Monday, July 10, 2006

Why the Islamophobes Like Memri TV Have a Problem with Allah

Translation can reflect your beliefs and even your biases.

Memritv.org and other Islamophobic, right-wing bigots have a problem with Allah.

The word "Allah" in Arabic means "The God (al-ilah). In the Arabic Bible, "Allah" appears all over the place.

In Arabic period, the word for God (the capital "g" one) is Allah. The word for god (the lower case "g" one) is ilah. The word for "the" in Arabic is "al", hence the world "Allah".

By why when the word Allah is said or written by a Muslims that these translators all of a sudden get a case of "I forgot to translate the word correctly"?

It is because they want people to think of Allah as the "muslim god" who is different from the God of the Jews and Christians.

This is done despite the fact that Jews do not worship Jesus as a god like the Christians do, and yet these same people who refuse to translate Allah when said by a Muslim as "God" insist that Jews and Christians worship they same God. Jews do not believe that God is a trinity and yet Christians insist their god is the same god as the Jews! Go figure!

To make it appear that Muslims worship a different God than from the Bible, these bigots can justify their attacks on Islam as a religion that from an evil source and something that either must be eradicated or at least "reformed" to conform with the wishes and desires of these Islamophobes.

If it is the case of "worshipping the same God", it would be the Jews and the Muslims who believe that God is one in one. But if an Arab Christian, Jew, or atheist/agnostic say the word Allah in reference to the ultimate deity, it is not translated as "Allah" but as God by these same translators!

Memri TV and other Islamophobic translators and organizations scour the media of the Muslim world to find anything they can consider as "inflammatory" to tell the world that "this is how these Muslims think and behave". They want the Muslim world to be secularized and not have Islam as their reference for their life. They present these edited clips in a way that it justifies their agenda, not showing the normal, everyday TV shows, programs, movies, etc., of the Muslim world.

Believe it or not, many Muslims have a problem with translating Allah as "God". To be honest, they either don't understand English or Arabic. The words "God" and "god" are not the same. The ultimate deity, the one and only, the one referred to in the Bible and the Quran is God. The lower-case "god" is just an object of worship.

But the Islamophobes do not misunderstand English. They know darn well that translating Allah as "Allah" and not God gives the unsuspecting and ignorant audience an impression that "Allah" is not the same god of the Bible but this "Muslim god" that tells them to "kill the infidels" and "beat and oppress your women".

I wonder if anyone reading this will ask Memri TV and Co. as to why they refuse to translated Allah as "God" when a Muslim says it...

3 Comments:

At 5:13 PM, Blogger Al-Hajeji said...

asalamu alaykum...

that is soo true wallah. good post brother.
memri TV is run by an ex-israeli soldier, so it is no secret that memri is anti-islamic.

 
At 1:09 PM, Blogger Absology said...

I like this post, but perhaps "Allah" to some is preferable because you can't make a plural out of it or give it a gender.

But yeah I agree with you, for da'wa purposes I would say God when speaking in English...

 
At 5:23 PM, Blogger Al-Hajeji said...

I also say God for Dawa purpose because westerners think that Islam has its own God...So we have to make them realise that there is no gods but Allah. So it is basically monethism. Unlike christians who think they have three gods.
thanks for coming to my blog too bro.

 

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