Description

Names - A Study of Personal Names, Identity and Power in Pakistan / Tariq Rahman / Hardcover / Oxford University Press

ISBN: 9780199402588 / 978-0199402588

ISBN-10: ‎ 0199402582

ISBN:	9780199402588
Publisher:	OUP Pakistan
Imprint:	Oxford University Press
Pub date:	04 Jun 2015
Edition:	First edition
Language:	English
Number of pages:	240

This book is the first scholarly study of personal names in Pakistan and is based on an analysis of names from all over the country, both from the early years and from the contemporary period. The only earlier study was by Sir Richard Temple in 1883 and the data for that came from East Punjab, now in India. Thus there was only one chapter on Muslim names in it.

This work describes beliefs about names, onomastic practices, and changes in names during the last sixty years or so. Names are indexed with identity and reflect a personas religion, sect, class, region (urban or rural), degree of modernization, and ethnic origin. They may be markers of social worth or stigmas. In some situations they may well be dangerous and people may conceal their names or take up new names to avoid persecution. This study of names, therefore, provides insights into the way identity, ideology, and power are inter-related in Pakistan.

Tariq Rahman PhD is presently Dean, School of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at the Beaconhouse National University, Lahore. He is also HEC Distinguished National Professor and Professor Emeritus at the National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. Dr Rahman has been a guest professor in Denmark and Spain, and a Fulbright research scholar (1995-96) at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. He was also the fiArst incumbent of the Pakistan Chair at U.C. Berkeley (2004-05). He has been a research fellow at the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies and the South Asia Institute at the University of Heidelberg. He has been given several awards: the Presidential Pride of Performance (1994), HEC lifetime achievement award, the highly prestigious Humboldt Research Award (2012) from Germany, and the Sitara-i-Imtiaz in 2013. He was awarded a higher doctorate (D.Litt) by the University of Sheffield for all of his published research in 2014.