Behaving Uncivilized and Violent To Be Islamic?
The recent questions on whether
Christians can use the word Allah in their publications has indeed stirred up a
lot of angers and hatred.
First, the bombing of churches by
some religious extremist groups, then a leader of an extreme racist
organization had called for the Holy Bible to be burned as a warning to those
who insist the usage of Allah in their recitations and prayers.
The question is, are those who are
behaving in such an uncivilized manner, like showing the sign of violence,
issuing threats, warnings and inciting hatred to the public really carry the
value of Islam in themselves? Are they really representing Islam in whatsoever
actions they have been carrying out over the issue of Allah?
In which part of the Islam’s holy
book did carries the need to be threatening, to use extensive violence, to
commit harm and to instill hate onto others in order to seek what they claimed
as theirs?
Why do they have to be so
uncivilized in order to be “Islamic”? Are there any verses in the scriptures
permitting one to be in such manner?
Issuing warnings and threats on
other people like giving such statements, for example, “something may happen,
but we will not be able to control them”, “do not test the limits of our patience”,
“we will soak our daggers with your blood”, “if something happen to you, do not
blame us” and many more of these kinds of words. Are these words and actions
issued by those categories as being “Islamic”?
These groups of racial and religious
extremists and insecure politicians (we all knew who they are) are merely
acting to advance their self-interests and pursue for their own political
mileage, and we want to stress that, they are not Muslims at all in true
nature. They are the ones who are supposed to be infidels.
Like other religions, Islam is
indeed universal, and it is a set of teachings to guide its followers in their
way of life.
Practicing an easy, simple and
behaving moderately in their daily lives, this is Islamic. If one fully
observes the value of Socialism, this is also Islamic. Anyone who practices
wisdom and recognizes the high value of civilization, this action is also
indeed Islamic. Those who are observing patience and tolerance with no thoughts
of anger or hate against others are also considered Islamic.
Christians who fully observe their
religion diligently and with faith can also be considered Islamic. Those who
practice the Buddhist or Taoist teachings and fully adopt them in their daily
lives are also Islamic. In fact, those who do not profess any religion,
practices filial piety, moral, wisdom and the middle path in their daily lives
can also be considered as Islamic.
Settling disputes, seeking for
something by ways of threat onto others, by promoting hatred onto others, threatening
the well-being of other religions and their places of worship, dispatching
suicide bombers to end lives of others are indeed cruel and unIslamic.
The term Allah is in fact derived
from a contraction of Arabic definite article “al-“, which means, “the” and
“ilah” stands for “deity” or “god”, meaning “the deity” or “the god”. To make
understandable to the lay people, the word Allah is an Arabic word for God. And
to translate the word God into Arabic, it means Allah, indeed.
Apart from that, cognates of the
name Allah do also exist in Hebrew and Aramaic. In the Sikh holy scriptures,
the term Allah is also used in their daily recitations. So does the Jews who
also use the word Allah to mean God. The Arab Christians for centuries have no
other words for God than Allah. So do the Indonesian Christians and in
Malaysia, the Sabah and Sarawak bumiputra Christians.
It clearly confirms the situation
that the word Allah (which means God) is universal and no one could ever claim
to be his own or to make a copyright out of it. This is indeed a fact that
everyone should accept with wisdom.
We applaud the statements made by
the former Perlis mufti, Dr Mohd Asri Zainal Abidin and former minister in the
prime minister’s department, Datuk Zaid Ibrahim over their defense of the word
Allah being used universally by religions other than Islam. They are the true
Islamic scholar and thinker who made their words based on wisdom, truth and
facts.
