Please change this habit.

[ShahnazZ]

Ok, well this thread has definitely matured alot since the last time I looked at it and now I feel I should include my own five cents.

A mountain is being made out of a molehill. Yes BasicofIslam, I understand what you mean when you encourage the usage of the word Allah, but to declare all other words for Him as "unislamic" is stretching it a bit. If you were to believe that "khuda" and "namaz" are unislamic, then using that a analogy the words "God" and "prayer" are also unislamic. From my knowledge using "God" instead of "Allah" is not haram but instead it deprives the Muslim from the reward he or she would have gained from calling Allah by his true name. Please be careful as to what you declare to be unislamic when it is not truly such.

Another thing: I personally think it's beautiful when I hear Muslims all over the world saying God in their own languages. Of course this is when they're speaking of the One True God and it is the word Allah that binds us all together, but it just speaks volumes about how beautifully diverse the Ummah is and this is a great quality. Allah states in the Quran that He created mankind in "many tongues" so as to emphasize not only the lingual differences between humanity but also the lingual differences between Muslims. Having our own languages just further emphasizes just how far and vast the
message of Islam has spread and been accepted by people in the world and inshAllah it's why OUR numbers will be greater than any other denomination on the Last Day.

So yes we should all definitely try to incorporate the Quranic terms into our daily vocabulary but this doesn't mean we should completely knock out other words, especially if they're linguistcally or universally understood and they do not carry any association of Allah with anyone else. This is because when making dawah of ANY sort (dawah doesn't have to necessarily be made to JUST non-Muslims) using common words makes more of an impact before you slowly start easing the individual into using Quranic vocabulary.

And notice that I say "Quranic vocabulary" and not "Arabic vocabulary". This is because Arabic is like all other languages in the sense that it too can have secular connotations sometimes. For example, like someone already pointed out, the word "Allah" means "God" and thus it is also used by many Jews and Christians in many middle eastern and south Asian countries. Naturally, we use it as the Quran does as well and we know it to be the true name of God. As Muslims we should learn to defer to the vocabulary from the Quran when speaking of religious terms.

Just my humble opinion.

 

[hana*]

i think most importantly we should know these terms in arabic, as arabic is the language of the Quran, the language of our beloved Prophet (pbuh) and the language of paradise! what is sad is the fact that many folk from the asian subcontinent do not know what 'salah' means or 'sawm' as they use words from their own language, as mentioned above e.g namaz whilst none of these words were in the Quran. and yeah, i never got my head round 'hadrat' or 'Allah Hafiz' lol that people use.

 

[ShahnazZ]

i think most importantly we should know these terms in arabic, as arabic is the language of the Quran, the language of our beloved Prophet (pbuh) and the language of paradise!

Actually, this is a fabricated hadith and it's sad that many people actually believe this to be true.

Is Arabic the language of the people of Paradise?

Praise be to Allaah.

There is no mention in the Qur’aan or in the saheeh Sunnah – as far as we know – of which language is spoken by the people of Paradise. What is narrated concerning that is a hadeeth which is not soundly narrated from our Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), and some other reports (athaar).

It was narrated by al-Tabaraani in al-Awsat, al-Haakim, al-Bayhaqi in Shu’ab al-Eemaan and others that Ibn ‘Abbaas (may Allaah be pleased with him) said: The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “Love the Arabs for three reasons, because I am an Arab, the Qur’aan is Arabic and the speech of the people of Paradise is Arabic.”

Ibn al-Jawzi ruled that this hadeeth is fabricated. Al-Dhahabi said: I think that the hadeeth is fabricated (mawdoo’). Al-Albaani said in al-Silsilah al-Da’eefah (no. 160): (it is) fabricated.

Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: Similarly, Abu Ja’far Muhammad ibn ‘Abd-Allaah al-Haafiz al-Koofi, who is known as Mateen, told us: al-‘Ala’ ibn ‘Amr al-Hanafi told us: Yahya ibn Zayd al-Ash’ari told us: Ibn Jurayj told us, from Ibn 'Abbaas (may Allaah be pleased with him) that he said: the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “Love the Arabs for three reasons: because I am an Arab, the Qur’aan is Arabic, and the language of the people of Paradise is Arabic.”

Al-Haafiz al-Salafi said: this is a hasan hadeeth. I do not know whether he meant that its isnaad is hasan according to the way of the scholars of hadeeth, or that its text is hasan in general terms. Abu’l-Faraj ibn al-Jawzi mentioned this hadeeth among the mawdoo’ (fabricated) texts and said: al-Tha’labi said: it has no basis. Ibn Hibbaan said: Yahya ibn Zayd narrated unsound ahaadeeth from sound narrators, so it is invalid to quote his reports as evidence. And Allaah knows best.

