Attending naming-ceremonies in our land these days is becoming less interesting in moral rectitude and more interesting in immorality.
Naming-ceremonies or giving a new born baby names at the seventh day or eight one elsewhere may wear togas of debauchery, profligacy and senselessness but in Islam, there is no sacrifice of decency, uprightness and righteousness in the name of enjoying oneself or in showing gratitude to God for the newborn.
There should be a demarcation between what is good and what is bad as recognition should be raised between the right and the wrong! No doubt, our Creator loves gratitude and the people of gratitude but nevertheless, He does not love those who are profaned in doing it either by mouth, hands or body.
In one of the Creator’s appeals in the glorious Qur’an so as to forestall punishment, here and in the hereafter, He Has recommended gratitude and proper belief in Him. The power of gratitude is so all-encompassing to that level. It can quench the God’s anger and confer His light on the people of gratitude! We read as follows on that in the glorious Qur’an:
“Why should Allah chaste you if you are grateful and belief? And Allah is the Multiplier of rewards, knowing” _ Qu’ran 4:147
Our people these days show gratitude to God in the name of celebrating the birth of a new baby with all sorts of prohibited things from alcoholics to drugs in dry forms and many more! Instead of being forward-looking in gratitude, they are purely infuriating the Giver of life with alacrity and insouciance.
Beers are drunk from the day predating the naming-ceremony till the night of the naming proper. Friends and relatives will , in addition, dance to many a musician and his beat, which is as meaningless and morally-depraved as the music they listened to , with all their bodies and minds to the extent that the worship of the creator is forgotten for that day.
The daily canonical prayers in Islam which should be constant in the life of the Muslims like the desert Sun are abandoned at will by most people on that day. And if they are observed, they are done half-heartedly after their scheduled times.
Coming than to the naming of the child proper, which may be done any time in the seven day if the counting of the day does not spread to the eight, we see those that God Has given the greatest gift which money cannot buy, giving the clergy they had invited thirty or an hour to name, sermonize on the education of the child; both material and spiritual ones, and on other sundry things pertaining to naming a child in Islam.
Not that the allotted thirty or an hour time is not enough for all the above but my wonderment has been on the way and manner the rest of the day will be used! In most cases, if the mother of the baby is saved from all the complications accompanied child-bearing, you will still see the father and mother of the child and their well-wishers spending their times on drinking and drinking and drinking of alcoholics, until the sunset! Women are not excluded from these act too.
Some few minutes will also be doled out for eating and afterwards boozing, and heavy one at that, will follow except in rare cases where the child’s parents are properly baked or weaned in Islamic etiquettes. Except in real poverty, the parents of the baby being christened_ fathers in particular _ will show their adeptness in holding a careless and unrewarding party for his friends and families.
Even in abject poverty, or when there is a complication during childbirth, you will still see the families and friends who had not been forthcoming in the settlement of the hospital’s bills, contributing both in bits and heavily to buying alcoholics, intoxicants and all those stuffs that can put mark on the joy they are desirous of showing the world.
When the clergymen; though some of them are also real culprits in time-wasting, make efforts at explaining the nitty-gritty of child-naming exercises in Islam, the father of the child ,if he is a worldly one, will be using his fingers to show them the minutes remained and if the officiating Imams are insisting ones, sometimes,the microphone or the engine sets are made to phantomly develop mechanical faults so as to discourage them from continuing the sermon and sometimes, they are told pointblank ,to stop the benefitting knowledge they are delivering to those that care to listen.
Although, in the time of the prophet ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam), a new baby born to a family will be carried to the prophet’s Mosque for naming! We have seen the example of this in the Hadith of Abu-Musa Al-As-Ariy ( Radiya-llahu anhu) who has reported that:
” A baby was born for me and I carried him to the prophet ( Salla-llahu alehi wasalam) who had palatalized him ( this is done by chewing sweeting edible like honey and any food and placing a part of it in the mouth of the baby. It is done by a pious or righteous being in the society), named him Ibrahim and prayed for him for Allah’s blessing on his life”
But afterwards, clergymen are gathered in the house of the father of the new baby for his christening! The people of knowledge have also used the occasion as an avenue to educate the community on the needs, morals, does and don’t of Islam. Since, most of the adults do not attend the weekly or monthly Islamic programs in the community mosques or elsewhere again in the name of hustling for good life.
But these days, the good and age-long formula of our blessed predecessor is being replaced with boozing , immoral life styles and unnecessary displayed of materialism even when the people involved are glaringly poor. What is more disturbing in this hocus_ pocus irreligious manner of the so-called Muslims is that the upcoming youths among the populate are being stylishly integrating into this forlorn life style.
