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Fatwa CenterCarrying the name 'Abdul-'Aatif
Question
My name is Abdul Athif K. Athif means 'kind'; so I was given the name Abdul Athif as 'slave of kind'. But when I looked into the 99 names of Allah s.w.t., the name Athif is not present. But everyone calls me only Athif. Is my name going against the principles of Tawheed and is it a Major sin preventing from entering Jannah? Should I change my name in the documents? Jazakallah khairan
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His Slave and Messenger.
If your name is ‘Abdul-Lateef, there is no problem in that because Al-Lateef ('The Gracious' or 'The Gentle'), is one of the Most Beautiful Names of Allaah. But if your name is ‘Abdul Al-‘Aatif, the name Al-‘Aatif is not one of the Most Beautiful Names of Allaah. Allaah's names are only assigned by Tawqeef (i.e. determined only by the Quran or the Sunnah, and not amenable to personal opinion); so Allaah is not to be assigned a name which there is no evidence for in the Quran or Sunnah.
Shaykh Bakr Abu Zayd 
said,
“Another example of such a mistake is to attribute someone as a slave to a name which is assumed to be one of Allaah's names while it is not, such as ‘Abdul-Maqsood ('slave of the object of purpose') and ‘Abdus-Sattaar ('slave of the coverer') ... This is wrong from two aspects. First, from the aspect that it involves assigning a name to Allaah which was not handed down in the revelation, as Allaah's names are determined by the explicit texts of the Quran or Sunnah. The second aspect is that it involves being a slave to what neither Allaah has not named Himself nor His Messenger named Him. Many of them are among the attributes of Allaah, but one would be making a clear mistake to assert that every attribute is a name or to derive a name from it. Allaah The Exalted says (what means): {And Allaah judges with truth.} [Quran 40:20] The verse describes Allaah The Exalted with the Arabic verb yaqdhi ('to judge'); however, we cannot say that Al-Qaadhi ('the Judge') is one of the Names of Allaah and so on.” [Mu′jam Al-Manaahi Al-Lafthiyyah (glossary of prohibited language)]
Some scholars held that assigning names to Allaah The Exalted other than those assigned to Him in the Quran and the Sunnah is a kind of blaspheming His Names. Al-Baghawi said in his Tafseer, “Blaspheming His Names is to assign a name to Him which He has not assigned to Himself and which the Book of Allaah and the Sunnah of the His Messenger have not spoken of.”
Therefore, you are advised to change this name immediately if possible.
Allaah Knows best.
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