 عوذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم والصلاة والسلام وعلى أشرف الأنبياء والمرسلين حبيب الله العالمين أبل قاسم المصطفى محمد وعلى ألبيتي الطيبين الطاهرين الذين أذهب عنهم الرجسة وطاهرهم تطهيرا واللعن دائم الأبدي والسرمدي وعلى أعدائهم أجمعين بل الآن إذا قيام يوم الدين آمين رب العالمين نبدأ في نام الله the most beneficent the most merciful all praises be to him everlasting and omniscient he is and we send our peace and blessings upon Muhammad and his holy household and our everlasting damnation and curses upon their enemies آمين رب العالمين we congratulate صاحب العصري والزمان أرواحنا له الفداء our awaited saviour المهدي المنتظر on the glorious occasion that marks the birth of a sayida فاطمة الزهراء the lady of light the pure lady of light peace and blessings be upon her which is celebrated on the 20th of jumada الثاني and today we have prepared for you a couple of episodes in order to celebrate the birth of sayida فاطمة الزهراء and we thought that the most appropriate way to celebrate the birth of her majesty sayida فاطمة عليها أفضل الصلاة والسلام is to shed light on some of the names of fatima الزهراء I have prepared something and this is the schedule that I have planned for you my dear brothers and sisters my dearest viewers and that is the pure names of fatima عليها السلام as we know fatima عليها السلام has several names and the names of course can be found in our books of tradition in the reports the ahadith of course but before I reached the name of fatima and the name that I wish to focus on in these episodes is the name الزهراء specifically but before I do so I do also wish to shed light upon naming and how important it is that for our children that we give them appropriate names and in order to do so we have to go through a series of steps and answer a series of questions and of course the question first we are to ask is what names are we to give to our children especially for us living here in the west we find that there seems to be this pressure on the Muslims living in the west this pressure that is constantly being dealt upon the Muslims that they are to adapt to the western style of living and then there is of course this Islamophobia that has been prevailing and that has been going around and people with names like Ahmed and Muhammad and beautiful names such as fatima and الزهراء and رقية and so on and so forth you find that new parents today unfortunately unfortunately because of fear because of propaganda because of the media instead of giving their children these blissful and beautiful names they are giving them names of either known western names or names of specific maybe characters or let's say famous actors that they loved when they were young and then they started providing this name or giving this name to their own child so before we dive in into the narrations from ألمحمد عليهم السلام the narrations that specifically speak about choosing the appropriate name for one's children we have to look more into what negative effects may occur when a parent gives a child a name for example that is non-islamic there are several points first things first the individual who chooses to give their child a non-islamic name and this name that the parent gives the child may actually have a psychological effect on the child and because of external and internal factors may affect the child's future as well if you give a child a name say of a well-known say famous actor this child may grow up with that name and especially the community around that the community around this child that has been given a specific name may pressure him into following say in the footsteps of that specific actor or character or individual or let's say if you give a child a name that used to be a name of some tyrant or some aggressive evil political leader let's say for example that effect of the name may actually rub on to the child as the child grows up because we know that as a child we are shaped through our families but at the same time our friends and the community that surrounds us plays a very big role in what? in shaping who we are as a person the people around you sometimes have a great effect on who you are now imagine if you do not carry an Islamic name or you are not given an Islamic name see there are different ways to look at this if you are born into a Muslim family then the thought behind it is that you should be given a name that at least brings to light that you are a Muslim and especially names like Mohammed and Ahmed and so on and so forth that we will look at into more detail but of course there are people and I am not here to begin to judge anybody really but I do want to say that those who converted to Islam or reverted back to Islam their situation is different of course and I have friends today for example that still carry the name that they were given at birth because that is something that you live with that is hard to change especially after 15-20-30 years but at the same time have another name for yourself even if this name is between you and Allah SWT say for example my name is Michael for example my name amongst my friends for example in the center or just between myself and my lord I will call myself Mohammed there is no problem at all but my focus today is not on the names that were given to you that were given to for example the converts and reverts that reverted to Islam but my main focus today is the new parents that wish to choose a western name over what over a name like Mohammed they wish to choose for example a name like George instead of calling their son Ali or a name like Malcolm instead of calling their son Mohammed اللهم صلى الله عليه وسلم so please by all means do not think that I am in any way disrespecting anybody from the community from my brothers and sisters that have found the light of Islam الحمد لله because I really do love seeing these names and by these names I see a very bright future of course especially because the name in the community like I said imagine if you are a revert and you are in a community that is predominantly non-Muslim you will have a great effect on that community especially when that community sees you for example an act of prayer or from your أخلاق from the way you act with others they see that look when this person became Muslim everything seemed to have changed the way he interacts with his parents now the way he interacts with his friends the way he interacts with his colleagues everything has changed so once again my focus is towards the new parents in this era that by either pressure of society pressure of