Daily Times

I have often pondered over our Khan conundrum, but not until I read an opinion piece in these pages was I moved to actually write about it. The op-ed in question is titled, Khan’s illegitimate child is not our business. Of course, Khan’s whatever child is Khan’s business. But that is another matter. What needs to be made clear is which Khan is being referred to.

Obviously, this Khan has to be very famous to warrant an op-ed with an illegitimate child in tow. Lucky Khan he may be, but in a country of many millions of Khans, one would like to know from the title itself, which Khan this is.

Sexy captions like these undoubtedly attract hordes of readers as ants to sugar. Truth be told, “illegitimate children”, if they carry the genes of Khans and Chowdhrys, cause tremendous fascination, bordering on envy, in our Islamic Republic. However the unfortunate children who spring forth from the immoral, un-Islamic acts of the less fortunate deserve nothing but contempt and condemnation.

Be that as it may, most Pakistani readers would know from the caption of the op-ed in question which “lucky Khan” the author is referring to. I do not make this assumption because this Khan is exceedingly macho, although this is true. I say so because people in Pakistan devote more time to reading, watching, listening to and debating current political and politician-related affairs than any other nation I can think of.

Pakistan may have the distinction of being the country with the most TV anchor-persons and talk shows per capita on current affairs. Politicians have always been fair game, a few have even had open season declared on them. Presently however, this particular Khan and a few other politicians are totally exempt from scrutiny by our army of anchor-persons. Heaven knows why.

Editors should be particularly careful when it involves fathering an ‘illegitimate child’, more clarity at the very outset is highly desirable, lest some Khan be made to feel nervous unnecessarily

Now, let me deal with the confusion around the name Khan. Khan is an honorific, a family name or surname and, usually but not always, a last name. Sometimes, like Chaudhry or Syed, it appears as a first name, as in Khan Mohammad. Occasionally, it pops up somewhere in the middle, like Malik Feroz Khan Noon.

Then there are the double Khans, such as Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan and Khan Abdul Wali Khan. Many referred to them as double-barrelled Khans, some lovingly, others pejoratively.

Don’t get me wrong but, if the above-mentioned two could be called double-barrelled Khans, then our current Khan, the one who allegedly fathered the ‘illegitimate child’, has to be artillery Khan, in sheer ballistic power and bluster, not to mention machismo.

Be that as it may, in a country without a custom or legal requirement of family names, I find the practice of referring to people merely as Khan, a bit awkward and confusing.

Take the number of Khans who have ruled Pakistan (lucky Pakistan!): Liaquat Ali Khan, Feroz Khan Noon, Ayub Khan and Yahya Khan. Musa Khan and Tikka Khan retired as Pakistan Army chiefs without, mercifully, seizing the reins of government. Quite a few Khans have headed the Pakistan Air Force: Asghar Khan, Nur Khan, Rahim Khan, Zulfiqar Ali Khan, Feroze Khan, Mujahid Anwar Khan. The navy has had two Khans as chiefs: Saeed Mohammad Khan and Tariq Kamal Khan.

An exhaustive list of all the Khans who have held very high positions in Pakistani government, armed forces or politics will take many pages, but just to mention a few here: Zafrullah Khan, Raja Ghazanfar Ali Khan, Azam  Khan, Nawab Amir Mohammad Khan, Ghulam Jilani Khan,Sahibzada Yaqub Khan, Choudhry Nisar Ali Khan.

In sports, we have had the Great Khan aka Imran Khan, Mohsin Khan, Younus Khan, Junaid Khan, Shadab Khan, Jahangir Khan, Jansher Khan, Samiullah Khan and Hanif Khan. In the world of music, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Adnan Sami Khan come to mind.

And which Pakistani worth his salt does not know of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of the country’s nuclear bomb!

And if memory serves right, they were never referred to as just Khan, but always as Liaquat Ali Khan, Zafrullah Khan, Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Asghar Khan, Musa Khan or Nur Khan.

Across the border, in India, Bollywood is saturated with Khans: Shahrukh Khan, Amir Khan and Salman Khan, to mention but three super stars. Some other famous Indians with the name Khan: Zaheer Khan, Bismillah Khan, Amjad Ali Khan and Zakir Khan.

Overseas, there is Prince Karim Agha Khan, the spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims, and Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London. According to Wikipedia, “Khan is the surname of over 108,674 British Asian people, making it the 12th most common surname in the United Kingdom and one of only a handful in the 100 most common surnames which are of neither British nor Irish origin.”

Wouldn’t it be better and more correct to refer to Imran Khan as Imran Khan, just as Ayub Khan was always Ayub Khan and Yahya Khan was Yahya Khan? If economy of words is paramount, then Imran, Ayub or Yahya is more appropriate in a country with a surfeit of Khans.

Although it is no longer fashionable, not so long ago, a multitude of women in our subcontinent carried the last name ‘Begum’ or ‘Bibi’. But no newspaper headline ever announced “Begum (or Bibi) gives birth to her tenth child”! With so many Begums and Bibis strutting the stage, we would always, correctly, refer to her as so-and-so Begum or Bibi.

May I, therefore, humbly request our honourable newspaper editors to refrain from mechanically imitating the western practice of using last names only and refer to people not just as Khan, but as so-and-so Khan. I hope no Khan takes umbrage at my suggestion.

Editors should be particularly careful when it involves fathering an ‘illegitimate child’, more clarity at the very outset is highly desirable, lest some Khan be made to feel nervous unnecessarily. A Khan or two might be struck down with a heart attack before they can even get to the body of the article to find out if it is their misdeeds which have been revealed.

Ever read the story about chor ki darhi mein tinka in school?

The writer is a former academic with a doctorate in modern history and can be contacted at www.raziazmi.com or raziazmi@hotmail.com

Published in Daily Times, June 26^th 2018.