"Ingatlah, hai Israel! TUHAN - dan TUHAN satu-satunya - ialah Allah kita."
(Deuteronomy 6:4)
"Allah sangat mengasihi orang di dunia ini sehingga Dia memberikan Anak-Nya yang tunggal, supaya setiap oramg yang percaya kepada Anak itu tidak binasa tetapi beroleh hidup yang sejati yang kekal."
(John 3:16)
The name of 'Allah' has caused a stir in recent days. Anger and rage from offended parties have resulted in attacks on churches, giving much publicity for the Church to enjoy.
Many Malaysian Muslims have objected to the Dec 31 declaration by the High Court that non-Muslims, specifically Catholics may refer to God as 'Allah'.
Among the reasons cited is that Muslims might be confused if they hear non-Muslims use the term.
Why has this happened? I believe it is because two religions with mutually exclusive truth claims both claim to have received the ultimate truth about the same deity, namely the God of Abraham.
Surprised? Well, so was I. When I was younger, I believed that the 'Allah' that the Muslims worship was a totally different deity than the God who revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. But I was also puzzled as to why they accepted Abraham, Moses and even Jesus as prophets. It was only after reading a little bit of Islamic literature and doing some research that I learnt something important:
The God whom Muslims mean to worship is none other than... our God!
BUT... they believe that we (Christians) have corrupted the truth of God and changed the Bible. And therefore, He sent Mohammed as His final messenger to preach Islam and to release His final book of Scripture: the Koran.
Having pointed that out, I would like to say to all Muslims who were offended that the court allowed us to use the word 'Allah' to refer to the Bible's God:
Why are you so offended if we were to say that 'Allah' is Triune and Jesus is His Son? How do you suppose we Christians feel when you claim that Jesus, our Lord and God, is NOT divine or that he was not crucified?
Your prophet, Mohammed, believed that Allah was the same God as the one described in the Bible, and that the Koran was the last in a series of Scriptures which included the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), the book of Psalms and the New Testament. The Koran itself confirms the veracity of these Scriptures from God.
And now you want us to stop referring to the God of the Bible as 'Allah'? Go ask Mohammed if he'd approve!
Also, whenever the Koran quotes statements from the lips of Jews and Christians, it quotes them as using the term 'Allah'. An example is surah 5:17.
(17) The Jews and Christians say, "We are sons of Allah and His loved ones." Say: "Why then doth He chastise you for your sins? Nay, ye are but mortals of His creating. He forgiveth whom He will, and chastiseth whom He will. Allah's is the Sovereignity of the heavens and the earth and all that is between them, and unto Him is the journeying.
(the Koran, surah al-Maidah verse 17)
Therefore, Mohammed's boldest and most powerful claim was that the God of Moses and Jesus had chosen him to be His final prophet. And like the Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians of his day, he called this God 'Allah'.
Today, we Malaysian Christians ask for no less a right than that which was enjoyed by the Christians whom the prophet of Islam met and debated with in his lifetime.
Sesungguhnya Tuhan Yesus Kristus ialah Anak Allah, yang disalibkan dan dibangkitkan daripada kematian. Kini, Dia duduk di sisi kanan Allah Bapa di syurga, dan menjadi satu-satunya Perantara antara Allah dan manusia. Amin.
