The Nut Graph (shanonshah@thenutgraph.com)
Scholar: Don’t restrict “Allah”, 17 February 2009
by Shanon Shah
Use of the word "Allah" among Catholic churches should not be restricted unreasonably, said leading Islamic scholar Prof Dr Mohammad Hashim Kamali today.
Hashim Kamali"In Islam, there is one God for all humanity. Therefore, one should not monopolise or personalise 'Allah' as belonging to only one sector of humanity," he said.
He said that restraint should only be applied in accordance with the principle of sadd al-dhara'i (blocking the means to an evil development) in Islamic jurisprudence.
"For example, marriage is a lawful institution. But if a man is going to use marriage as a means of abuse or corruption, then he should be blocked from accessing this lawful institution," said Kamali.
He said this logic extended to the use of the word "Allah" by the Catholic church.
"If there is no abuse of the word, then there should be no restraint on its usage," he said.
Kamali was chairing the public lecture Christian evangelicalism: A modern political religion and its implications for Muslims, organised by the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies (IAIS) Malaysia.
Kamali is IAIS's founding chairperson and chief executive officer.
The talk was given by Dr Karim Douglas Crow, IAIS's principal research fellow.
Christian evangelicalism
According to Crow, overseas evangelical groups claim that 3.1% of Malaysia's Christian population are evangelical.
He said the same sources put Christian Malaysians at 8.6% of the total population.
"But just as Muslims do not like to be generalised, we must remember that we cannot judge all Christians based on our impressions of this strand of evangelicalism," he said.
Karim Douglas Crow He added that Muslims should engage in the real world and be alive to nuances, instead of relying on caricatures or stereotypes of other communities.
Crow said modern "pre-millenial, dispensationalist evangelicalism" — a particular strand of Christian fundamentalism — also espouses what he termed "Christian Zionism".
This strand of fundamentalism upholds an uncritical defence of Israel using selective interpretations of the Bible.
"These evangelicals have, in a way, hijacked Christianity to their own ends," he said.
Crow traced the modern development this strand of Christian theology to the Chilean Jesuit priest, Manuel de Lacunza, in 18th century CE. Lacunza's writings then influenced the Protestant movement of the Plymouth Brethren in the British Isles.
Crow said this went on to influence the Bible college movement in North America, and post-Cold War politicisation of the movement followed.
International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies (http://www.iais.org.my)
Christian Evangelicalism: A Modern Political Religion and Its Implications for Muslims
17.02.2009 | 10:00 AMOn: Tuesday, 17th February 2009
At: IAIS Malaysia Jalan Elmu, Off Jalan Universiti, Kuala Lumpur.
Speaker : Dr. Karim Douglas Crow, Principal Research Fellow, IAIS Malaysia.
Chairperson: Professor Dr Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Chairman & CEO, IAIS Malaysia.
Co-chairperson: Emeritus Professor Datuk Dr Osman Bakar, Deputy CEO, IAIS Malaysia.
Dr. Karim Douglas Crow is a Principal Research Fellow at IAIS Malaysia, and took his doctorate from the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University, Montreal. He has taught Arabic language, Islamic thought & metaphysical disciplines in North America (Columbia University, The University of Virginia), Malaysia (ISTAC), and Singapore (Nanyang Technological University). Dr. Crow also serves as Advisor for several non-governmental programs and institutions treating Islamic peace issues in the Arab world and Southeast Asia.
Summary of the lecture
The origins within 19th century Irish and English Protestantism of ‘Pre-Millennial Dispensationalist Evangelicalism’ (or ‘Evangelical Christianity’) led directly to the emergence during the 20th century of what many now refer to as ‘Protestant Zionism’. This Anglo–Christian movement was largely confined to conservative inward-looking congregations in the UK and North America who upheld the verbal inerrancy of the Bible, and in the past was dismissed by mainstream Catholics and Protestants as marginal or exotic. Dispensationalist Evangelicalism was transplanted into the United States in the post-Civil War era, establishing a series of influential Bible Colleges across the North American continent popularizing its distinctively literal method of futurist scriptural interpretation. This form of Bible exegesis is grounded in an innovative doctrine teaching two separate plans of salvation for God’s two chosen peoples – two dispensations for Jews and for Christians – where the political restoration of the Jewish nation to Palestine is the necessary pre-condition for the Second-Coming of Jesus inaugurating his earthly Kingdom in the Millennium.
Now claiming over seventy million adherents in the U.S. (35% of its population), Evangelical Christianity is now transformed into a major expression of contemporary Western Christian identity with clear consequences for American political culture and recent conduct of foreign policy. Its crusading mentality embracing violent apocalyptic confrontation sorely complicates efforts for global understanding and harmonious interaction across civilisational boundaries. By reinforcing American Exceptionalism and Militarism and promoting ill-conceived military adventures into the heart of Asia, Evangelicalism has helped awaken the buried medieval western fears of Muslim frenzy and irrationality, thereby facilitating enduring conflict and hatred between the three Monotheist faiths, and between Euro-America and the Islamic world.
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