AUG 2 — I read with interest the article “On family resemblances” by Ahmad Fuad Rahmat (The Malaysian Insider, July 28). This writing is a response that aims at correcting the confusion which he inadvertently introduced in the wake of his reckless attempt at philological and interpretative analysis of Quranic verses without the required breadth of knowledge in the sciences of the Quran including that of the Arabic language.

In a world beset by conflict, violence and much trouble, it is indeed laudable to invest one’s effort to identify the real cause and offer practical solutions to mitigate the harmful consequences of such discord.

The promotion of interfaith dialogues between learned and sincere representatives from different religions may pave the way to minimise inter-religious misunderstanding that leads to conflict. However, the purveyor of such dialogue must be extremely careful in employing the correct method and, most importantly, to not misrepresent key religious terms and teachings, for that may further compound the misunderstanding that one seeks to correct in the first place.

In the worldview of Islam, language is of utmost importance because words correspond to meanings and names have realities. A name corresponds with a particular thing named and this correspondence cannot be simply ignored according to personal and subjective desires of the speaker. This is why stone is stone and wood is wood; stone will not become wood just because somebody said so. After all, only the insane and those who utter gibberish say something but mean different entirely or simply nothing at all.

The author asserts that the phrase, “Ahl Al-Kitab”, which is often translated into English as “People of the Book”, is an incomplete translation by arguing that the word “ahl” in Arabic can also mean family or clan, citing the phrase “Ahl al-Bayt” that means the Family of the Holy Prophet. From this he concludes that the phrase “Ahl Al-Kitab” can be taken to mean “Family of the Book.”

We take issue with this conjectural interpretation of the word “ahl” which then led the author to translate — erroneously as will be explained below — the phrase “Ahl Al-Kitab” in Arabic into “Family of the Book” in English. A brief survey of the various usage of the word “ahl” will be instructive in providing some idea of how its meaning has been properly established and employed by Muslim scholars in the past. This will then be used to judge the correctness and validity of the author’s translation of “ahl” as “family” and in rendering “Ahl Al-Kitab” as “Family of the Book”.   

The word “ahl” has been used in various contexts throughout the history of Islam, some of which are as follows:

“Al-Bayt” means the house, and for the instance used literally it meant “People of the House” but translated as Family of the Holy Prophet because it corresponds to the fact that a family belongs in the same house.

Ibn ‘Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him), the renowned exegete of the Quran and Companion of the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), designated Muslims who follow the Prophetic Tradition and defer their affairs to the consensus (Ijma’) of the community’s scholars as Ahl al-Sunnah. The Holy Prophet said: “You have to follow the Congregation (Jama’ah) for verily Allah will not make the largest group of Muhammad’s Community agree on error” (narrated by Ibn Abi Shayba, recorded in Sahih Bukhari). Hence, this was how the vast majority of Muslims today came to be known as the Ahl al-Sunnah wa’l-Jama’ah.

In Surah al-Nisa’ (4:58), God commands mankind to render trusts to whom they are due (ila ahliha). Here the word “ahl” is used to mean authorities and the people who are experts in their respective fields. It could also refer to a government that is just in the formulation of its policies and the implementation of its duties, insofar as that any attempt to bring it down would cause greater injustices to the people under its rule.

In Islamic jurisprudence, the term Ahl al-Hal wa’l-’Aqd is usually translated as “People of Binding Authority” (literally, People of Loosening and Binding) to denote people of power and those who hold key positions. In today’s terminology, they may include policymakers and politicians; generally understood as people whose decisions are followed through and executed.

Therefore, in addition to the accepted translation “people” and looking at some of the examples demonstrated, the original Arabic sense of the word can also accommodate the meanings of members, adherents, inhabitants and even possessors of authority and those who are deserving of trust or investiture. While the root of the word “ahl” can be taken to refer to family, it is not the only meaning available to it. Instead, to restrict it to only mean “family” is in fact the incomplete translation.

