Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Definition of "Allah"

Language for All

Apparently, the latest conflict in my country, Malaysia is the usage of the term "Allah". Of course, churches have been attacked with some Molotov cocktails by some anonymous culprits. People especially conservative Muslims have been dwelling on this matter as the term is deemed to be exclusive only for the Muslims. So, ahh ... this is the latest dispute in my homeland which will most probably drive tourists and FDI's away.

As far as I'm concerned, "Allah" is the standard Arabic word for "God". It is widely used by Arabic-speakers of all Abrahamic faiths which includes Christians and Jews in reference to "God". On top of that, the Christian Arabs of today have no other words to refer to "God" other than "Allah". The same thing applies to other races. A portion Christian Chinese refers to "God" in their own language, Mandarin as : (神; pinyin: shén). In other words, it is pronounced as "shen". Therefore, is the word "shen" exclusive to the Chinese only? Be it "Allah" or "Shen", both of these words have the same meaning. After all, it's only a noun. If the vermins who attacked the churches wanted so much exclusivity for the word, why not give a special name to the God? They must distinguish "Kata Nama & Kata Nama Khas" very well. Well, unless education is what these poor chaps are lack of.

There's no way that we can deny the rights of others to use a secondary language. What's next then? Forbidden students from using English as it is not the national language? For so many years, many non-Muslim Malaysians have been saying "Allar, why this ...... ; Allah why that ...." and so on. Hence, it's totally a waste of time to have a court ruling as it's only an Arabic word. Worst of all, i repeat, it's only a NOUN a.k.a KATA NAMA in Arabic term. I don't care who's behind those dirty attacks, be it political or religious party, we learn KATA NAMA in Primary ONE, ya know?

Last but not least, I hope this crap can be resolved as soon as possible. No doubt, I'm worried I might get jailed for writing this as the Internal Security Act in Malaysia often arrest civilians for some super absurd and ostentatious reasons. Anyway, it's freedom of speech, and I'm going to utilize this to the fullest. For further information, please kindly refer to Wikipedia.

END