End quote from Iqtida’ al-Siraat al-Mustaqeem (1/158).

Al-Tabaraani narrated in al-Awsat that Abu Hurayrah (may Allaah be pleased with him) said: the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “I am an Arab, and the Qur’aan is Arabic, and the language of the people of Paradise is Arabic.”

Al-Albaani said in al-Silsilah al-Da’eefah (no. 161): it is fabricated.

The point is that there is no saheeh evidence to show which language is spoken by the people of Paradise. Hence we should refrain from speaking about this issue and not indulge in it, and we should refer knowledge of the matter to Allaah (may He be exalted), and focus instead on issues that will lead to good deeds in this world.

Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah (may Allaah have mercy on him) was asked: in what (language) will Allaah address the people on the Day of Resurrection? Will Allaah address them in the tongue of the Arabs? Is it true that the language of the people of Hell will be Farsi and that the language of the people of Paradise will be Arabic? He replied: Praise be to Allaah, the Lord of the Worlds. It is not known what language the people will speak on that Day, or in what language they will hear the words of the Lord, may He be exalted, because Allaah has not told us anything about that, nor has His Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him). It is not true that Farsi will be the language of the people of Hell, or that Arabic will be the language of the people of Paradise. We do not know of any discussion of that among the Sahaabah (may Allaah be pleased with them), rather all of them refrained from speaking of that because speaking about such a thing is discussion of something unnecessary… but there was a dispute concerning that among later scholars. Some people said that they will be addressed in Arabic and others said that the people of Hell will respond in Farsi, which will be their language in Hell. Others said that they will be addressed in Syriac because that was the language of Adam and from it stemmed all other languages. Others said that the people of Paradise will speak Arabic. There is no basis for any of these ideas, whether on the grounds of common sense or in any report or text, rather they are mere claims that are devoid of any evidence. And Allaah knows best and is most Wise. End quote.

Majmoo’ al-Fataawa (4/299)

And Allaah knows best.

 

[hana*]

hmmmmmm okay, but it IS the language of the Prophet (saas) and the language of the Quran, hence one should make the effort in learning this beautiful language!

 

[Kakorot]

Well the translation of the shahadah is "There is NO GOD but ALLAH"

it shows that we suppose to use Allah instead of God.

Who use the word God?Non believers use it.So we are not suppsoe to use it.We muslims are uniqe and everything we do should be unique and different from disbelievers.

I don't see what's wrong in using the word 'God' but i do agree that using the word Allaah is better. however, when discussing religion with non-Muslim i prefer using the word God.

 

[BinKhadija]

hmmmmmm okay, but it IS the language of the Prophet (saas) and the language of the Quran, hence one should make the effort in learning this beautiful language!

Yes, every Muslim, well every sincere Muslim, does make the effort to learn the Arabic language. But please don't give the impression non-Arabs shouldn't use their own native words to call upon the Only True God.

May Allah guide us all and give us all taufique to understand each other better.

 

[al-fajr]

Assalamu'alaykum,

I don't see what's wrong in using the word 'God' but i do agree that using the word Allaah is better. however, when discussing religion with non-Muslim i prefer using the word God.

Slightly off on a tangent ...but why? ^

Tell them its 'Allaah' say it to them slowly, hear them repeat it after you, make them say it correctly! It is only two syllables (the British I find are especially notorious for pretending they cannot say foreign words ..)

When they start saying Allaah properly ..its a breakthrough because you realise how miskeen they really are without the blessing of Islaam, they worship worthless things aside from their creator and don't even know His most basic name!

 

[al-fajr]

Iraq has two syllables too but most people pronounce it Eye Rack! Even after hearing the correct pronunciation a hundred times everyday for the past eight years! And Islaam has two syllables as well, but most people pronounce it Iz-laam. So, I don't get your point about teaching them correct pronunciation. I'd rather use their vocabulary.

Well I like to give the human intelligence some credit and encourage them to say words correctly, it can certainly be done.

Even if its blatantly putting them right, actually telling them its not 'iz' is 'iss'. my own name contains an 's' which is often converted to a z by non-muslims...a bit like 'muzlim' lol, I like to put that right too

Wa-alaykum salaam.

 

[a_muslimah86]

:salam2:

I see that there's an underlying agreement for disagreement in this thread...the few good replies on here have gotten a strong and valid point across (jaza Allah khair those who made them)...the thread is now under the threat of turning into a meagerness platter...hence it will be closed with the reminder that if you find yourself coming back to make more than *one* necessary reply...then that's a hint that you're spending too much time on one thing while you have a 100 others most likely *way more* important!

***THREAD CLOSED***