Scholars and Islamic experts have agreed to disagree on whether or not it is appropriate for the word 'Allah' to be used by non-Muslims as a direct translation for the word God.

They were part of a spirited yet congenial debate in an open public forum organised by Universiti Malaya’s Islamic Students Association (PMIUM), public discussion advocacy group FPF (Free Public Forum) and the Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall (KLSCAH) with the controversial topic, ' Allah, siapa yang punya ?' (Who does Allah belong to?).

                                        

The seven-member panel included Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad, cultural researcher Eddin Khoo, University Islam Antarabangsa (UIA) comparative religion lecturer Mohd Farid Mohd Shahran, Hadith expert Azwira Aziz , Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) Malay studies lecturer Khalif Muammar, writer Hasmi Hashim dan Muslim convert and missionary Shah Kirit Kakulal Gov.

NONE Khalif started the ball rolling by saying that Allah is a specific pronoun for the God of the Muslims.

"It is not generic!" he thundered, adding that "the name contains the spirit and characteristic of God".

He pointed to what he called the 'Islamisation' process which overtook the Arabic language after the coming of Islam, making the term ‘Allah’ exclusive to Muslims.

Khalif is adamant that any attempts to revert the 'Islamisation' process, such as falling back to use 'Allah' as a generic term would be taking a step backwards from the 1,400 year-old time line of Islamic development.

He also decried politicians who he said are 'mixing religion with politics'.

"Political beliefs cannot influence religion! Religion is bigger than politics," he stressed.

'Allah is not generic'

Khalif also faulted various experts who used Quranic verses to support the use of 'Allah' by non-Muslims for not actually understanding the proper implied context of those verses and just using the explicit meaning.

NONE Meanwhile, UIA's Mohd Farid insisted that the discussion should not move too far off from what he stressed is the real issue at hand.

"We don't want to escalate the issue nor do we want to let it be a non issue."

The issue here, he said, is not the ownership of the word but it's proper usage and translation.

"It's not really a problem for non-Muslims to use the word in daily conversation. However, it is not proper and reasonable for them to use it in publications.

"This may create confusion to Muslims. It may also lead to the use of the word in missionary activities which may derail the faith of some Muslims," he warned.

Muslim convert and missionary Shah Kirit took a less scholarly route in his explanation, saying that he is an ordinary Muslim and not one of the learned ulamas.

However, he qualified that as a former Christian, he could comment for a dual perspective of what he was then and what he is now.

He said that the reason this issue has garnered such strong reactions from ordinary Muslims is because the issue is an important and holy issue.

NONE Shah Kirit also pointed out that the confusion that the use of ‘Allah’ would generate would not only affect Muslims but also Christians, reading out several verses of the Bible where substituting the word ‘Allah’ for God would, he claimed, be problematic for the ordinary Christians.

            

"Language is supposed to explain and clarify issues, not to make them complicated," said the Muslim missionary to reiterate why non-Muslims shouldn’t use the word 'Allah'.

'Non-Muslims can use Allah'

On the other side of the equation, Azwira Aziz voiced the fact that there was no specific verse in the Quran which prohibited the use of 'Allah' by non-Muslims.

He also wondered why is it that there is no mention of any decisions or discussions within the thousand year or so year old Muslim teachings and Islamic texts.

NONE "This is because it is understood that there is no problem with it," he said, adding that anybody that is creating much noise over the issue must be 'extraordinary', implying that they seemed to be more knowledgeable than generations of Islamic scholars.

He also pointed to the fact that according to Islam, Christians are people of the book too and essentially worshipped the same God as Muslims.

Latching on to Azwira's pondering on why it became a problem in Malaysia, Khalid Samad said: "Malaysia is the only Muslim country in the world which has a problem with this. What is the difference between Malaysia and the rest? There is only one thing, and that is Umno."

NONE The PAS parliamentarian ( right ) flatly said that the 'Allah' row is a 'manufactured' issue by Umno.

He instead urged Muslims to consider the usage of ‘Allah’ by non-Muslims as a means to promote ' dakwah ' or spreading the truth of Islam to non-Muslims.

Writer Hasmi Hashim on the other hand said that he was not qualified to talk on the matter from the viewpoint of Islamic precepts. Thus he chose instead, to walk the audience down the historical path.

He broached the historical example of national education icon Munshi Abdullah, who brokered the land for the first Christian church in Malacca and was the person who first translated the Bible into Malay.

"There was no stampede of Malays converting into Christianity then!" he exclaimed.

                                

He decried the unfair vilification of Munshi by certain parties as 'Padre Munshi' and thought that the same negative connotations were being used by certain parties in the 'Allah' row.

The use of 'Allah' by non-Muslims was not the real concern here, he implied, but said that the real concern was the "pressure being put on the rakyat because of this problem."

'God needs no defenders'

Meanwhile, researcher Eddin Khoo called the 'Allah' row a classic example of the "failure of our country to discuss matters."

NONE He also expressed his disagreement with bringing the delicate and complicated matter to the courts where everything is decidedly more black and white.

A more flexible arena, like forums of healthy discussions, he said, was needed to tackle this.

Khoo decried the attempts by self professed defenders of the sanctity of God, quoting former Indonesian president, the late Gus Dur that "God needs no defenders".

He added that entomologically, 'Allah' had been in use by non-Muslims before Islam.

Historically, he related that Islam, especially in the heyday of the Islamic Golden Age of Andalus was the most progressive of religions, which belied the fact of the forum’s discussion.    

About 650 people of all races and faiths attended the event at KLSCAH in Kuala Lumpur last night.

The forum, whose organisers had earlier received friendly 'advice' from the police not to go ahead, however proceeded as planned without any untoward incidents.

Malaysia has been recently rocked by controversy surrounding the recent high court decision to allow Catholic weekly Herald to use the term 'Allah' in its publication.