Who Is Mustafa In Islam
Tarja Hempton
Update: While I'm interested in Arabic interpretation of these words, what I want to know is why God (or people) use different titles to call other people? For example why calling Hasan ibn Ali mujtaba? and why calling prophet Muhammad (pbuh) mustafa?
Allah used the verb istafa "choose" in first place when he spoke about His religion, His Messengers (namely Adam, Noah and the family of Abraham and the family of 'Imran) and creations he used the word Mustafa when quoting His Messengers -in the Quran explicitly- Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. So all of these are choices for the whole mankind.
In the context of Messengers both the name Mustafa and Mujtaba are valid, but Mustafa has a more general meaning, as it means chosen (in general) not chosen for a specific person/tribe/nation etc. so in this context Mujtaba in relation to Messengers could be considered as contradictory or a more or less "bad choice" as it isn't exact enough and allows a misleading nuance in the meaning.
Note tat both "names" in Arabic are attributes so they can be adapted to some extent or with a restriction to anybody whom could be described this way as if you said "the chosen among scientists ... ". But as said in my comment calling somebody by an attribute needs some basic knowledge in Arabic language beside a reason for calling a person by it. So to call al-Haan or al-Hussain ibn 'Ali al-Mujtaba needs some reason! While calling Muhammad al-Mustafa has some background, al-Qadi 'Iyad said in his shifa:
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