The President proposed a geographical name i.e. Khyber, and now the majority ruling party in the province has said it will vote for an Islamic name.
I think the Islam Var is the best of three Islamic names.
MMA proposes three Islamic names for NWFP
**The ruling Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) has proposed three ‘Islamic names’ - Dar-ul-Islam, Bab-ul-Islam and Islam Var - to bring an end to the decades - old dispute on renaming of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP). **The MMA legislators will support anyone of these names when the matter comes up in the NWFP Assembly, which is likely to happen during the current session. The former two of the proposed names are Arabic words that stand for ‘House of Islam’ and ‘Gate of Islam’ while the third has been taken from Pashto language, meaning the ‘Door of Islam’. A female MMA legislator from Mardan, Naeema Kishwar, submitted an adjournment motion in the NWFP Assembly Secretariat, asking for suspension of the routine proceedings of the house to discuss the important issue of renaming the province. “I have asked for bringing the matter on the floor of the house for open debate so that the longstanding issue could be resolved through consensus.
The house has also constituted a committee for the purpose which needs to be activated,” Kishwar said. The provincial legislature is likely to debate the issue on private members days on July 2 and 3. Besides Khyber, Afghania, Pakhtunkhwa, Pakhtunistan and Abasin, the legislator has proposed the three Islamic names - Dar-ul-Islam, Bab-ul-Islam and Islam Var - asking for an open debate on the matter in the provincial legislature. “Yes, I will support an Islamic name for the province. I have talked to several of our MMA colleagues who will favour any of the three Islamic names,” Kishwar said when asked whether she talked to other MMA legislators on an Islamic name. “But we will not impose our idea on rest of the house members, as we want unanimity on the issue. Whichever name is selected for the province, it should portray the local traditions as well as norms and religion,” she added. The Awami National Party (ANP), which has a large vote bank in the province, always advocated Pakhtunkhwa as the new name for the NWFP.
There are many arguments in favour of Abasin and Afghania, as the supporters of both these names claim the alphabet ‘A’ in the word Pakistan stands for it. A heated debate started recently when President Pervez Musharraf expressed his willingness to renaming the NWFP as Khyber. “Our province is yet to have its own identity and name even after 58 years of independence. Currently, the federal as well as provincial governments seem to have agreed on renaming the province with any name that reflects the culture, traditions and religion of its people,” Kishwar said. ‘Islam Var’ has probably been proposed for the first time while the rest have been introduced during different times whenever the issue was raised. “I don’t really know whether it has been proposed already or not but I just want settlement of the issue with any name that is acceptable to all the assembly members,” the female legislator said.