What’s in a name? What Does Bader Saab Mean?

I’ve been contemplating a few things since the last weeks, re examining what I expect and do in my practice, and one of the things I was curious was about what this name could mean. At the beginning, looking for a pen name that I liked, I simply thought that Bader Saab was related to the night and the moon, but taking a closer look and searching for more detailed descriptions, I discovered that it’s actually a name related to the rise of Islam.

The most simple part is Saab, which is related to Sa’b, “difficult,” but it turns out it it also related to Saba and/or Sabah, which is “morning”. This made me think about Al-‘Uzza, since She was seen as the planet Venus, the Evening and Morning Star. I found it quite curious because, when I started writing as Bader, I was more interested in Manat, but now considering that Al-‘Uzza stands for war, protection, and healing, it makes more sense to keep the Saab last name.

Now, the most interesting part came when I was looking at the meaning of Bader. Besides some spelling variants and a general meaning of “full moon”, I found there’s a town in Saudi Arabia with that name. Not only that, but the Battle of Badr is also the first important conflict in Islamic history since it was the one that gave religious leader Muhammad the power and influence to spread the word about Islam after he made Abu Sufyan‘s troops retire from the conflict.

There are two interesting videos that offer two points of view, one religious, the shortest, and one historic, more detailed and fascinating:

This made me wonder if I had chosen the wrong name. “Full Moon’s Night”, the basic meaning of “Bader Saab”, was evocative, aesthetically pleasing, and even poetic. Considering I want to become a Modern-Day Shair, a poet that inspires through his writing, it felt good, but now that I knew it was related to the rise of Islam, the first time polytheism lost, I was wondering if I was using the wrong first name.

When I took a look at the conflict and how the Battle of Badr came to be, how Abu Sufyan decided to search for a conflict when it could have easily been avoided and plan a better strategy, something sparked in my mind: The Battle of Badr could have been prevented if this man had been humbler, had been wiser, and hadn’t act in the fire of the moment, focusing on his pride and superiority complex. Bader, thus, was a symbol of humility and wisdom.

Although it was the Muslims who won the fight, they did it trough strategy and taking advantage of their current conditions, whereas the army of Abu Sufyan was lead by a man who took nothing into consideration more than just “eliminate the infidels”. Had he been calmer, more logical, and wise, he wouldn’t have given the Muslims the opportunity to grow in power. Thus, it made me think that Bader could mean logical thinking, strategy, wisdom, humility, along with Full Moon (there was, indeed, a full moon on March 13, 624 CE, the recorded date of the Batlle of Badr according to Montgomery 1956: 12. Curious, for sure).

I find all this so interesting because I think we seldom think about what lies underneath the name we get for ourselves, what meaning could be hiding or we could be ignoring, and how they could relate to what we do. “Full Moon’s Night” sounds good, cool, or any other basic adjective anyone would want to use, but the historical implications of Bader, and the spiritual meaning of Saab, are more in line with what I expect to do as Bader Saab: inspire, create, learn, and act accordingly to my principles.