That the authoritative exposition of the term lends a distinctly different meaning compared to the author’s conjectural interpretation inclines one to surmise that it is he who has restricted the meaning of the word “ahl” to solely and exclusively mean “family”, perhaps to give an aura of validity to some preconceived position of his.

By misinterpreting the word “ahl” as family in order that the phrase “Ahl Al-Kitab” now reads “Family of the Book” instead of the conventional rendition as “People of the Book”, the author appears to imply that all three religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — possess equal footing merely because in the sense that they belong to the same “family”.

This implicit contention by the author is perplexing for we know even in normal daily usage, to say that two persons belong to the same family does not necessarily imply that both are equal, whether as siblings or as husband and wife or as parents and children. In other words, belonging to the same family does not preclude difference. In fact, it makes more sense to argue that the family itself is constituted from distinct and different individual units. Therefore, it is incorrect to argue, as the author did, that religions belonging to the same family (“Family of the Book”) are completely similar and equal to each other, so much so that fundamental differences between them simply melt away.

Furthermore, we would like to point out that the Holy Quran also speaks about family members who, despite of their genetic and close familial ties, differ fundamentally with each other when it comes to religious understanding and conviction e.g. between siblings (Habil and Qabil), father and son (Prophet Nuh and his son), husband and wife (Prophet Lut and his wife), uncle and cousin (Abu Jahl and the Holy Prophet). Therefore, familial ties are not an excuse for condoning deviation in fundamental matters pertaining to religion. In fact, there are at least two instances where familial relations are severed as the result of such deviation, as exemplified in Surah Hud (11:46) and Surah al-Tahrim (66:10).

The phrase “Ahl al-Kitab” cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the adherents of Judaism, Christianity and Islam all follow the same Book, especially when one is clearly ignorant to not being able to describe what sort of Book it is in the first place! Indeed, in the Holy Quran, God reprimanded the Jews who, despite having been sent a divine Scripture and despite their long tradition of erudition and learning, failed to derive from the Scripture the knowledge that told them of God sending Prophets to guide them and that they will have to obey these Messengers for their own spiritual growth and salvation. Instead, they could not overcome their own selfish arrogance, sense of racial pride and violent contempt for Prophets not of their own preference. Surah al-Jumu’ah (62:5) records the divine anger upon the Jews:

“The similitude of those who were entrusted with the Tawrah and then did not take it on is like that of a donkey who carries volumes [of books]. Wretched is the example of the people who deny the signs of Allah. And Allah does not guide the wrongdoing people.”

The Holy Quran refutes the claim of the Christians and Jews that they are holding on to the same text that was revealed to the previous Prophets. It is also interesting to note that the Holy Quran has already anticipated 1,400 years ago yet another fabrication by the Church fathers in naming their poorly translated Malay version of the Christian Bible as Al-Kitab in their effort to ensnare the unsuspecting Muslim targets of proselytisation. Instead, the Quran reprimands them for having fabricated verses for their own selfish ends:

“So woe to those who write ‘the Book’ (al-Kitab) with their own hands, then say, ‘This is from Allah’, in order to exchange it for a small price. Woe to them for what their hands have written and woe to them for what they earn.” (Quran 2:79)

Therefore, the term Ahl al-Kitab understood in relation to the divine  censure against the People of the Book, Jews and Christians, is in fact a form of derision instead of reminding us that we are “family”, as evident in verses above.

If they are committed to the original and true teachings as revealed to Prophets Moses and Jesus, it will lead them to anticipate and believe in the coming of the Final Messenger to whom the Final Divine Message to ALL mankind — and not one confined exclusively to a particular people or race or tribe — has been revealed. Had they understood and obeyed, they would have willingly recognised Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him!) as the Final Messenger and thus embraced Islam.

