Allah - The Word

[Xipe Totec]

New York Times

January 11, 2010, 12:02 pm

By ANTHONY SHADID


It was 2006, when I sat with a friend, Hikmat Farha, at the foot of a snow-capped Mount Hermon. Our conversation was about politics, as it usually is in Lebanon, and to make a point, he cited Imam Ali, warrior, sage and seventh-century caliph whom Shiite Muslims consider the divinely sanctioned successor to the Prophet Muhammad.

“Don’t be afraid to walk in the path of righteousness, even if you must venture alone,” Hikmat said, his rendering of Imam Ali’s words from Nahj al-Balagha, the Way of Eloquence, a collection of sayings, sermons and speeches that has served for centuries as a model of Arabic, much the way Cicero’s speeches did for Latin.

Hikmat was a Greek Orthodox Christian. So was his town, which still prides itself on its Bedouin roots, a sense of honor and hospitality so pronounced that a relative there once threatened to beat guests if they refused to eat at his table. I thought of our conversation amid the news about an uproar in Malaysia over a court ruling that overturned a government ban on the Christian use of word Allah to denote God.



http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/allah-the-word


Be sure to read the posted comments as well.

[Igel]

1. You know, it's a very strange thing, this controversy.

Most people say inane things for the right reasons to reach the conclusion they think right.

Some are saying more correct things for the wrong reasons to reach the conclusion they think right, but which most disagree with.

It's the inverse relationship between accuracy and motives that strikes me as amusing.

So people keep saying 'allah' is just the Arabic word for 'god', Xian, Muslim, or other. So why the problem in Malay?

Well, nobody's actually said the history of the use of the word in Malay. On the one hand, since 'allah' is Arabic, one presumes it was a word introduced with Islam, when the first traders or preachers showed up speaking Arabic or citing the Qur'aan. Before then, Malay would have had other words. That is, 'allah' was a word introduced into Malay and adjacent languages as the word for the specifically Muslim god. (Now Muslims may say they and Xians have the same god, although the Muslims have the best revelation and the Xians mucked with their book, but not all Xians believe this since it requires that we believe we have the same god, one that decided up pre-empt the final revelation he gave us--or we can decide that we mucked with our book, which yields the same general conclusion, that we're wrong and they're right.)

On this point, at least, I go with the Muslims. It was their word and it was taken over by others. Perhaps the Muslims involved are undercutting their own PR because instead of leading Xians to Muhammed it leads Muslims to Jesus. Dunno. But it seems a simple enough fact that it started off as uniquely Muslim in Malay.

At some point in Malay non-Muslims adopted the word. That's when the argument should have occurred. Xians may have been the adopters, perhaps it was taken over by other faiths first. Perhaps that happened 200 years ago, perhaps 800 years ago--nobody's said. But surely the other word(s) for god are still around and could be pressed into service. Except those probably are marked for 'false god'.

So synchronically it seems like the Muslims are making a difficult argument. The word's escaped from confinement and is out and about. Trying to shove it back into the masjid seems difficult. I wonder if 'allah' is the generic word used by non-monotheists (construed broadly to include Xians).

[Jim__]

2. Did you read the cited article on the controversy?

When you read that article, it doesn't sound strange at all:

he tensions are shaking a multiethnic, multiracial state that has tried to maintain harmony among its citizens: mostly Muslim Malays, who make up 60 percent of the population, and minority Chinese and Indians, who mostly practice Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism.

About 9 percent of Malaysia’s population of 28 million people are Christians, most of them Chinese or Indian. Analysts say this is the first outright confrontation between Muslims and Christians.

But race has become a staple of political discourse in recent years, and religion has been its vehicle, said Ooi Kee Beng, a fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.

The ruling party in Malaysia is losing political power and it sees this racial and religious tension as a way to hold on.

It's sad that we can all be so easily manipulated by people who definitely do not have our best interests at heart.

[Xipe Totec]

3. What intrigued me was the follow-on posters arguing about the word Ojala

Which means "hopefully" but the original literal meaning is "Allah willing"

In Portuguese, the word is "Oxala" and the hopefulness of this word is beautifully expressed in this song by the group Madredeus:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMWq4l_UWvk

[rd_kent]

4. .