The Word of Allah

[He has made it] straight, to warn of severe punishment from Him and to give good tidings to the believers who do righteous deeds that they will have a good reward.

[AL-KAHFI Ch.18:V.2]

          In the name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful. Peace be upon all of you. Praise to Allah as He still give me opportunity to write again in this blog. Praise to Him also for giving us longevity to stay on His earth. Thanks to all of you, the readers for giving me a moral support to always write a new entry. Almost every week has an entry, Alhamdulillah. All these ideas not totally originate from me but it is also from other person.

          Every week I try to bring new challenge to me to write a better entry. As for today, it looks like a peak for my blog. I am going to deliver message from a very sensitive issues in Malaysia for the time being. Therefore, before going into the real topic, I hope that everyone can open their mind to accept this message. I am not forcing you to accept my point of view, but to take it and rethink about it. This is the time for us to agree to disagree. So our topic today is about word of Allah.

          I will try my best to touch on other people point of views. There are people who say that the word of Allah can be used by non-Muslim people and there are also people who prohibit the non-Muslim, especially the Christians to use the word of Allah in their Holy Bible. It is not only on can be used or not, but I will also try to touch on the preparation for the Muslims if the word of Allah can be used by others. I think this is going to be a very long entry and hope you will not bored of it.

          I will state my point of view about this issue. I tend to say that the word of Allah can be used by non-Muslims in their daily life talk. But if to use the word of Allah in the Holy Bible, maybe I will say don’t. I will come out the proof later. However, I am not person that have power in the government that can allow and disallow the non-Muslims from using that word. So I can only try to make the Muslim understand the true God through my blog and my entries before.

[All] praise is [due] to Allah, Lord of the worlds.

[AL-FATIHAH Ch.1:V.2]

          The simplest evidence I can bring to all of you. The evidence is the verse above, the verse that Muslims read in their prayer, 17 times per day. Most Muslims can understand the meaning of this verse. Allah is the Lord of the whole world. The meaning of the world here is the whole universe. All things were created by Him. It is does not matter you are what religion, or what race, in what country, He is my God and your God. He is my creator and your creator.

          If Allah is only for Muslim or Islam, the verse will say like this; “Lord of the Muslims.” But it is not. Therefore it shows that word of Allah can be used by the others also. For example, the non-Muslims say that Allah makes the rain fall. Yes, they are absolutely correct. Do not we go and corrected them, by saying; “No, you can say Allah. You must say your own God’s name or your idol.” In this case, it looks like the non-Muslims are correct and the Muslims in the wrong way (astray/sesat).

          When the non-Muslims tend to use it, we as Muslims should take this as an opportunity to guide them. We must spread the love and spread the news. We must tell them about Allah, the real God. We should try to make them understand more about Allah correctly and then guide them to embrace Islam. They are asking to step forward and that step making them closer to us. So we need to take this chance to make them one of us.

And if you asked them, "Who sends down rain from the sky and gives life thereby to the earth after its lifelessness?" they would surely say "Allah." Say, "Praise to Allah "; but most of them do not reason.

[AL-ANKABUT Ch.29:V.63]

          There are many examples of verses that similar to the above verse. But I only take one as example to the readers. In this verse, Allah tells our Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) to go and ask the non-Muslims people about the rain. Prophet Muhammad is told to ask who make the rain down. The people answer that Allah makes the rain fall. Although they are not Islam, but they admit that Allah is the creator. But they are musyrik, the person that double Allah or taking other things as God beside Allah.

          One of the scholar says that, as long as they (non-Muslims) referring Allah to a divine thing. We can accept it. But it they are referring Allah to their idols, we cannot accept it. That is the reason that some people giving the permission to the Christians to use Allah in their Holy Bible because it used to refer to divine thing. But if other religions that worship idols asking the permission to use the word of Allah, I am sure all people will agree not to give the permission.

          There is also evidence in one hadith about treaty between the Muslims and the non-Muslims, in the time of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). Both sides agree to use in the name of Allah. You can look by yourself. If I explain here, it will make this entry longer.

The Jews say, "Ezra is the son of Allah "; and the Christians say, "The Messiah is the son of Allah." That is their statement from their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved [before them]. May Allah destroy them; how are they deluded?

[AT-TAUBAH Ch.9:V.30]

          The Jews and the Christians already used the word of Allah before. Like in the above verse, that they misused it. For us (Muslims) we believe that starting from the Prophet Adam (pbuh) until the last prophet that are Muhammad (pbuh), they brought the same religion that is Islam. But most of the time, the follower change the religion. That happened to the Jews and Christians. Therefore, before the Quran was sent to Prophet Muhammad, they (Jews and Christians) already used the word of Allah.

          They (Jews and Christians) misused the word and saying something that make Allah very angry to them. So what they did is very bad things. But some people say that is not the reason to make the word of Allah exclusive for Muslims only.