The Proof of Islam, Imam al-Ghazali in his work on theology, al-Iqtisad fi’l-I’tiqad (Median in Belief), described that the Christians are unbelievers because they deny the Holy Prophet (upon him be peace!) which is the fundamental basis of the religion whose essence is submission to God. This submission entails the obedience to His command to follow whom He designated as His Messenger, who conveys to mankind the proper way for them to live that will earn His Pleasure. As a celebrated authority in the theology of Islam, Imam al-Ghazali explains that from the viewpoint of Islam, the invalidity of Christian faith is not because they believe in one God or the fact that they adhere to the Book, but rather due to their denial of the Holy Prophet (takdhib ‘ala al-Nabi), the Message that he has brought and the truth of that Message.

The Islamic creed states that obedience to the Messenger entails obedience to Allah, since it was He who sent the Holy Prophet and charged him with the prophetic mission. Consequently, rejection of the Shari’ah is the rejection of the Messenger because he is the one who manifested the Shari’ah, in accordance to his task and purpose to guide and teach people in it. Therefore, as an objection to the despiritualisation committed by some towards the Holy Prophet, it is incorrect to assert that the Holy Prophet is just either a spiritual or political leader but not one who teaches law or deliver legal judgment. In fact, out of reverence to the Holy Prophet, a Muslim should not even consider himself fit to judge whether the Holy Prophet’s methods were successful or not; it was said that during the nascent period of the Muslim society and given the precarious conditions that could have easily wipe it out, people used to go and visit the Holy Prophet in his house just to catch a quick glance of his radiance and obtain spiritual blessings from it.

The Holy Prophet understood the philosophy of history, the sociology and nature of his community that they will never agree upon an error:

“Verily Allah has protected my Community from agreeing upon error.” [recorded by Ibn Abi ‘Asim in his Kitab al-Sunnah]

The Holy Prophet also understood that there will always be those who will defend the Truth. It is this Truth that we must hold on to. The Holy Prophet said:

“One group from my Ummah will always hold fast to truth and it will always have the assistance of Allah. No one who dissociated from it will be able to do harm to it (the Ummah) till to the Day of Judgement.” (recorded in Sahih Bukhari, 13/293)

Finally, the Holy Quran maintains that the contents of previous Books — the Torah and the Bible — have been altered and corrupted by the Jews and the Christians, therefore no longer represents original message as revealed by God to these peoples. Seen in this light, by calling them “People of the Book” mocks their attitudes in continuing to blindly follow and hold on to fabricated verses contained therein.

In the polemic surrounding the misappropriation of the name “Allah” by the Christians, the author faults the Muslims for neglecting to take into account the fact the meaning and implication of the Quranic term “Ahl al-Kitab” that to his way of thinking point to the discomforting similarities between Christianity and Islam, similarities that supposedly fuel the “Christianophobia rising amidst us.” The author makes the claim that the reactionary attitude by the Muslims towards their Christian brethren stems not from an affirmation of the fundamental differences between Christianity and Islam, but instead from a knee-jerk rejection against the similarities between the two faiths, similarities that the Muslims find too uncomfortable to bear and accept. He then marshals his conjectural rendition of “Ahl al-Kitab” as “Family of the Book” to demonstrate this innate similarity between the two faiths, specifically that both adherents have “faith in God and the Last Day”.

However, apart from this brief statement and his total reliance on his own spurious rendition of the phrase “Ahl al-Kitab” as “Family of the Book”, nowhere else does the author substantiate his assertion regarding the innate similarity between the two faiths. It appears to the author that his own conjectural rendition of “Family of the Book” would somehow sanction enormous flexibility in negotiating the theological standpoints of these two religions, to the point of eliminating the fundamental and irreconcilable differences between Christianity and Islam; for instance in issues concerning the conception of the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus Christ, his crucifixion and of Prophet Muhammad as the Final Messenger.

