'My ancestors were Brahmin': Muslims in this UP village use Hindu surnames

Lucknow: Naushad Ahmed Dubey, Shiraz Shukla, Israr Dubey—some Muslim names in this otherwise nondescript village in Uttar Pradesh's Jaunpur district, about 200 kilometres from here—may come as a shock to many, but they call the use of Hindu names to be the result of a yearning to be associated with their roots.

Several Muslim families in the Dehri village in the district have started using Hindu surnames such as Dubey, Shukla, and Mishra as suffixes in their names, much to the shock and surprise of their brethren elsewhere.

Though Muslims in Dehri had started using the Hindu surnames much earlier, it caught the attention of media and the people when a wedding invitation card that mentioned the name of the sender as 'Naushad Ahmed Dubey' went viral on social media platforms a few days back.

Naushad's house in the village, located around 35 kilometres from the district headquarters, suddenly became the centre of attention and media persons and others started flocking to his residence to find out what prompted him to do so.

It later turned out that Naushad was not the only person using Hindu surnames as suffixes—there were many others.

"My ancestors were Hindus ... I searched my roots and I found that my ancestors were Brahmins and used Dubey as their title so I also started writing Dubey after my name," sixty-year old Naushad said.

He said that around seven generations back, one of his ancestors had converted to Islam. "My ancestors came here from Azamgarh, the neighbouring district ... they were Brahmins before converting to Islam," he added. Nushad calls him 'Muslim Brahmin'.

Another inhabitant of the village, Israr Dubey, said that the surnames like Sheikh, Pathan, and Syyed were not Indian. "These titles have been given by the invaders who came here from foreign lands," he said.

Israr appealed to the other Muslims, who had converted, to connect with their roots. "It will also promote communal harmony," he added.

Incidentally, these Muslims have continued to follow Islam and have not re-converted. "We follow our religion but at the same time we are not ashamed of revealing our roots," Naushad said.