"There is no God but Allah."
I can say that expression without hesitation, without shame, and without conversion.
There is no God but Allah.
It is the start of the Shahada, what is essentially the Muslim equivalent of the Apostle's Creed. But just as Muslims could also say "I believe in God the Father, the creator of heaven and earth,"* I can say there is no God but Allah and mean it.
Or at least I can in every culture, language and country, except Malaysia. As a Christian, I am now banned from using the Arabic word for God in Malaysia after a court ruling found that "Allah" is exclusive to Muslims.
The problem is that in Arabic, "Allah" is not God's name, but his title. Allah means God. Just like in English "God," it is a generic word, not an individual identifier. I can say "In Vishnu Hinduism, Tara is the goddess who gives the seed for Lord Vishnu, the supreme god and the creator of the world," without usurping the Christian belief about God the Father being Creator of the Earth. And Vishnu Hindus can just say - as they often have when I tell them my name** - "Tara is the goddess who gives the seed for Lord Vishnu, the supreme god." Or simply "there is a god..."
When I say "There is no God but Allah" all I am saying is "There is no God but God." It is a cardinal belief in Christianity.
What you follow that sentence with is what distinguishes Christianity from Islam and both of those monotheistic religions from Judaism. But all have the same foundational belief. One God. The God. The only God.
In Judaism, God has a name. A real, true name. Several, actually, but one dominant one that the Jewish people do not speak (and that I will not type here out of respect for their belief, though it does appear in full form on the linked page so friends should be warned).
In Christianity, God has several names, mostly the same as those in Judaism, but with some additional ones. Jesus Christ being the most obvious; the Holy Spirit being another. We believe in the triune - three in one - but ultimately it's one God. One Almighty. One Lord of Life. One Emmanuel - One God With Us.
In Islam, though, God does not have a name.*** The Arabic word - the language of the Koran - is used for the generic word God. The usage predates Islam; it predates Mohammed, whose father was, in fact, named meant "God's servant" uses an derivation of Allah in his name. How could Allah be something inherently Islamic if the founder of Islam's father used the word in his name? It is the Arabic equivalent of "god" or "God."
So the Malaysian judgment is telling Christians that they cannot use the word God.
This naturally raises a fundamental question about who owns the word "God"? Can one group have exclusive claim to the word "God"? The answer, of course, is no religion owns God. No religion could.
I didn't use the Jewish name for God out of respect, but at the same time, I could if I wanted to. No where in the Torah is God's name followed by ™. And while certain translations of ancient texts can be copyrighted - for example, the New International Version of the Bible has a copyright - you can't actually copyright facts. So if you believe God is a fact - or if you believe there are multiple gods - then there's no ownership over that fact. There can't be. He just is. (or, she just is; or it just is; or they just are or there just is, depending on your beliefs).
What the Malaysian court is doing, in essence, is to give ownership over God - or at least over God in one language - to one religion. That denies, in essence, the right of other religions to invoke a word for God. A word.
What it becomes, though, is not just censorship over the word but censorship over the debate of who God is.
If one person or one religion owns the word God, it owns the right to define God however it wants, which means dissent from the definition of that word is prohibited. That is evident from the raiding of Christian organizations and the planned protest at Christian churches in Malaysia.
While the some may say it's not that big of a deal when discussing the use of Allah by Malaysian Christians, but it is definitely a big deal when you consider Baha'i believers and Ahmadiyya Muslims. Baha'i, founded in Iran, uses the text of Islam and add to it for the creation of a new religion, must like Christianity does to Judaism. Ahmadi Muslims identify as Muslims but the religion broke from the dominant beliefs in the 1800s. Baha'is, Ahmaddiya Muslims, and the Alawites in Syria, are condemned by some Muslim groups as blasphemous non-believers. All three religions are indigenous to areas or groups in which Allah is the word for God.
Can they use Allah in Malaysia? Do they get to debate God's character and God's prophets with Islamic leaders? Or must they adopt a different word for God, despite their Middle East origins?
And if religions with origins in Arabic-langauge states are protected, then why isn't Christianity - with its origins in present-day Palestine (Bethlehem) and/or the shared city of Jerusalem (old Jerusalem being claimed by the Palestinians) allowed to use Allah?
