Religious Intolerance Should Not Be Tolerated

In the mid-1990s, an Islamic mufti (religious authority) issued a fatwa calling for excommunication of my uncle, Muhammad Alvi, an award-winning Urdu language poet in India. My uncle’s alleged transgression was a line that said, “O God, if you are too busy to visit us, send us a good angel to guide us.”

The mufti labeled Alvi a kafir, or non-believer, and excommunicated him on the grounds that this one line of poetry was “an attack on the faith and derogatory to the Prophet,” although there is no mention of the Prophet or a specific faith. My uncle felt compelled to issue an apology, and was forgiven.

Such religious prejudice and narrow-mindedness continues in some Islamic societies today. The recent violence against Christians in Malaysia protesting the Catholic Malay language use of the word “Allah” for God is a case in point. Although many arguments are offered about Islam’s peaceful and tolerant principles, these examples do not bode well for the Islamic reputation in the world.

The violence in Malaysia is far from a simplistic knee-jerk reaction. Malaysia is a complex, multicultural, multi-religious and multi-ethnic country with a long history of racial and economic tensions, along with minority-majority dynamics that have translated into pent-up hostilities. However, what appears to be an outlet of sorts of emotions and perhaps diverse grievances have once again been cloaked in Islamic rhetoric, and reek of extremism.

Malaysia, a majority-Muslim country, prided itself as one of the “Asian tiger economies,” excelling in growth, development, and foreign investments throughout the 1990s. Then the Asian financial crisis hit the region in 1997. Now, the government faces allegations of corruption and poor economic policies, which the current global recession has further exacerbated.

The greatest danger is the rise of Islamism in the region. The Christian use of the word “Allah” for God is nothing new, yet Islamists are protesting it, in some cases violently. Arab Christians throughout the Middle East speak Arabic and read the Bible in Arabic. Arabic-speaking Jews also use the word, along with other honorifics.

The root of the word “Allah” is a pre-Islamic Semitic word, most likely referring to the most powerful deity in a pantheon of divinities and idols that the polytheists of the time worshipped. Three goddesses also existed in this hierarchy: al-Lat, Manat, and al-Uzza, the idols of which used to be housed in the Ka’aba. Upon the birth of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad outlawed polytheism, commanding the belief in the one Supreme Being, Allah, the God of Abrahamic monotheism, and he physically destroyed all the idols inside the Ka’aba.

The story tells us that the word “Allah” predates Islam, but Islamists in Malaysia are exploiting the lack of awareness and knowledge about this reality, not to mention the inherent insecurities of the pious. More troubling is the fact that this natural right to use any language in a religion to refer to God had to be fought in a court of law. In fact, the Malaysian government is appealing the court ruling that permitted a Catholic Malay language newspaper to use the word “Allah.”

The United States, Japan, China, Thailand and Singapore are among Malaysia’s top trade partners. These countries should convey to the Malaysian government that such a move against the nearly nine percent of Christians in Malaysia would not translate well politically and economically. This incident has already considerably damaged Malaysia’s global image.

Intolerance should not be tolerated. The Islamists in Malaysia, along with the government, are committing a gross injustice. They are more in need of guidance – divine or otherwise – than ever before.

Hayat Alvi, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Political Science. The views expressed are her own.