It’s not to conceal the fact that they’re Muslim. It was simply the standard for a significant period of European history to Latinize names, as Latin was the common tongue of academia. Germans, Norse, and Slavs all suffered this same Latinization.
For that matter, translating names into the local language is far from abnormal in world history - the use of the local name is extremely recent in nearly all languages. Even personal names of people who were known, personally, was not abnormal - famously, T.E. Lawrence was known by his Arab allies as “Auruns”. In English, the Anglicization of Marcus Antonius as Mark Antony by Shakespeare still has currency some 400 years later, even as other Anglicizations of Roman figures have largely fallen out of favor.
This is making mountains out of molehills. It’s one thing to want the Arabic forms to replace the old Latinization - that’s valid. It’s another thing entirely to accuse it of being done to steal credit from Muslims.
It’s not to conceal the fact that they’re Muslim. It was simply the standard for a significant period of European history to Latinize names, as Latin was the common tongue of academia. Germans, Norse, and Slavs all suffered this same Latinization.
For that matter, translating names into the local language is far from abnormal in world history - the use of the local name is extremely recent in nearly all languages. Even personal names of people who were known, personally, was not abnormal - famously, T.E. Lawrence was known by his Arab allies as “Auruns”. In English, the Anglicization of Marcus Antonius as Mark Antony by Shakespeare still has currency some 400 years later, even as other Anglicizations of Roman figures have largely fallen out of favor.
This is making mountains out of molehills. It’s one thing to want the Arabic forms to replace the old Latinization - that’s valid. It’s another thing entirely to accuse it of being done to steal credit from Muslims.