What's in a name?

What old surnames tell you about the age of AI.

Ferrari means blacksmith.

Schmidt does too. So does Kovács in Hungary, Kuznetsov in Russia, and Herrero in Spain.

The Ummah did the same thing. Al-Haddad in Arabic, Demirci in Turkish and Lohar across the subcontinent. That’s the same smith, over and over, in every language that needed iron.

Among the Mande of West Africa he was called the Numu. Born to the forge and to the secrets of iron, his craft passed down a bloodline that could not choose otherwise.

The man who worked in iron was Smith for the rest of time. And so were his sons. In later generations, his descendants inherited the name, even if the work was different. This represented the work of their family heritage.

Where the work was not in your name, your caste held it instead. Your work was not what you did. It was who you were, and settled before you were even born.

That surname recorded what came out of his hands; the horseshoes, the blades, the nails, the tally at the end of the week. All the outcomes of the work, encapsulated by his name.

That name did not record anything else. Smith doesn’t tell you what he believed or what he loved. It did not tell you who he was when the forge went cold and the village slept.

Nobody asked because they didn’t need to. Because the output, traditionally was the whole of the man.

That was history. Now the names are different - as traditional industries died, so did the old names. After all, it would be weird to be called Matthew Senior Assistant Administrator.

But we still identified ourselves by the job. It was now said in conjunction with the name during introductions at parties. “Hi, I’m Faisal Amjad, and I work in purchasing”.

I remember saying that often. For most of a decade that was the answer I would tell anyone who asked who I was.

I was pretty good at it, too. Buying requires good relationship building and good commercial nous and I was pretty decent at both.

But isn’t that the entire problem? We define ourselves by our output, by how ‘useful’ we may be to society. And now a time is coming where what we do and the output we produce, may not even matter. Because a machine will probably do it better than us.

So what does that now look like, in the age of AI?

The machine represents his identity taken to its conclusion. We measured a man the way you measure a machine for a thousand years. How should we measure him now?

The answer lies in a famous story where a stranger from out of town came to teach.

He walked in from nowhere. White robes, black hair, and no signs of travel on him. He sat knee to knee with the Prophet (saw), close as a student to a teacher, and asked him to explain the faith.

Tell me about Islam. The answer was actions. The testament of faith, the prayer, the charity, the fast, the pilgrimage.

Tell me about Iman. The answer was beliefs. Allah, His angels, His books, His messengers, the Last Day, the divine decree.

Then: tell me about Ihsan.

To worship Allah as though you see Him. And if you cannot see Him, to know that He sees you.

The stranger rose and left. The Prophet (saw) turned to his Companions. That was Jibreel. He came to teach you your religion. (Sahih Muslim)

Islam is what you do. Iman is what you believe. Ihsan is what happens when the first two fuse.

What we do, the actions is what we have always seemed to measure ourselves by. But it’s the other half which stands us apart.

The machine will out-calculate you, out-write you and out-work you, and it will get better at all three while you sleep. But it cannot believe a thing, act on the belief, and be changed by the acting.

It is the belief, which orients the action, and leads to ihsan which is what makes you who you are.

Every language mentions a smith. The Qur’an does too.

Dawud (as) worked iron with his hands. Allah softened it for him and taught him to shape armour that would protect other men in battle. [21:80, 34:10-11]

The skill came down from Allah, and it was aimed at serving and protecting others. The output was never the point of the output - it was who it benefited.

He was a king as well. He didn’t need to be a smith, and nothing forced him towards the forge. The entire treasury was his but he chose to eat from what his own hands made instead. (Sahih Bukhari)

Take away the wages and the hunger, and what is left inside a man’s work is his intention. That is the one thing a machine has never carried into a task. It does what it is instructed - it intends nothing.

Dawud (as) was also known for fasting one day and eating the next. He slept half the night, stood for a third of it, and slept again for a sixth. (Sahih Bukhari, Sahih Muslim) That wasn’t output, either. That was belief and sincerity, just him alone with his Lord in the middle of the night.

Then comes his most important appointment.

Two men climbed the wall into his private chamber while he was alone. They brought him a dispute over sheep, and he ruled on it before he had heard the second man out. Then he saw what he had done and asked forgiveness, fell down, and turned back to his Lord. [38:21-25]

O Dawud, We have made you a khalifah upon the earth, so judge between the people in truth, and do not follow desire. [38:26]

Think about how he got that title of khalifah. It wasn’t the work of moulding armour or ruling on the throne that earned him the title. It was given when he turned back to his Lord.

Dawud (as) was a smith, a king and a prophet. The hands that shaped iron for other men and held the judgement of a nation, and he used both to put order on the earth.

He is the only man the Qur’an addresses by name with that word. Faith and action fused in one man.

Every name in this essay recorded what a man could make. Only one recorded what he became.

Smith was what you were called. But khalyfa is what you were called to.

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P.S. This came from a chapter I cut from the book. This is the equation behind it: Khaly + Faith + Action = Khalyfa and is what it is all based on. The book itself is out now at khalyfabook.com.