Essentially - Who is Allah? Is Allah an arab?? Can Allah only understand Arabic?? Can Allah be Allah and be limited to a single language?
Then why did Allah choose to deliver the message in Arabic?? why did he not decide to present the message in every possible language and a silent Movie as well?
He chose to deliver it to the Arabs whom he chose for a particular reason as they were the most corrupt, the prophet was from among st them.. why wasn't he some unique multicultural individual if god wished to personify the universal nature of his message?
If god has claimed that he will protect the Quran in its original message and form till the end of time.. and still wished for everyone to pray in their own language.. believe in their own customs.. then there would still be messengers coming every time a new language was formed.. You would have had to have a Prophet for Urdu, Turk, Pashtu, French.. Mayan..and Russian.. would you not?..
And Essentially - what is a Muslim? Does being a Muslim mean being an Arab? if it does then more than a Billion who call themselves Muslims are ineligible.
Essentially, does reciting a language make you an Arab?.. Have I become an english babu by typing in English.. have I lost my identity as a Urdu-speaking descendant of families settled in the Sub-continent?
Does my reading the Quran in Arabic make me subservient to Arabs?? does my reciting god's word AS IT WAS brought down to his messenger make me a arab bum licker? Have I no faith in my identity at all.. are my roots of my own inheritance so insecure that I am threatened by everything that I term as alien to it? Has the Quran, or the prophet.. asked me to abandon my language and only sing Kumbaya in Arabic? Where has he said so?? Am I to explain the Quran only in Arabic and arabic alone? Has god and prophet ordained so? Do I now distinguish god based on language and "alien" culture? Allah is an Arabic god.. my god is called "khuda".. or maybe "bhagvan"??
Friends, reality is that we are today faced with having to answer these two questions for ourselves, plus one even more important one, but lets deal with that later -- islam must be universal or it will not survive and Quran if it is the word of God, must be in the language of those who are it's adherents, not in the language of one particular cultural subset - we are not in the "chosen" business - we are in the redemption through faith business and our shop is open to all.
The reality is, if Islam was in the language of its adherents.. who have cultural , physical and mental differences.. each would create their own image of Islam and god.. and then the universal concept of Islam is gone.. since it is not a single entity anymore. One's cultural uniqueness has nothing to do with the uniqueness of god's word.
if Quran was revealed to the ukranians.. you would issues with that cultural subset. God chose arabic for a reason best known to him, if one takes the time out to read and make efforts to understand the Quran, there is no problem even if you are unfamiliar with the language.. off course unless you wish to convey that we start second guessing god as well.. since all is open to discussion.. then perhaps we need to take god to task as well for his betrayal of the rest of the non-arab Muslims by revealing his word in Arabic..(an-aouzubillah)