the environment that they live in pressure or fear that living in the west in North America or in Europe that having a name like محمد or فاطمة or any of these beautiful names may have an effect on their children my focus is on these new parents today do not by any means belittle the names of the أهل البيت عليهم السلام and you will see insha'Allah how important these names are now let's go back to who we are as Muslims living here in the west don't forget that we as Muslims living here in the west we should not be influenced by what happens here in the west yes we can take what is good from here but we have to make sure that we shield ourselves from that which does not fall in the Islamic principles that which is not part of the Islamic culture and teachings there is a term I like to use which is called the Islamic identity your Islamic identity and one of the first things that makes somebody a Muslim is the image that they carry and amongst those first things that they carry is the name that they carry and of course the way they act the way they talk the way they speak all of this is considered to be the Islamic identity now imagine if you slowly start ripping out pieces of this identity from the person you will be left nothing with an empty shell and then this empty shell will then soon be influenced by western ideologies and then soon from an Islamic identity you have converted yourself into a western ideology and you have become now instead of having an Islamic passport you have a western passport and by passport I am talking again about the identity of the person who you are your name the way you speak the way you talk the way you interact with people how you interact with people and so on and so forth hence we can see that one of the most important aspects of your identity living here in the west is your name and all of this insha'Allah will come to more light as we of course further on look at the narrations of the Holy Household عليهم السلام and the Ahl al Bayt the Holy Household of the Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم has given emphasis on choosing the most appropriate the most blissful the most beautiful names for one's children I mean we notice for example that during the time of جاهلية before the coming of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم in the period of جاهلية you would find children you would find parents giving their children names such as حرب كلب نمر and so on and so forth I mean names of animals and the reason of course and you will see after the report of عليبنا موسى الرضا عليه السلام in which somebody I have it right here actually for somebody asks the Imam he says to him he says how come the Arabs would give their children names such as كلب فهد نمر كلب meaning dog فهد لاين نمر and then he said and then رضا عليه السلام إمام عليبنا موسى الرضا he says the Arabs were companions of war they would use such names in order to instill fear in their enemies they would also give their slaves names such as فرج مبارك ميمون etc. in order to bring forth a good omen so he says that كانت العرب أصحاب حرب فكانت تحول على العدو بأسماء أولادهم ويصمون عبيض ومفرج ومبارك وميمون واشباءه هذا يتمنون بها so he says they would also give their slaves names such as فرج مبارك وفرج as in مبارك as in blessed فرج as in happiness and so on and so forth in order that they say that with these slaves that we encounter from the war if we give them such names it would pose a good omen towards us it would be almost as in we're doing something good so you can see that during that time that's how people were being named and of course I mean being called war and being called dog is not names that are really much appropriate especially that the mind or the human itself الله سبحانه وتعالى created the human in the best of character and الله سبحانه وتعالى chose man over all other creation so for you to compare or for you to be given the name of dog the name of a dog or the name of another animal and when you yourself as a human are more superior to the other mammals then it is only an insult to the creation of Allah سبحانه وتعالى now like I said we are going to after we just finished our introduction now what is to follow in the next episodes إن شاء الله is that we will begin to look at the reports from the prophet and from his household which specifically emphasize on choosing the correct name after that we will look at the narrations in which the imams عليهم السلام informed their companions to choose names like Muhammad names like Ali names like Fatima and Hassan and Hussein and Hamza I mean if you really wish to dive deeper in our books of Fiqh especially if you go to وصاء الوشيع in the back of my mind I think volume 15 you will find chapters around chapter 21 23-24 to the narrations to the point where the imams عليهم السلام even inform us on which names not to choose for our children for example they would say this name and this name and this name are names that are considered that names that are that are evil that God الله سبحانه وتعالى is angry is angry with the one who possesses them so we do have such detail in our narrations and of course I was able to gather what I could and I'm able to deliver what I can in the short amount of time that I have and then insha'Allah after we talk about those names of of the Al-Muhammad that are recommended for the father and mother to give their children we will take a closer look again or we will conclude with the name of Fatima which is the name of or and we will look at how the name of Fatima is directly connected with the creation of Fatima and how very important and how heavy this name is and how الله سبحانه وتعالى began the creation of Fatima because we won't be able to discuss of course all the names that pertain to Fatima because like we said in our narrations we have so many names راضية مرضية منصورة زهراء فاطمة بطول and so on and so forth we wish to focus on زهراء because this name has very intricate and very it's a very mysterious name it's a very mysterious name that is directly linked with the creation of Fatima as well as the merits of Fatima and the favor of Fatima عليها افطر الصلاة واتم السلام now we are ending we are nearing the end of our first episode but insha'Allah like I said we will continue in the next couple of episodes insha'Allah depending on our time and the next thing we will do is look at the explicit reports that are the commands of al-Muhammad in which they command their companions and cohorts to give their children blissful and beautiful names والسلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته