Semantics and God

The English language is full of borrowed words -- from Latin, Greek, Spanish, German, and French, to name a few. According to Rabih Alameddine the Oxford English Dictionary includes 500,000 borrowed words. In part this is due to the fact that Britain has been conquered quite a number of times by its neighbors. Of course, as Alameddine points out the Brits have borrowed less words from non-neighbors (except relating to foods). All of this is understandable.
Alameddine writes an op-ed piece in today's LA Times that goes by the title in the print version as "Sacred semantics: Using English to separate 'Allah' from 'God' has become a dangerous practice." As you can tell from the title, Alameddine's concern isn't semantics in general, but a specific issue -- the use of the word Allah. In Arabic, a language that has contributed few words to the English dictionary (and those that have come into our dictionary by and large have taken on a negative connotation -- jihad, hijab), the word Allah is used to refer to God by Arabic speaking Christians, Jews, and Muslims. But, in the English speaking word God and Allah are separated, and Alameddine thinks this is dangerous. In our usage God is the Christian/Jewish deity but Allah is a different one, a specifically Muslim one. Though in Arabic Allah is the word for God, in our context the word doesn't mean the same thing.
He writes:

God, however, is a big deal. The word for God matters quite a bit more than what lands on one's table for dinner at night. We never say the French pray to Dieu, or Mexicans pray to Dios. Having Allah be different from God implies that Muslims pray to a special deity. It classifies Muslims as the Other. Separating Allah from God, we only see a vengeful, alarming deity, one responsible for those frightful fatwas and ghastly jihads -- rarely the compassionate God. The opening line of every chapter in the Koran is "Bi Ism Allah, Al Rahman, Al Rahim": In the name of God, the Gracious, the Merciful. In the name of Allah. One and the same.

The separation is happening on all sides. This year, the Malaysian government issued an edict warning the Herald, a weekly English newspaper, that no religion except Islam can use the word Allah to denote God. No such edict, or fatwa for that matter, is needed for the New York Times: a quick search through the archives shows that Allah is used only as the Muslim God.

In these troubled times, creating more differences, further parsing so to speak, is troubling, even dangerous. I suggest we either not use the word Allah or, better yet, use it in a non-Muslim context.

If we are to have a peaceful future we must learn to understand Islam. We must also understand that Muslims have seen themselves as worshippers of the same God as Christians and Jews. Yes, they believe their understanding of God is superior to the others, but they have always understood their God to be the God of all peoples. Semantics is important -- and sometimes our future depends on getting things right!

Comments

Anonymous said…
of course, being that no Christian ought to be able to see themselves as worshiping the same God as the Muslims do. A quick read of the Qu'ran ought to dispel the notion for anyone who thinks that we do -- especially as regards the teachings of the Muslim faith about Jesus.

Interesting, isn't it, that there wasn't a suggestion that Muslims begin worshiping in the vernacular and call Allah by the local name for God -- once again, it is they who demand that we play the dhimmi and abide by their religious sensitivities.
roy said…
rhymes with right,
I'm pretty sure that Christianity is the only major religion (perhaps only one period) wherein the name for God is the indigenous word in the culture rather than the word from the founder's language. It is also the only major, perhaps only, where the scriptures are read in indigenous languages rather than the language of the founder. Indeed, if you asked most Christians around the world, I'd bet the majority don't even know what language Jesus spoke.

so... it isn't just Islam, it is virtually every religion other than Christianity. I think that does tell us something about the dna of Christianity.

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