Fatwa

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  2. Women and Family
  3. Rights of Children
  4. Appropriate names in Islam

Permissible to name child ‘Affaan
Fatwa No: 264754

Question

Assalamoualaikum WRWB...My wife has delivered a baby boy on 27th of ramadhan and we decided to keep a best name, finally we gave adhan and called him "AFFAN AHAMED" 3 times slowly in his right ear after that we started calling him as "AFFAN".On surfing i found "AFFAN" as devoted,religious,pious is this true...? Secondly AFFAN is the father's name of UTHMAN (RA) caliphate & did he accepted islam...? i am worried now. Is it advisable to keep this name or shall i change it...?

Answer

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and messenger.

It should be noted that repeating the name of the newborn in his ears is not an act of Sunnah; rather, it is a religious innovation.

You have mentioned that the meaning of the name ‘Affaan is ‘the pious and devout person’; perhaps this meaning is correct because it is derived from the verb ‘affa, which means to abstain from what is undesirable.

On the other hand, Taaj Al-‘Aroos (an Arabic dictionary) reads, "The name ‘Affaan is similar to Shaddaad, and is derived from the root ‘afana (which means to rot or to decay); in this case, the word 'Affaan could be ended with Tanween [nunation] (i.e. "n" sound added to the end of the word in certain circumistances which is indicated by doubling the short vowel at the end of the word). But if it is derived from the verb ‘affa, it could not be ended with Tanween." [End of quote] 

The Arabic noun ‘iffah means refraining from doing what is forbidden. Thus, there is no problem in naming a newborn ‘Affaan. For further information, please refer to Fataawa 82724 and 87262 about the criteria of choosing proper names for newborns.

As for your inquiry about whether the father of ‘Uthmaan ibn ‘Affaan converted to Islam or not, we could not find anything in this regard. After researching the biographies and history books, we could not find whether he died as a non-Muslim or converted to Islam. Allaah Knows best about him.

Allaah Knows best.

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