of Jesus, son of Mary. Known for his honesty, compassion, and piety, I found him a worthy role-model whose name did not carry a lot of "prophetic" baggage with it.
No, I rejected all names of people who spoke to God … Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Mohammed … these are not names for me, because I refuse to lead people to the Promised Land … I'm a solitary pioneer, trying to follow the Straight Path to salvation on my own, with no responsibility for the souls of others. Just me and my kitten, al-hamdu-lillah (praise God).
And that is all I wanted to say. -=DAH=- 1997-03-08
Last update: 1997-03-08 by <dennette@wiz-worx.com>