Change the title that changes you

بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

هَلْ أَتَىٰ عَلَى ٱلْإِنسَانِ حِينٌ مِّنَ ٱلدَّهْرِ لَمْ يَكُن شَيْـًٔا مَّذْكُورًا

Hal atā ʿalā al-insāni ḥīnun mina al-dahri lam yakun shayʾan madhkūrā.

“Has there not come upon man a period of time when he was not a thing even mentioned?”

Sūrat al-Insān 76:1

There are names people give us out of love.

Habib. Shah Sahib. Sayed. Pir Sahib. Hazrat. Baba. Ustaz. Sir. Teacher

Sometimes these words come with affection. Sometimes with reverence. Sometimes with cultural habit. Sometimes with a sincere attempt at adab.

And I am grateful for the love inside them.

But a title is not a small thing.

A title is a garment.

Sometimes it warms. Sometimes it hides. Sometimes it protects dignity. Sometimes it distances the heart from the ground.

One of my favourite names is much simpler.

Mamu.

In Urdu and Hindi, mamu means maternal uncle.

It is affectionate without being ceremonial. It is warm without becoming grand. It does not place me on a pedestal. It places me in a relationship. That is why I love it.

A child can say mamu and run toward you.

A family can say mamu and smile.

There is no embellishment in it. No platform. No audience. No implied sainthood.

Only nearness. Only kinship. Only a small human warmth.

Once someone asked me, “Can we call you Shaykh?”

I declined.

Not because the word has no beauty. Because it has too much beauty.

Some words should be carried only by those whom Allah has made inwardly heavy enough to bear them.

Some words are not decorations.

They are trusts.

And sometimes I fear that a title may arrive before the heart is ready.

The nafs is strange.

It can wear praise like perfume. It can wear criticism like armour. It can even wear humility like another crown.

So the issue is not merely whether others call us something.

The deeper issue is whether we begin to believe the costume.

Whether the word enters the heart and becomes a private monument.

Whether the public name becomes stronger than the hidden self.

This is why I remembered Bishr al-Ḥāfī. Bishr the Barefoot.

One of the great early friends of Allah.

A man whose very name became a sign.

A man whom people remembered not only by his given name, but by his bare feet.

There is an old story.

Bishr once came to the door of Muʿāfā ibn ʿImrān.

He knocked.

Someone from inside asked, “Who is it?”

He replied, “Bishr al-Ḥāfī.” Bishr the Barefoot.

Then a small girl inside the house heard him.

And she said something that only a child could say with such innocent precision:

“If you had bought yourself a pair of sandals for a dānaq or two, the name ‘Barefoot’ would have left you.”

What a sentence.

So small. So sharp. So complete.

A saint knocks on the door. A child answers the hidden question.

Adults may have heard the title with reverence.

She heard it with clarity.

Adults may have seen the epithet.

She saw the contingency.

A pair of sandals. A small purchase. A little leather. A strap.

And the famous title would disappear.

This is not mockery.

This is unveiling.

The child was not saying Bishr had no worth.

She was revealing that the title was not his essence.

She was saying: do not confuse the sign with the soul.

Do not build your identity around something that a pair of sandals can remove.

There is another layer to the story.

The tradition says that the original cause of Bishr’s barefootedness was also a wound of awakening.

He had once gone to a sandal-maker asking for a strap for his sandal.

The man said, “How heavy a burden you faqīrs are upon people!”

The words entered Bishr like an arrow.

He threw down one sandal. He removed the other.

And he never wore sandals again.

The first lesson came from the sandal-maker.

The second lesson came from the small girl.

The sandal-maker stripped him of comfort.

The girl stripped him of the title that came from the stripping.

This is how Allah educates the sincere.

First He removes what keeps them heedless. Then He removes their attachment to the story of removal. First the sandal goes. Then the pride of being barefoot goes.

First the world is renounced. Then the reputation of renunciation must also be renounced.

This is very subtle.