Present in a naming-ceremony some months ago, I overheard the well-wishers who were basically the baby’s father friends saying that they do give their clergy minutes for the naming-ceremony while failure to comply with the time frame will be disastrous to the clergy even when what the clergy are discussing are beneficial.
The love of money and failure to be content with what the child’s parents is capable in terms of gifts ( cash or kinds) were sighted as two things they most hated on the part of the clergy! A man in the midst of them then asked :” will the clergy still respect the calls of those that had disrespected and still grace their occasions after being disgraced in the future?
Another man in the midst of this gathering answered him forcefully with certainty as follows:
” They will! The clergy are patient things, they don’t hold grudges!?”
Some others added :
” The clergy will still come for being vindictive is not their way! Vindictiveness is not for the one that wants to grow and safe lives among them!”
While these responses and feedbacks on the patience and good-natured of the Ulama pleased me to the marrow, I was not however, a fan of not explaining the errors in the generalization and outlooks of these people about the clergy among us.
In as much as you can’t correct them in good manner privately instead of publicly disconnecting the public address system they are using to propagate their messages, you are not given a right to deeming and shaming their personalities in the market and donning them with expensive clothing in the later , for knowing that they are a patient bird in the job given to them by their Lord.
Simply put, respect needs to be reciprocal ! Though, the clergymen need to respect the instructions of the owner of the program by adhering strictly to them if they cannot convince them of the needs to add to the time before the commencement of the program! Any extension on the time allotted afterwards is a pure indiscipline on the part of the clergy!
Our clergy men should be wary of wasting time. Time is a precious gift of life which must be used judiciously everytime. Don’t look at the importance of what you want to say if the audience do not want to listen to it! If you are given five minutes to deliver a sermon, please say the little part of what you want to deliver pleasantly and at the arrival of the time, drop the mic!
You will see that they will know your worth henceforth and next time you will be given a proper time to do the needful! And if at all, you need to explain issues to people, get a space in the community arena and fix a day for it and adhere strictly to the time frame, you will soon create a niche for yourself among the packs of Islamic preachers in the nation!
Know that Muslims these days do not love to hear their Creator’s words any more. Rather, they are given to insensate and irrational talks, music and past-times! For that , don’t force yourself on them. Know the good maxims of the people of Iman of the past and religiously follow it :” Likulli-Makanni Maqaalu, Walikulli Maqaalin Makannu ” i.e, ” for every place there is its speech and for every speech there is its place !”
Naming a child on the seventh day of his birth is an authentic practice of our noble prophet Muhammad ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam)! It can even be done on the day the baby is born, or the second or the third day. But shaving the child’s natural hair and slaughter of a four-legged animal to be distributed to the poor and those that are present on that day are strictly a seventh- day religious affairs.
No matter how richer or wealthy you are, you cannot shave and slaughter the animal on the day of the birth of the baby or two -three days afterwards! Besides, slaughtering of the animal is not a sacrifice which is done somewhere else to what are not God but an alms-giving exercise so as to protect the child from every evil and a means to his blessing! This is contained in the following Hadith :
” A child is vouchsafed by his mortgage ( the animal slaughtered on his seventh day), this is to be slaughtered for him on the seventh day of his birth; his hair is shaved and he is given names”.
Besides, names to be given a child on the day of his naming must be good and meaningful ones! Names with bad meanings and the one which are meaningless must be avoided for children are products of the names given to them on the day of their naming! If the names are beautiful, good and meaningful, they impact fruitfully and positively on the bearers.
If the names are of adverse connotations, bad impliedness and poignantly evil, the bearers,if not hundred percent affected adversely, will still be adversarial, hurtful and untoward to himself, animals and the society at large.
The story of Zayid Ibn Mussayab’s grand father is instructive here! The old man had met the prophet one day and his name was asked by the prophet ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam) and he said ” Hassinu”, meaning “the Anguished”! On hearing this, the prophet ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam) counselled him to change the name for its bad connotation and be bearing ” Shalu”, I e ” The Ease/ The Favoured!”
It was reported that the old man insisted that he would not change the name given to him by his father. Alas! The man was reported to have lived miserably afterwards till he died.
In the meantime, the celebrants of a child’s born day at his seventh day should be circumvent and see it as a time of reflection on the goodness of Allah to them as parents, families and the well-wishers ! Though, they are allowed to merrymaking but it must be situated on the prism of Islam in the guise of the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His prophet.
They must act in a way that will not make the creator angry with them on the benefits He Has disposed unto them. They must remember others who are God-conscious , upright and devoted to His cause but who had not been given such benefits despite their devotion.