Forty One

In Malaysia particularly (mostly because I'm not aware of the situation in the other parts of the world), more often than not policies and laws are made and implemented selectively. This, from my very limited observation (I do put quite a lot of disclaimers, don't I?) are subject to the interest of a certain parties.

 The most recent issue is on the Kalimah Allah where the court of law held that non-muslims are disallowed to use Allah's name. I totally understand their predicament and worries; that is to protect 'Allah' from being misused and abused. But the act of deterrence would only widen the gap between Islam and other religion (or so I presume).

 Man in general and Muslims in particular are created no other than to worship Allah.

وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنْسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُونِ

(Al-Dzariyyat: 56)

 And as Muslims it has become our duty to protect the sacred religion and to do da'wah throughout our life. It's our responsibility to make people understand our religion, to untangle their confusion and to make peace.

 It shouldn't become an issue if tolerance and respect are practised comprehensively. What happens nowadays is it seems that it is okay for Muslims to mock other religions but not the vice versa.

 The decision on Kalimah Allah, to my mind, only pushes away those who intend to understand Islam better. Islam is portrayed to be untouchable and it defeats the whole concept of Islam that's warm and welcoming.

 This punitive decision isn't a great way to educate the ignorants about the holy name of Allah and Islam as a whole. I reckon it would only ignite more rebels and condescending comments would be made immensely, surreptitiously - to the worse.

 We want to clean the air, to clear the misconception they have about Islam. The foundation of Islam is Tauhid. You've get to strengthen the Tauhid rububiyyah and Tauhid uluhiyyah. Then only we deal with Asma wa as-sifat (tauhid that deals with the 99 names of Allah). Faith can't be forced. And, there are many other Allah's name people can make fun of and we won't even notice because some of the Muslims don't even know the rest of the 99 Allah's names.

 We disrespect Allah's right - to miss the fardh prayers, to omit his prohibitions... And when it comes to making people who don't understand Islam, we become furious. Let's educate, let's stop penalising. Let's start mending the Muslims in us by correcting ourselves, so we could set a good example. So people (especially the non believers) would have more respect towards Islam. So we won't be belittled. So people would understand our message through our gestures. So we fulfill the aim of why we're even created in first place.

Salam Aidiladha 1434H.