When AR Rahman changed his name from Dileep Kumar on request of his mother

AR Rahman, who has given the industry a slew of hits, was born as Dileep Kumar. Many of his fans are unaware of why he chose to convert to Islam. Later in his life, he embraced Islam, along with his family. Read on to know the trivia related to the music mogul's life.

As per a report by Koimoi, AR Rahman, along with his family, embraced Islam, after the demise of his father, RK Shekhar, who was also a music composer. He embraced Islam before the release of his debut project, Roja. The report further added that his friend Trilok Nair had told Krishna Trilok in his authorised biography, Notes of a Dream, that Rahman’s mother Kareema Begum had insisted on changing his name in the film‘s credits at the last minute.

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From Dileep Kumar to AR Rahman 

As mentioned by Scroll.in, AR Rahman stated that he never liked his name and that he somehow felt that his name didn’t match the image he had of himself. More so, the singer continued that before his family and he started their journey on the path of Sufism, they went to an astrologer to show him his younger sister’s horoscope because his mother wanted to get her married.

Speaking about how he was keen on changing his name around that time, Rahman added that he wanted a new identity and that the astrologer suggested the names- Abdul Rahman and Abdul Rahim. AR Rahman remarked that he instantly loved the name Rahman and then his mother had an intuition that he should add Allahrakha (Protected by God) in his name. That's how he changed his name to AR Rahman from Dileep Kumar. 

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AR Rahman made his debut as a music composer with the 1992 movie Roja. The song titled Chinna Chinna Aasai was the first track that Rahman had composed for the film. More so, it was his project with SP Balasubrahmanyam together. Apart from this, the duo had worked on several other projects as well. Some of the movies include Gentleman, Sivaji and Enthiran, among others. 

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