By : Bishop Paul Tan
FOR CENTURIES, Christians in
Islamic countries, especially in the Middle Eastern countries where Islam was
born, have been using the word Allah without stirring up any storm in the tea
cup.
The reason why I write this short article is
to dispel all doubts about facts, truths and rationality in the use of the word
Allah, a non-issue really. It becomes an issue when it is being politicised
which is the case in Malaysia. This article is not intended to be polemical.
First, allow me to make a
few introductory remarks.
(1) I do not pretend to
speak for every Christian, less still for everyone. I speak for many people who
do not profess the Islamic faith in Malaysia and perhaps for a number of
Muslims in and out of Malaysia.
(2) I do not claim that
Christians must use the word Allah. It is up to everyone in accordance to his
or her conviction.
(3) I only claim for every
human being the right and freedom to use any word found in any language.
Upholding this principle, I personally claim that I have the right to use the
word Allah.
In this present Malaysian
context, it must be said explicitly: it is not that Christians want to use the
word to confuse Muslims; rather, it is taking a stand that no one has the power
to take away the God-given right to a human person the freedom to use whatever
word he or she wants to use provided the rights of others are not being
violated.
If certain Muslims in
Malaysia feel that their rights are being violated, they have only to look at
history to know that for centuries, Christians in Islamic countries, especially
in the Middle Eastern countries where Islam was born, have been using the word
Allah without stirring up any storm in the tea cup.
To say that using the word
Allah may confuse the Muslims in Malaysia is tantamount to casting aspersion on
them because it is accusing them of having a faith so weak that, unlike their
Muslim brothers and sisters in other countries, they are easily shaken because
people of other faiths use the word Allah for God. Sikhs, Bahai’s, Maltese,
Mizrahi Jews, etc., use Allah. More of this later.
In the same setting, I would
like to emphasise that Malaysia is a constitutional or parliamentary democracy
and not a theocratic state, in concrete, an Islamic state; say what you want,
the fact remains that at the inception of the Federal Constitution, our
founding fathers did not want Malaysia to be an Islamic state.
Our founding father Tunku
Abdul Rahman’s statement on the matter is the best testimony.
The Sultan of Selangor and
the Sultan of Pahang have banned non-Muslims from using the term Allah. Our
Federal Constitution does not give any sultan the power to dictate to people of
other faiths what religious rules that they must follow.
People of faiths other than
those of Islam have their own religious heads who govern and tell them what is
right or wrong in accordance with their religious beliefs.
Facts and reasoning
My claim of human right for
everyone on the use of any word from any language, in this case the word Allah,
is based on the following facts and reasoning.
Allah is a pre-Islamic word
used by Arabs, e.g., the Arabs in Mecca, before Prophet Muhammad was born.
For these Arabs, the word,
Allah, means “creator deity”. It is therefore not an Islamic creation and
Muslims have no exclusive claim to it although they may and have injected into
it specific nuances.
If the Holy Prophet Muhammad wanted Muslims to
use a specific word with special connotations that others did not have, he
would have created a new word and not use a word already used by the Arabs and
Arab Christians before his time.
Besides, Christians, Mizrahi
Jews, Bahai’s, Maltese, Sikhs, and others use the same word. The Skhs have
publicly proclaimed that their Holy Scriptures have used the word Allah 37
times. The Sikhs ask the rhetorical question: Are they also forbidden to read
and pray their Scriptures?
This word Allah and its
cognates are found in many languages. Just to give a few examples:
in Urdu/Persian/Dari/Uyshur,
it is the same word, Allah; in Bengali, and in Bosnian languages, it is also
Allah; in Czech and Slovak languages, it is Allach, etc.,
In the Holy Quran, it is
written clearly that Jews, Christians, Sabeans worship Allah. Allow me to quote
only one surah – surah 2:62: “Those who believe in the Quaran and those who
follow the Jewish Scriptures and the Christians and the Sabeans… who so believe
in God (Allah) and the last day…
In our own country, in Sabah
and Sarawak, our Bumiputera, e.g., Kadazans, Ibans, Bidahyus, Melanaus, etc.,
have been using the word Allah in their languages for umpteen years.
