Born as Dileep Kumar, Rahman was born into an affluent musical family. His father, K.A. Sekar, was a well-known music director based in Madras. His death left Rahman, aged 9, with his mother and three sisters to support. He found work as a musician, and although he was talented, having to earn a living at music made it seem a chore.
Rahman remembers these hard times, as well as good times, with calm, accepting them both as the will of God: “When I think I’m doing the action, then I feel the pain. So I get that thought out, because we are not in control of anything. You try hard, you pray–and that’s it. It’s much more peaceful than thinking you can control everything. Because you can’t.” But he admits, "My family went through very hard times, and at that time we met Karimullah Shah Kadiri, a Sufi spiritual healer. We found peace and some progress in life.”
During this time, his family experienced powerful dreams, which convinced them that God was indeed with them. He says, “When you knock at the door, you can enter only when you get a response. Those responses my family witnessed first hand. That’s what made Islam closer to our hearts. It helps us keep our belief in life and goodness.” He took on the name Rahman, the first of the thousand names for Allah, when he and his whole family adopted Islam. Now he is a pious muslim, prays 5 times a day and last year he went for hajj pilgrimage to mecca.
Interview with CNN’s Lorraine Hahn
LH: You weren’t born a Muslim though, right? You converted in your 20s – what was the turning point?
AR: well, when my father died we had a spiritual healer which met us. He kind of foresaw my whole future, and all this stuff he said ‘you will come to me after 10 years and this is going to happen to you’ I said – what is he saying? And then it all happened, and then my studio was built and then I started getting intrigued by Islam and Sufism. So what I did was, with my first movie Roja, I changed my name to AR Rahman, which is Allah Rakha Rahman. And it’s been- I’ve been opening doors of spirituality one by one.