Pagan God and Uslub Mujadalah.

They are many bloggers supporting the court ruling coming out with reasoned arguments. These I can accept even though we do not agree with each other. But those that come into my blog leaving remarks like fucking extremists, narrow minded religious bigot, guarantee their remarks will never see the light of day. Worthy adversaries however, deserve honour and respect.

There is this argument going around saying that if even Nik Aziz has agreed to its usage, why are you people still opposing the ruling of the court? With due respect to NIk Aziz, his views are not representative of all Muslims. Or even the PAS rank and file. And I am not even sure that you people who quote his name favourably now on this issue, are even on the same wave length with him. For all I know, you may be running with the hare while hunting with the hounds.

The next question often asked, why can't we be allowed to use Allah as you Muslims do? Because we Muslims use Allah conscious of the meanings read into it. You may be using the name just to refer to God.

I need to answer the following issues.

One.

One writer on his blog asked possibly with a dash of triumphalism, what religion did the Prophet's grandfather profess? The grandfather was some sort of keeper of the many idols found in the Kaabah and the Pagan Arabs called one god as Allah. Hence the writer, just like RPK did before him, asserted that Allah was used by Pagan Arabs.

The point intended by the writer is, if the name Allah was used even by Pagans then, why should we Muslims be tearing our hair out if the same name is wanted by the Catholics?

The answer is the Allah used and accepted by Pagan Arabs is not the same as the Allah accepted by Muslims. Not the same sir, that's why we are sticky about it.

This is not a debate about a dispute of the truth that we ALL worship One true God. We all do, but please call him by any other name you like except Allah. Because if you accept Allah then you must accept the full import and meaning of the word Allah as Muslims do.

How does a Muslim accept and understand the name Allah? The foundation of the name is founded on the principle of Tauhid, testification to the Oneness of Allah through tauhid Rububiyyah, Tauhid Usluhiyyah and Tauhid al-Asma was sifaat. I have answered that in my article.

The mystery is solved when one appreciates the distinctions of the 3 categories of tauhid.

Now, you others who want to use Allah to refer to God, would you do so in the same manner as Muslims do? I don't think so, and we respect that. I have not heard of Christians of any denominations in the Peninsular refer to God as Allah. They only do so in East Malaysia.

The term Allah is a noun which incorporates into it, His Essence ( Dzat) which is His Oneness founded on the principles of Tauhid. This is the meaning with which Muslims understand by the name Allah. It is therefore not just a nominal name, which is used to refer to God simpliciter. When a Muslim uses the name Allah, he understands it as the Name which incorporates the Oneness of God. He qualifies the name by knowing that It is founded on Tauhid.

All the names of God in various religions are given in accordance to the capacity of the respective languages. Thus the English assign a name to refer to their God- Lord or something. The Hindus and Arabs all give names to God in accordance to their language capacities. But through nominal names, understandable to a limited extent by humans, are not sufficient to teach us, the Essence of God. To us Muslims the name Allah is the only name that is able to incorporate the idea of His Oneness.

That is why we cannot allow the name Allah to be used if that usage is not understood as Muslims do.

TWO.

Allow me to try to answer another argument put forth by many commentators. I saw one on Din Merican's blog the other day. One commentator later wrote: Sakmongkol, read this. 29:46. And my answer is as follows:-

29:46

A favourite quote of those in favour of allowing the usage of Allah by Catholics is a verse from our Holy Quran: The Qur'an commands Muslims to declare that the God they worship and the one worshiped by the followers of revealed books, including Christians, is one:  "… and say: We believe in that which has been revealed to us and revealed to you, and our God and your God is One, and to Him do we submit". (Qur'an 29:46)

The commentator says that verse should make sense to a lot of us. It does, but allow me to explain.

You don't read the Quran as you do a story book or novel. You sometimes need to investigate the circumstances which caused the revelation of particular verses. There is a companion book known as Asbabun Nuzul that explains these.

Likewise in the particular verse 29:46, you need to do the same. Why was 29:46 revealed to our Prophet? What were the circumstances?

I found a persuasive rebuttal from one Ustaz Zamihan Mat Zin Al Ghari who has his own blog. This is what he said in relation to people who use verses such as Quran 29:46.

Firstly, the above verse and other similar verses are classified as 'uslub mujadalah. These are stylised methods used in debating.

In those days, the musyrikins were in the habit of debating with the Prophet on matters concerning Tauhid. Winning debates by appealing to logic and intellectual reasoning was the preferred method. Argumentative and clever fellows worked at exposing the internal flaws of their opponents reasoning. They were not interested to argue to arrive at the TRUTH.

How to beat the doubters at their own game? By employing the same methods, i.e. using reasoned arguments.

Hence Allah commanded the Prophet and those that followed him to debate intelligently. Hence 29:46. One such method is to offer equally convincing argument employing the method known as uslub mujadalah. For example, when people argue with you, you argue back putting forth reasons and facts that support your views and stand.

Illustration: we have been taught, in order to win arguments and win over our opponents, we get them to agree with our propositions most of the time. Since we are agreeable on all points leading to the objective of our argument, we may be actually talking about the same object. We can ACCEPT that only the same unique object is capable of generating the elements that we find agreeable. Now from there, the one who employs the method of uslub mujadalah, can finally present his case, that the object that we want to accept is the one we propose.

From there you can move on to demonstrate why even though before the argument, you were attached to the same object which you refer by another name, you must now leave it. It's like discovering new facts that render your previous stand untenable. The other name of the object you previously refer by another name was founded on a set of your belief system elements. The rational you who accept what we propose just cannot adopt the name by which WE call our object without also changing the elements of your belief system.

For example, I can't expect that Catholics who now want to use Allah which is the name we call our God, to abandon the elements of Catholicism. We respect your belief system.

But that next step of the argument is an undertaking doable by more knowledgeable people in another forum.

If we start with the proposition that the God that we worship asks us to be kind, sincere, truthful, compassionate to others etc- these are common grounds of any belief system. If we therefore discover we have so much common grounds and similarities, might we not in reality, be talking about the same One God? That only the same object could generate the same commonalities?

Hence verses such as these were revealed to guide our Prophet in his work. That he is commanded to argue intelligently so as to prepare doubters to have the requisite open mindedness. You have to use a methodology to bring argumentative fellows onto a level playing field as it were. One such methodology was to make the musyrikins and other argumentative fellows accept the common ground rules, then a meaningful debate about the true meaning of Allah can be worked at.

So, how do we treat 29:46 then? If we now realise that this verse belong to the specie of uslub mujadalah category, 29:46 cannot be used as a valid argument to allow the usage of Allah. 29:46 was revealed to command our Prophet when dealing with musyrikins and doubters, to debate intelligently with people whose intention is to perpetually argue and dislodge faith by the use of semantics and nomenclatures. In truth, their aim was to dispute whatever the Messenger of Allah says.

Hence 29:46 is a verse incorporating the concept of Al Jadal- i.e. to confront reasoned argument with reasoned argument. We use this method to remove objections and disagreements leading to the object of our mission. Getting our opponents to agree on features or elements of a belief system leads us nearer to the object of our debates.