Allah dibebaskan

By Haris Ibrahim,

One could be charitable and try to find some merit in the chastisement that one should not use God’s name in vain, but to be gagged and barred from ever uttering God’s name?

Why?

To shield the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, so that He might not have to Feel slighted at the mention of His name by those not bearing Malay-like names?

To place a wall between the Al-Mighty and His servants who do not bear Malay-like names?

Does God not have a say in this?

Say: “Call upon Allah, or call upon Rahman: by whatever name ye call upon Him, for to Him belong the Most Beautiful Names. Neither speak thy Prayer aloud, nor speak it in a low tone, but seek a middle course between.” - Surah 17 verse 110 of the Holy Qur’an, as translated by Abdullah Yusof Ali.

To the Home Minister and his underlings, I am commanded to ask :

“Say: Bring your witnesses who should bear witness that Allah has forbidden this, then if they bear witness, do not bear witness with them; and follow not the low desires of those who reject Our communications and of those who do not believe in the hereafter, and they make (others) equal to their Lord” – Surah 6 verse 150 of the Holy Qur’an, as translated by Shakir.

It is ironic that in a nation that has acquiesced to the entrenchment of Islam as the religion of the same, it has required the honest adherence by a non-Muslim judge to her oath of office to “preserve, protect and defend its Constitution” to declare this unholy act of arrogance, by men holding high office and who profess to believe in Islam, to deny certain quarters their intimacies with their Creator, unsustainable, void and illegal, given that the supreme law of the land holds as sacrosanct and inviolable a man’s right to approach God as he will!

Was there no Muslim holding high office in this country who was equal to this task?

The judgment, it seems to me, implicitly, at least, acknowledges that God, whether called upon as Allah, or Rahman, or any of the other finest names that belong to Him, is not the monopoly of any one faith.

Will the judgment survive the appeal process?

God knows.

The rest of us can only make educated guesses.

Meanwhile, every man, woman and child in this land is free to go before God as he or she will.

God’s free, too.

For now, at least.