No country in the world,
including the Arab countries in the Middle East and, closer to Malaysia,
Indonesia, forbids non-Muslims from using the word Allah. Christians in these
countries have been using it for centuries. At present, there are about 10 to
12 million Arab Christians using the word Allah for God.
If some Malaysian Muslims
claim that non-Muslims cannot use the word because the Malaysian Muslims’
understanding of Allah is unique to them, then logically they are saying that
the Arab Muslims also have a different understanding of Allah from their
understanding because the Arab Muslims use the word Allah for God and allow
Christians to use the same word.
Consequently, we would be a
laughing stock of enlightened people in the world if we were to continue to make
criminals of people of faiths other than those of Islam because they use the
word Allah.
I have in my possession a
Dutch Gospel according to St Matthew or in Malay Language, Injil Matius, in the
book “Nuevve Testament.” It was translated into the Malay language in 1629. In
it, the word for God is translated as Allah. There are other Christian
literatures translated into the Malay language after 1629 using Allah for God.
There is only one God
Permit me to quote wholesale
Malaysiakini on what lawyer Annou Xavier said:
“The May 4, 2009 order by
the court, according to Annou, stated the applicant (Jilil Ireland Lawrence
Bill, a Melanau Christian) be given a declaration that it is within her
legitimate expectation to use the word Allah and have ownership, to obtain, use
and import such materials including printing items with the word for her own
practice.”
He further brought MAIS’s
attention to a circular, dated April 11, 2011 and endorsed by Prime Minister
Najib Tun Razak himself, which stated that the government has agreed that
non-Muslims may import, buy, print, distribute, read and use the bible in any
language, including Bahasa Malaysia.
Further to this, although
the issue is still pending on the appeal to the court of appeal, KL High Court
has ruled on Dec 31 2009 that the ban on the use of the word “Allah” by people
of faiths other than those of Islam is illegal.
There is only one God, call
Him/Her/It whatever you want, Brahman, God, Almighty, Absolute, Allah, Shang Ti
or Tian or Tian Zhu. The One Creator does not change just because we humans
change the word or the meaning of the word. He is the One Creator of all
creatures.
Hence, to forbid people who
profess faiths other than those who profess Islam is to say that Allah is not
the creator of non-Muslims.
This would indeed be a
blasphemy to Allah. A greater insult would be to confine Allah to Muslims and
consequently logically to admit that there are other gods, true or false,
besides Him/Her/It. This would be against the very tenet of Islam that there in
only one God.
God does not speak in human
words. Words are created by the human mind that wants to convey to others that which
he or she sees, hears, smells, touches and tastes.
From what comes through
these senses, the human person extrapolates with his/her intelligence all the
common features of similar things and comes up with a symbolic word, e.g., that
is a “tree”.
God is spirit. The Absolute
has no human body through which It comes to know. The Almighty does not speak
in any human language. He/She/It is beyond and above all limited human
language.
Why must one pray in a
particular language, be it in Latin or in Arabic or in Pali, etc.,? This human
rule seems to say that God or Allah can only understand that one language. This
is tantamount to limiting the power of God to being able to understand only one
language.
It is also equivalent to
saying that there are other gods who can understand other languages. It defeats
the basic belief of the monotheist religions that believe that there is only
one god, one god, creator of all things.
Hence, to limit that
absolute being to any human word would be equivalent to making Him/Her/It a
human being. This is what we humans say: “to anthropomorphise” the Absolute
Almighty. It would be an insult to make Him/Her/It less than what IS.
From the above, it is clear
that to forbid anyone from using any word for that Absolute Almighty is to fall
into irrationality and absurdity. It is against all reasoning, all facts and
truths. (FMT)
(NOTE : Bishop Paul Tan is
the immediate past president of the Catholics Bishops’ Conference of Singapore,
Malaysia and Brunei.)
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