Bishop Paul Tan
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.
Bishop Paul Tan is the immediate
past president of the Catholics Bishops’ Conference of Singapore, Malaysia and
Brunei.