Consideration of the Palestinian Christians raises the final danger in this whole reworking of the word Allah by Malaysian courts: it suggests that Christianity and other religions don't belong in Arabic-speaking countries.
Christians in the Middle East are already under attack. I know that many of my Middle Eastern Muslim friends will object to this assertion because, well, I tend to hang out with open-minded people regardless of their backgrounds, so my Muslim friends tend to be people who have Christian Arab friends in their home countries. So in their experience, Christians are treated well because they treat Christians well.
But... the evidence suggests things have, in the words of Prince Charles, reached a "crisis point," with some questioning whether Christianity can survive in its Holy Land, in the Land of its origins and the Land of its Savior.
For some, perhaps, that's a positive thing. You know, if you like crimes against humanity and stuff. Because the reason Christianity won't survive isn't that all the Middle East Christians will convert, but that they are fleeing the Middle East - fleeing from persecution, from killing, from church bombings, from targeted attacks. Which means the widespread or systematic attacks against Middle East Christians may reach the status of crimes against humanity.
And now, the Malaysian court has told Middle East Christians they don't even have the right to say "God" in their own language.
I realize that the Malaysian court's decision doesn't extend to the Middle East, but still, the decision suggests that certain sacred words belong only to certain sacred people. It is part of an increasingly problematic way in which religion is discussed globally. Majority religions feel entitled to deride, undermine, or isolate minority religious followers. This has long been the case, and the long-used blasphemy laws - a remnant of colonialism that has not gone away - have been supplemented with increasingly problematic interpretations and a willingness to prosecute minority religious followers for blasphemy. In states where blasphemy prosecutions do not occur, minority religious followers face abhorrent actions when attempting to exercise their faith.
Often religious persecution is through law. Sometimes it is through social exchanges. Now, it is through isolating and claiming exclusive rights to words that identify sacred beliefs.
It is an attack that stems from the belief that some of us have a right to own God. They own his title. They own the word. They own religion.
And that is a problem for everyone.
I can say that expression without hesitation, without shame, and without conversion.
There is no God but Allah.
It is the start of the Shahada, what is essentially the Muslim equivalent of the Apostle's Creed. But just as Muslims could also say "I believe in God the Father, the creator of heaven and earth,"* I can say there is no God but Allah and mean it.
Or at least I can in every culture, language and country, except Malaysia. As a Christian, I am now banned from using the Arabic word for God in Malaysia after a court ruling found that "Allah" is exclusive to Muslims.
The problem is that in Arabic, "Allah" is not God's name, but his title. Allah means God. Just like in English "God," it is a generic word, not an individual identifier. I can say "In Vishnu Hinduism, Tara is the goddess who gives the seed for Lord Vishnu, the supreme god and the creator of the world," without usurping the Christian belief about God the Father being Creator of the Earth. And Vishnu Hindus can just say - as they often have when I tell them my name** - "Tara is the goddess who gives the seed for Lord Vishnu, the supreme god." Or simply "there is a god..."
When I say "There is no God but Allah" all I am saying is "There is no God but God." It is a cardinal belief in Christianity.
What you follow that sentence with is what distinguishes Christianity from Islam and both of those monotheistic religions from Judaism. But all have the same foundational belief. One God. The God. The only God.
In Judaism, God has a name. A real, true name. Several, actually, but one dominant one that the Jewish people do not speak (and that I will not type here out of respect for their belief, though it does appear in full form on the linked page so friends should be warned).
In Christianity, God has several names, mostly the same as those in Judaism, but with some additional ones. Jesus Christ being the most obvious; the Holy Spirit being another. We believe in the triune - three in one - but ultimately it's one God. One Almighty. One Lord of Life. One Emmanuel - One God With Us.
In Islam, though, God does not have a name.*** The Arabic word - the language of the Koran - is used for the generic word God. The usage predates Islam; it predates Mohammed, whose father was, in fact, named meant "God's servant" uses an derivation of Allah in his name. How could Allah be something inherently Islamic if the founder of Islam's father used the word in his name? It is the Arabic equivalent of "god" or "God."
So the Malaysian judgment is telling Christians that they cannot use the word God.
This naturally raises a fundamental question about who owns the word "God"? Can one group have exclusive claim to the word "God"? The answer, of course, is no religion owns God. No religion could.
