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...

An Update on Islam in America

Just a little while ago I came across a blog posting (here) which, as a former U.S. Marine and graduate of The Citadel, I found quite interesting. This was not only because of the content of the posting, but because its author is the second American Muslim that I've encountered in the past few weeks that also served in the U.S. Marine Corps. The first was Omar Gatto, author of the Omar-Nameh: A Classical Travelogue of a Modern Muslim blog, and now we have AbdurSalaam and his An American Muslim blog.

The article in question had a thoughtful write-up entitled Muslim Cadets Increasing at West Point, in which the author says: "The propaganda that is spread against Muslims and Islam in general, likes to box us off as some seperate bloc or entity, that exists within America yet outside America, who wants to destroy America and the West. This is so far from the truth, that the mere fact that I feel compelled to refute these claims is sickening." Yes, it is sickening and the comments that the CBS article generated were disgusting, ignorant and un-American as well...and AbdurSalam has included some of them in his discussion, so please take the time to understand the type of mentality that we're often dealing with out there.

This same An American Muslim blog also had a nice posting about Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, who has been surrounded by a ridiculous, un-American and hypocritical controversy ever since he announced that he would take his oath of office by placing his hand on the Qur'an—as if swearing on any other scripture would make sense for a MUSLIM (and at this point, feel free to pause and scream in frustrated outrage). However, as AbdurSalaam's timely posting now informs us, "the holy book at tomorrow’s ceremony has an unassailably all-American provenance. We’ve learned that the new congressman — in a savvy bit of political symbolism — will hold the personal copy once owned by Thomas Jefferson." Take that you Islamophobes! Please realize, however, that this entire controversy just proves that, when it comes to being an American Muslim, sometimes you just can't win for losing...someone out there is going to find fault no matter what you do.

And the third thing I found today which serves as a barometer for measuring the current level of Islamophobia in America was the article by Dr. Robert D. Crane entitled CAIR's Latest Challenge: "What to Do About CAIR?" in which he discusses new and on-going efforts to bring an end to CAIR—the leading Muslim civil-rights group in America. This seems to be the typical McCarthy-like witch hunt in which the convenient accusation of giving "aid to international terrorist groups” is made, seemingly for public consumption, thus putting CAIR in the position of being considered guilty until they can prove their innocence. Although the December 29th, 2006 article by Newsweek makes it clear that CAIR "has never been charged with any crimes, nor have any of its top leaders," I'm sure we'll be hearing more about the efforts to undermine the work of an organization that has done so much for Muslims in America over the past several years.

Also, the Orlando Sentinel—which is my local newspaper—recently ran an article on the Sabiha Khan, the new Executive Director of the Orlando chapter of CAIR. Although, I've only met this courageous sister and her husband once, my conclusion was that she seems well suited to the task. Nevertheless, please try to remember her, and all other Muslims involved in trying to help our community at large, in your du'a.

Remember that history is in good hands and Deen On...

Support Shaykh Salek's Mauritanian School Project

Several weeks ago, a friend of mine sent me some pamphlets intended for helping to raise funds for Shaykh Salek bin Siddina's Mauritanian School Project. This is a very worthwhile fund raising effort, so please do what you can to support the spread of traditional Islamic knowledge in West Africa.

The website of this Islamic educational effort, the Dar-as-Salam Mahdara - Oasis of Sacred Learning, has been up for a few weeks now, so please check it out. I've put a new banner on the top right-hand side of the sidebar in an attempt to remind my readers to visit this website, on which they describe their mission statement as follows:

The Dar al-Salam project was established in 2003, to enhance the teaching effort of Shaykh Saleck bin Siddina, near the city of Kiffa, in Mauritania, West Africa.

The school (Mahdara) follows the traditional way of learning which includes time-tested methods of transmitting all the branches of the shari'ah. Men and women of all ages are trained with the utmost care to become excellent students, and later, teachers of sacred knowledge.

The school was initially run by Shaykh Saleck out of his home until the school was able to have its own property and housing.

Since Dar al-Salam opened, the number of students has increased and continues to grow steadily. The project is now in its final phases, and with your generous help can soon be brought to completion.

In addition to posting the banner, I've also scanned one of the pamphlets, converted it to Adobe Acrobat format and uploaded to here, so please feel free do download it, print it and distribute it.

Shaykh Salek, currently a teacher and resident scholar at the Zaytuna Institute, "is respected and widely regarded amongst his peers as a scholar of the highest caliber," whose knowledge, humbleness, warmth and spiritual presence is likely to make a deep impression on anyone blessed enough to spend time with him...so please help contribute to keeping the great tradition of traditional Islamic learning alive in Mauritania and all of West Africa, insha'llah.

Deen On...