THE BLASPHEMOUS MALAY BIBLE

Today, someone speculated (in a letter to Free Malaysia Today) that the Bible issue in Selangor is an Umno political conspiracy aimed at bringing down the Pakatan Rakyat state government.

So this is yet one more argument to the many arguments that we have been reading about over the last month or so.

Allah was the pre-Islamic name of God. Arab Jews and Christians also use Allah for God so the name is not exclusive to Islam. This is about respecting Malaysia’s Federal Constitution. Any State laws that contradict the Constitution are null and void. This is about civil liberties and human rights. Muslims cannot interfere in or dictate what the non-Islamic religions do.

Those, and many more, are the arguments used — mainly regarding the legal, constitutional and civil rights aspect of Christians using Allah as the name of God in the Malay translation of the Bible.

If we were just talking about the legal, constitutional and civil rights aspect of this disagreement then you would be right. The Muslims would not have a leg to stand on regarding whether Christians can or cannot use Allah as the name of God in the Malay version of the Bible.

However, this is about religion, and in religion there is no place for a secular law or Constitution (not even for the Jews and Christians). And if you do not know this then you are totally ignorant about the religion you claim to believe in. Secularism, even the Church will tell you, runs contra to religion.

And if you want to argue about civil liberties or human rights, this too has no place in religion because religion is about following God’s commands and not about man-made notions and values such as civil liberties and human rights. If it were, then we do not need to get married ‘in the eyes of God’ to live together and have children.

Are not children born out of wedlock called bastards? Why are they so cruelly called bastards just because God has not sanctioned and accepted their ‘unofficial marriage’? Of course, they can also be married through a ‘civil marriage’ but even those who never step foot in church want a church wedding.

(They say, nowadays, many Christians go to church only three times in their lives: when they are born, when they marry, and when they die).

So the issue here is not just a legal, constitutional and civil rights matter. It is a religious issue. And, to Muslims, the Malay version of the Bible is blasphemous.

(Blasphemy: a contemptuous, irreverence or profane act, utterance, or writing concerning God or a sacred entity).

Look at the extract of the Malay Bible below. It talks about Allah loving us to the extent of sending his only son to us so that all those who believe in His son will never perish but will live forever and that Allah sent us his son not to punish the world but to save it.

This declaration in the Malay Bible is not a legal, constitutional and civil rights issue. It is an issue of doctrine. Islam says that Allah was not born nor will He die and He does not have parents nor does He have children. Allah is the One God and Allah means The God (the one and only).

Hence, by saying that Allah has a son, this violates the Islamic doctrine. And that, in Islam, is blasphemy. And blasphemy, even for the Jews and Christians, is a serious crime punishable by death (unless you would like to defy the Torah, Bible and Qur’an: which would mean you are now an infidel).

If you say that God or the Lord has a son then the Muslims can do nothing about that. But once you say Allah has a son, then you strike at the very core of the Islamic doctrine.

And herein lies the problem.

You may want to challenge this in a secular court. You may even win your case in a secular court. You may even scream civil liberties and human rights. But once you change the Islamic doctrine and say that Allah has a son then you bring this argument up to a different domain. You have now entered the domain of God and are no longer in the domain of this world.

The Articles of Faith in Islam is very clear. See this BBC article regarding Islam’s Articles of Faith to get a better understanding of the issue (READ HERE).

The long and the short of it is there is only one God, Allah, and God has no children, no parents, and no partners.

And now the Malay Bible declares that Allah, in fact, does have children, a son who He sent to us to save this world.

The Christians (and the kaypoh non-Christians) argue about the law, the Constitution, civil liberties, human rights, and so on. But when you declare that Allah has a son this is no longer about all those worldly and secular issues. It is now about changing the doctrine of Islam and giving Allah a son that Islam says He does not have.

Can you see why this matter cannot be solved when one talks about a cow and the other about a goat? You are both talking about two different animals.