I didn't use the Jewish name for God out of respect, but at the same time, I could if I wanted to. No where in the Torah is God's name followed by ™. And while certain translations of ancient texts can be copyrighted - for example, the New International Version of the Bible has a copyright - you can't actually copyright facts. So if you believe God is a fact - or if you believe there are multiple gods - then there's no ownership over that fact. There can't be. He just is. (or, she just is; or it just is; or they just are or there just is, depending on your beliefs).
What the Malaysian court is doing, in essence, is to give ownership over God - or at least over God in one language - to one religion. That denies, in essence, the right of other religions to invoke a word for God. A word.
What it becomes, though, is not just censorship over the word but censorship over the debate of who God is.
If one person or one religion owns the word God, it owns the right to define God however it wants, which means dissent from the definition of that word is prohibited. That is evident from the raiding of Christian organizations and the planned protest at Christian churches in Malaysia.
While the some may say it's not that big of a deal when discussing the use of Allah by Malaysian Christians, but it is definitely a big deal when you consider Baha'i believers and Ahmadiyya Muslims. Baha'i, founded in Iran, uses the text of Islam and add to it for the creation of a new religion, must like Christianity does to Judaism. Ahmadi Muslims identify as Muslims but the religion broke from the dominant beliefs in the 1800s. Baha'is, Ahmaddiya Muslims, and the Alawites in Syria, are condemned by some Muslim groups as blasphemous non-believers. All three religions are indigenous to areas or groups in which Allah is the word for God.
Can they use Allah in Malaysia? Do they get to debate God's character and God's prophets with Islamic leaders? Or must they adopt a different word for God, despite their Middle East origins?
And if religions with origins in Arabic-langauge states are protected, then why isn't Christianity - with its origins in present-day Palestine (Bethlehem) and/or the shared city of Jerusalem (old Jerusalem being claimed by the Palestinians) allowed to use Allah?
Consideration of the Palestinian Christians raises the final danger in this whole reworking of the word Allah by Malaysian courts: it suggests that Christianity and other religions don't belong in Arabic-speaking countries.
Christians in the Middle East are already under attack. I know that many of my Middle Eastern Muslim friends will object to this assertion because, well, I tend to hang out with open-minded people regardless of their backgrounds, so my Muslim friends tend to be people who have Christian Arab friends in their home countries. So in their experience, Christians are treated well because they treat Christians well.
But... the evidence suggests things have, in the words of Prince Charles, reached a "crisis point," with some questioning whether Christianity can survive in its Holy Land, in the Land of its origins and the Land of its Savior.
For some, perhaps, that's a positive thing. You know, if you like crimes against humanity and stuff. Because the reason Christianity won't survive isn't that all the Middle East Christians will convert, but that they are fleeing the Middle East - fleeing from persecution, from killing, from church bombings, from targeted attacks. Which means the widespread or systematic attacks against Middle East Christians may reach the status of crimes against humanity.
And now, the Malaysian court has told Middle East Christians they don't even have the right to say "God" in their own language.
I realize that the Malaysian court's decision doesn't extend to the Middle East, but still, the decision suggests that certain sacred words belong only to certain sacred people. It is part of an increasingly problematic way in which religion is discussed globally. Majority religions feel entitled to deride, undermine, or isolate minority religious followers. This has long been the case, and the long-used blasphemy laws - a remnant of colonialism that has not gone away - have been supplemented with increasingly problematic interpretations and a willingness to prosecute minority religious followers for blasphemy. In states where blasphemy prosecutions do not occur, minority religious followers face abhorrent actions when attempting to exercise their faith.
Often religious persecution is through law. Sometimes it is through social exchanges. Now, it is through isolating and claiming exclusive rights to words that identify sacred beliefs.
It is an attack that stems from the belief that some of us have a right to own God. They own his title. They own the word. They own religion.
And that is a problem for everyone.
*I need a quick caveat to my assertion of Muslim repetition of the first line of the Apostle's Creed. I have seen my Muslim friends refer to God as Father, but I don't know if they would ever refer to "God the Father" because they do not recognize the triune. Still, they could easily say "I believe in God, Father, the creator of heaven and earth."
**No, that's not who I was named for. But I do love that my name is that of a goddess in any culture or religion.
*** Note: I think Aslan is overly harsh in his treatment of the Malaysians on this issue, but I ended to link to him for the point he makes about the lack of a name in Islam. His comments did inspire this post.
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