Brian Whitaker - "In God's name"

On Monday, there was an excellent article on one of my pet peeve topics...the God-versus-Allah issue:

In God's name
by Brian Whitaker
The mainstream media should take a closer look at whose agenda they are following when they use the word 'Allah' to mean 'God'.
Guardian Unlimited - January 22, 2007

Some key excerpts from the article:

"Arab Christians worship 'Allah' too, and the first verse of the Arabic Bible informs us that 'In the beginning Allah created heaven and earth.'"

"By opting for 'Allah' they are aligning themselves, in effect, with those who view international politics in terms of a clash of civilisations and even seek to bring it about."

"Since (Edward) Said wrote his influential book, however, we have also seen the rise of another phenomenon which might be called 'reverse orientalism', where Arabs and Muslims deliberately 'other-ise' themselves in order (they hope) to better resist western influence...Consequently, the pressure to turn God into 'Allah' when writing about Muslims comes from two opposing but equally suspect directions...This is not so much a clash of civilisations as a collision of bigotries, and news organisations should not play along with it. If they are referring to God, then 'God' is what they should say."

He also uses the following quotes from Dr. Umar F. Abd-Allah's article One God, Many Names:

"From the standpoint of Islamic theology and salvation history, it is simply unacceptable to deem the Biblical God and that of the Qur'an to be anything but the same..."

"Muslims, Christians and Jews should have no difficulty agreeing that they all turn to the God of Abraham, despite their theological and ritual differences. Historical arguments between their faiths have never been over what name to call Abraham's God."

Brian Whitaker mentions that Dr. Umar Abd-Allah, "criticises English-speaking Muslims who insist on talking about 'Allah' instead of 'God' since that "serves only to reinforce the groundless claims of the religious right." In One God, Many Names, Dr. Umar also makes the following useful observations--especially for those involved in Islamic outreach (da'wah):

"It is natural for English-speaking Muslims to have a special attachment to the word 'Allah'... but it rarely has that same effect on non-Muslim, non-Arab listeners..."

"'Allah' continues to evoke a wide range of deeply ingrained cultural prejudices and negative associations, conscious or subconscious. On the other hand, 'God' creates an immediate associative response in most non-Muslim native speakers of English that would be virtually impossible for 'Allah' to evoke even after years of positive exposure."

For the sake of da'wah, please take this to heart!

Deen On...