As have been argued above, it is in these fundamental issues concerning the nature of God and the nature of Prophecy, which form the core of both religions, that defined the irreconcilable differences between the two religions. We say “irreconcilable” because there exists no compromise position, no middle path in these fundamental issues that both true Christians and true Muslims can reasonably and sincerely accept i.e. either one accepts God as a Trinity, or not; either one accepts the divinity of Jesus Christ, or not; either one submits to the Holy Prophet, or not.

The confusion of religious pluralism with regards to Islam and Christianity lies in equating both religions as acceptable in the sight of God. The Holy Quran specifically denies the allegation of transcendental unity of religions by stating that the only religion promulgated and acceptable by God is Islam (Quran 3:19). Indeed, those who thought that their mistranslation and improper usage of technical terms that have already been established in Islam could dissolve the dissimilarities between the two theological standpoints, God gives them stern warning:

“And never will the Jews or the Christians approve of you until you follow their religion. Say, indeed, the guidance of Allah is the [only] guidance. If you were to follow their desires after what has come to you of knowledge, you would find no protector or helper against Allah.” (Quran, 2:120)

The famous verse from the Holy Quran which apologists like to invoke in order to persuade Muslims regarding the “Islamically acceptable notion” of the validity of the Christian position is in Surah Ali Imran (3:64), whose translation reads:

“Say: ‘O People of the Book! Come to common terms as between us and you: That we worship none but Allah; that we associate no partners with Him; that we erect not, from among ourselves, Lords and patrons other than Allah.’ If then they turn back, say: ‘Bear witness that we (at least) are Muslims (bowing to Allah’s Will)’.”

Yet, no interpretation of the Holy Quran can be done without referring to its reasons for revelation (Asbab al-Nuzul). Al-Wahidi gives us the context of this verse to show that the Christian delegation of Najran who debated with the Holy Prophet, ultimately refused to “come to common terms between” themselves and the Holy Prophet, that is to abide by the conditions stipulated by the verse. Their other reason, aside from trying to find a way of not paying the levied tax, is to convince him their idea that they have submitted to God even before the Holy Prophet was sent, therefore absolving them from any need to embrace Islam. We learn from al-Wahidi that the above verse does not mean that both religions stand on the same footing, as what apologists have often imputed. Rather the Christians of that time, even though they acknowledged his position as the Messenger of God, chose to reject him and the truth that he has brought.

While we can foster peaceful co-operation between Christians, Muslims and adherents of other religions, care must be taken not to encroach and disabuse the fundamental theological positions of each religions.

The attempt to conjure the spectre of Christianophobia in our society over-complicates the issue by surreptitiously positing an “extreme position” with the intention that the general public will be fearful of it, even though such a position might actually be the position of truth and certainty. Muslims and Christians have lived in relative harmony in Malaysia but that harmony is being steadily eroded due to defiant and repeated acts of disrespect towards the Muslim community, ranging from the misappropriation of the name “Allah” to refer a Christian conception of God, to the disdain towards Muslim religious sensitivities disguised under the pretence of Ramadan greeting, and of proselytising even when such actions are considered to be against the law.

Though similarities may point areas where peaceful co-operation may be brought into fruition, we should not forget that reality comes about because of differences. Often, Islamophobes hold the underlying presumption that Islam was sent to eradicate diversity. Rather, the source of this confusion can be traced to the philosophy of religious pluralism and its presumption that since Islam belongs to the “family” of Abrahamic faiths, therefore its nature will be similar to its predecessors. On the contrary, their respective natures are not the similar because Christianity (of the West) has undergone extensive secularisation that sent it too far a trajectory from the true course.

We can agree with the author’s intention to promote religious harmony and racial tolerance, but this need not come at the cost of distorting the truth as propounded in the worldview of Islam by introducing concepts that are alien to the sciences and knowledge that project its vision of reality and truth.

* Muhammad Husni Mohd Amin reads Islamic Thought and Civilisation at the Centre for Advanced Studies on Islam, Science and Civilization (CASIS-UTM). He is fellow at Himpunan Keilmuan Muslim (HAKIM).

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malay Mail Online.