Because even piety can become an identity. Even simplicity can become an aesthetic. Even service can become a brand. Even sacred work can become a mirror in which the ego admires itself.

A person may leave the palace and become proud of the hut. A person may refuse gold and become proud of the refusal. A person may avoid titles and secretly enjoy being known as the one who avoids titles.

The nafs is capable of wearing every fabric.

Even wool. Even poverty. Even knowledge. Even humility.

This is why the verse of Sūrat al-Insān is so powerful here.

“Has there not come upon man a period of time when he was not a thing even mentioned?”

Before every title, there was non-mention.

Before habib. Before Sayed. Before ustaz. Before shaykh. Before hazrat. Before baba.

Before our degrees. Before our offices. Before our family names. Before our reputations. Before the introductions people give us. Before the bios written under our photographs.

Before the followers. Before the applause.

Before the wounds also. Before the accusations. Before the misunderstandings.

Before the labels we love and the labels we resent.

There was a time when we were not even a thing mentioned.

This verse does not humiliate us.

It returns us.

It brings the human being back to first principles.

It says:

Remember your beginning. Remember your contingency. Remember that you were not self-made. Remember that your mention is not your own creation. Remember that being named by people is not the same as being accepted by Allah.

The world mentions people for strange reasons.

For beauty. For power. For noise. For controversy. For wealth. For lineage. For talent. For usefulness. For proximity to other famous people. For the algorithm. For the spectacle.

But Allah mentions whom He wills.

And the highest dignity is not that people mention us.

It is that Allah allows us to remember Him.

And that He remembers us.

A title is dangerous when it becomes a substitute for remembrance. It is dangerous when it becomes a small idol of the self. It is dangerous when it becomes a way of avoiding the harder question:

What am I before Allah when no one is naming me?

What remains when the sandals are bought?

What remains when the title disappears?

What remains when people stop saying ustaz?

What remains when affection cools?

What remains when reputation is not available as a crutch?

This is the real examination. Not the public title. The private reality.

There is a beautiful educational lesson here.

A school is full of names.

Teacher. Principal. Ustaz. Topper. Weak student. Gifted child. Problem child. Slow learner. Good girl. Difficult boy. Hafiz. 'Alim. Scholar. Failure. Leader.

Some of these labels may have administrative use.

But if we are not careful, labels become prisons.

A child called “weak” may begin to inhabit weakness.

A child called “gifted” may become afraid of effort.

A child called “naughty” may accept mischief as destiny.

A teacher called “sir” too often may forget how to listen.

A principal called “leader” too often may forget how to serve.

A scholar called “shaykh” too early may stop being a student.

The human being is too miraculous for a single label.

There is strength here. Weakness there. Light here. Fear there. Beauty here. A wound there. Potential here. A blind spot there.

A single title can never contain the whole human topography.

This is why a real education must resist reduction.

It must not collapse a person into one word. It must not reduce a learner to a score. It must not reduce a teacher to a designation. It must not reduce piety to an epithet. It must not reduce the soul to its most visible feature.

Bishr was barefoot.

But Bishr was more than barefoot.

A child saw this.

The small girl’s remark was a kind of assessment-in-context.

Not formal. Not bureaucratic. Not written on a report card.

But deeply accurate.

She saw something adults may have missed.

She gave feedback from an unexpected place.

And Bishr, because he was Bishr, received it.

This is also a mark of spiritual maturity.

Not that no one can correct you.

But that correction can come from anywhere.

A child. A student. A worker. A stranger. A spouse. A critic.

A person with less knowledge but more sight in that moment.

A small voice from inside the house.

Do we protect our title?

Or do we listen?

A community of iḥsān is not a community where elders are humiliated.

It is a community where truth is not humiliated.

It is not a place without adab.

It is a place where adab serves truth, not ego.

It is not a place where children become rude.

It is a place where adults remain teachable.

The small girl did not give a lecture.

She gave a mirror.

That is often the best kind of teaching.

“If you bought sandals, the title would leave you.”

How many of our identities are like this?