They have certainly disbelieved who say, "Allah is the third of three." And there is no god except one God. And if they do not desist from what they are saying, there will surely afflict the disbelievers among them a painful punishment.

[AL-MAIDAH Ch5.V.73]

          Now I am going to give reason from the people that say the word of Allah only can be used for Muslims only. The above verse tells us do not say trinity. Saying Allah is three or have son, it is totally wrong. However, we cannot shut all the people. But maybe we can prevent them (Jews and Christians) from using the word of Allah in their scriptures. In the other country, this problem did not raise. Only in Malaysia we face this problem.

          There are also people say that when the other religions use the word of Allah, it can make Muslims confuse. Yes, I admit this statement has the truth. Let us look back to our own background. For example me myself, I did not learn much about religious things when I was a young boy. Maybe people that did not learn will confuse. Although there is in syllabus at school to learn about religious (Islam), but people just take it to pass in exam. They did not learn to understand and to practise it.

          There are also people think that the one who are asking to use the word of Allah because they want to introduce pluralism in Malaysia. They want to make people think that all religion is the same and then people from different religion can marry as they believe in the same God that is Allah. Yes, maybe it is true. The other thing is, Muslims feel that they will be insulted when the non-Muslims use the word of Allah. When the non-Muslims say that Allah is 3 in 1 or has son, this is like insulting the Muslims. Yes, I agree with that also.

So woe to those who write the "scripture" with their own hands, then say, "This is from Allah ," in order to exchange it for a small price. Woe to them for what their hands have written and woe to them for what they earn.

[AL-BAQARAH Ch.2:V.79]

          I bring to you three reasons and I will answer that. It looks like I am in both sides. Agree and also disagree. I go to the easiest point first, that is about insulting. In Arab, the Christians used the word of Allah in their Holy Bible. They can use it. But there is no such thing happen there. About the pluralism, in Malaysia, for a Muslim to get marry they have to undergo many processes. Some important steps must be included so that the Muslims do not marry the non-Muslims before they (non-Muslims) revert. Although in Quran there is verse Allah says that we (Muslims) can marry the women from Jews and Christians. But there are explanations behind that verse.

          Next is about making the Muslims confusing. They claimed that by using the word of Allah, the non-Muslims, especially the Christian’s missionaries can make the Muslims confuse and convert them. That is true at some point. But the government in Malaysia claimed that Malaysia is an Islamic country. They (the government) already rules for more than 50 years. They should already made the people (Muslims) very good in Islam and have a good knowledge about faith (aqidah). Now we (all of us) should blame them (the government) for not doing their duties efficiently or maybe did not doing their job at all.

          In Malaysia, the other religion (except Islam) cannot spread their religion. I mean they cannot do dakyah. But maybe there are some people disobey the rules and still spreading their religion. This is the rule in Malaysia that the government made it. So the government should responsible on this thing. If the Ministry of Education plays their role, make sure that the syllabus for Islamic subject is good enough to handle such as this problem. Not only for student at primary school and secondary school, have they also had to make sure the university student also learn Islamic subject no matter what courses you are taking.

Then whoever argues with you about it after [this] knowledge has come to you - say, "Come, let us call our sons and your sons, our women and your women, ourselves and yourselves, then supplicate earnestly [together] and invoke the curse of Allah upon the liars [among us]."

[ALI IMRAN Ch.3:V.61]

          Maybe I already start to give some ideas or ways to get out from this problem. But the above is for the government to check their own selves. I do not think there will be a person from them to read this entry. Now we are person that do not have power. We can only say can or cannot, but we cannot force them not to use or to force them to use the word of Allah. So then, what we can do?

          For person like me, I can only write entries so that people can read it and understand it. This is the reason I wanted to open a blog and the reason that make me write many entries about God @ Allah. We have to start from our family members, our father, mother, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters and so on. Then we have to spread the knowledge to community so that people can understand it and know about it. Maybe you can share this entry and the other entries in FB or other places.

          For organisation or NGOs (Islamic), they must always do a program called street dakwah. Go down to the street, meet people that are non-Muslims and spread the news and the messages. So that the non-Muslims close to Islam, so that they can understand Islam better and we can reduce the misunderstood between them and us. Program such as Interfaith Dialogue also must be done frequently. Only in such program we can gather the Muslims and the non-Muslims. This is what Quran tells us to do, like the above verse and al-Baqarah verse 111. So in this program we can easily spread our religion (Islam) to the other. We also can show to them the truth in our religion.

          I should make the conclusion now because I think if I continue to elaborate about this topic it is going to be longer. There are many people outside that can talk about this topic in very detail. I hope that I already touch on the important points and hope that my messages were delivered clearly without any misunderstood from the readers. My conclusion is very simple, that is the below verse. Thank you for giving time to read this long entry.

For you is your religion, and for me is my religion.

[AL-KAFIRUN Ch.109:V.6]

~Wallahua’lam~