To those who are in the least indifferent about language and anything serious about it, the satiric question “Apa ada pada nama?” (What is there in a name?) seems to be the best expression to betray their feelings concerning what they most probably perceive as a useless attempt to make a fuss of language, the national language included.
However ridiculous such an expression may sound, it is not totally unfounded.
Certainly, names are not everything.
Yet, they are also not nothing.
Indeed, there is a lot more to names and terms than what we ordinarily suppose them to be.
Muslims simply need to remind themselves that Allah taught Adam the names of everything (Qur’an, 2: 31).
The word for “name” in Arabic is “ism,” a derivative of the root-verb “wasm” or “simah,” meaning “sign” or “mark” that functions to point to something so that it may be found and thus grasped by the searching mind.
Just as the human act of knowing almost always involves man’s recognition of things by their names, so do scientific discoveries almost always end up giving things names that are scientifically befitting.
However, names and naming get to serve evil purposes as much as they do good.
How often have we seen names and naming serving imperialistic ends, at least psychologically?
Many a perceptive observer has noticed the strong Eurocentric biases in the predominant tendency among Western sciences of naming anything “scientific” with Graeco-Latin terms.
Another good example from our present-day experience of the negative impacts of names and naming is what the Muslims at present are experiencing worldwide as the result of “Islamophobic” labels and the persistent erroneous labels “terrorists,” “extremists,” “suicide bombers” and brands of that ilk.
In fact, to have a proper understanding and appreciation of names and terms, one will have to view them in the light of language as a system that eloquently projects one’s worldview.
Not only does language, viewed as such, reflect a person’s mind and philosophy but it in turn also shapes a person’s mind and philosophy.
At a higher plane or within a larger scope, it portrays and records the collective consciousness of a nation.
And what is this collective consciousness if not the worldview that defines the identity of a nation of which each individual is its necessary contituent?
There is something else about names and terms which is no less significant.
Names, in many respects, are benchmarks and any act of naming is actually an act of benchmarking, regardless of whether one intends it to be so in the first place.
One’s performance and integrity will somehow always be assessed against the name or title one assumes.
We easily hear people uttering the derogatory Malay expression “indah khabar dari rupa,” echoing what we may consider to be a crisis of expectation.
Similar expressions can also be found in other languages.
In English, for instance, we have the expression “not worthy of the name” (also “not worth the name”).
Among the reasons for the Prophet Muhammad’s instruction to Muslim parents to choose good names for their children, apart from continuously praying for their child every time they call him or her by his or her name, is to set a benchmark for him or her so that he or she may aspire to fulfill the meaning and intention reflected by that name given.
Similarly, when anyone calls himself a “muslim,” he ought to “submit his whole self consciously and willingly to God.”
Otherwise, he is simply lying which, based on the famous saying of the Prophet, is the hypostasis of hypocrisy.
A name, as such, is what a person, a thing or an organization is expected to be or to perform, whether or not the person, thing or organization involved really makes it according to expectation.
If one ends up hearing the pejorative “Apa ada pada nama?” being invoked against oneself, then one should start to stay alert and act accordingly towards a more positive direction.
Otherwise, one is simply not worth the name!