If one exam result changed, the title would leave.

If one job ended, the title would leave.

If one audience disappeared, the title would leave.

If one illness came, the title would leave.

If one institution removed our office, the title would leave.

If one mistake became public, the title would leave.

If one generation forgot us, the title would leave.

Then what are we?

This is not an argument against titles altogether.

Titles have their place. Adab has its place. Scholarly lineages have their place. Family names have their place. Respectful speech has its place.

In many cultures, to call someone ustaz or hazrat or sahib is not flattery. It is courtesy.

The problem is not the word. The problem is the attachment. The problem is when a title becomes an ontology.

When a social convention becomes an inner claim. When the garment fuses with the skin. When the person no longer knows how to stand before Allah without it.

The Prophet ﷺ taught us honour.

But he also taught us servanthood.

And the highest title is still ʿabd.

Servant.

Everything else must remain beneath that.

A teacher is a servant.

A scholar is a servant.

A leader is a servant.

A parent is a servant.

A principal is a servant.

A sayyid is a servant.

A mamu is a servant.

A shaykh, if he is truly a shaykh, is more servant than shaykh.

That is the paradox.

The more real the station, the less hungry the person is for its announcement.

The more inward the light, the less need for a signboard.

The more Allah gives, the more the person fears himself.

Perhaps this is why I am more comfortable with mamu.

It keeps me human.

It keeps me near the ground.

It reminds me that the child in front of me does not need my title as much as he needs my patience.

The family does not need my designation as much as it needs my presence.

The student does not need my public identity as much as he needs my sincerity.

The community does not need my self-importance.

It needs whatever small service Allah allows me to offer.

And even that service belongs to Him.

A title asks, “What are you called?”

The Qurʾān asks, “What were you before you were called anything?”

A title asks, “Who mentions you?”

The Qurʾān asks, “Who brought you from non-mention?”

A title asks, “What do people see?”

The Qurʾān asks, “What does Allah know?”

This is why the verse is a mercy.

It punctures illusion gently.

It does not say, “You are worthless.”

It says, “You were nothing mentioned, and then Allah gave you existence.”

So do not worship mention.

Do not become intoxicated by being known.

Do not confuse being named with being saved.

Do not confuse being praised with being purified.

Do not confuse being called shaykh with being accepted by the Lord of the shaykhs.

The small girl at the door understood something profound.

The title “Barefoot” depended on the absence of sandals.

But the worth of Bishr did not.

His worth was not in the bare foot.

Only this:

O Allah, You know me.

You know what I was before mention.

You know what I am beneath mention.

You know what I will be when all mention is gone.

So make me true.

Make me useful.

Make me sincere.

Make me smaller in my own eyes and more beloved to You.

Do not let me become heavy upon people.

Do not let me live off a title.

Do not let me hide behind respect.

Do not let me mistake affection for achievement.

Do not let me mistake lineage for nearness.

Do not let me mistake knowledge for transformation.

Do not let me mistake being called something for becoming something.

There are sandals we need to wear.

And there are sandals we need to remove.

There are titles we must honour.

And there are titles we must fear.

There are names given by people.

And there is the Name before which every name dissolves.

The safest path is to keep returning to the verse.

There was a time when I was not a thing mentioned.

Then Allah mentioned me into existence.

So let my mention return to Him.

Let every name people give me become a reminder, not a veil.

Let every title become responsibility, not decoration.

Let every correction become mercy, even when it comes from a small girl behind a door.

May Allah protect us from the intoxication of titles.

May He give us the adab to honour others without inflating them.

May He give us the humility to receive correction from unexpected mouths.

May He make our schools places where children are not imprisoned by labels.

May He make our teachers learners.

May He make our leaders servants.

May He make our scholars humble.

May He make our hearts barefoot before Him.

And if people must call us something, let it be something that keeps us close.

Something warm.

Something human.

Something that reminds us that before all public mention, we were nothing mentioned.

Perhaps even mamu is enough.

Āmīn.