The word ‘khuda’ has received some particularly bad press during the last four decades. I vividly remember the time when ‘Allah’ and ‘khuda’ were used interchangeably. If anything, in everyday conversations in our part of the world, ‘khuda’ was more popular, with ‘khuda hafiz‘ being pretty much the standard parting greeting.
It was the 1980s when religious zealots, especially in Pakistan but elsewhere too (no doubt with the best of intentions), suddenly started taking exception to ‘khuda hafiz‘ on grounds that ‘khuda’ was somehow ‘unislamic’ and ought therefore to be replaced everywhere by ‘Allah’, the ‘Islamic’ name of God. The propaganda was relentless and proved to be extremely effective. ‘Khuda‘ had become almost extinct by the turn of the millennium.
It was a classic example of much fuss over a non-issue. For Islam places no emphasis on names and cares little for labels. The changing of a man or a woman’s name to an ‘Islamic’ version upon converting to Islam has no doubt been the vogue (and there is nothing wrong with it if it is voluntary) but it has nothing to do with Islamic teachings. As far as Islam is concerned, one name is as good as another. Of course, it is natural and very human to select names with positive meanings and connotations, but in the ultimate analysis a name is but a symbol that points to a person or thing. It need not therefore necessarily even have a meaning– an undisputed meaning at any rate. It is only when there is something objectionable in a name that it is advisable to opt for one without that drawback. So much for the names of mortals.
When it comes to the personal name of God (as opposed to the adjectives used to describe Him), it is instructive to note that the Bani Ismail – the first audience of the Quran – by tradition all used ‘Allah’. Since there was nothing objectionable in the name per se, the Quran adopted it. However, since their beliefs about the attributes of God left a great deal to be desired, the Quran did not shirk– in the interest of tolerance or striking the middle ground– from correcting anything that needed correcting. The Quranic approach in the matter is instructive: It is not important what one calls God so long as one has the correct beliefs about His attributes.
In fact, the Quran addresses this issue explicitly when it declares that it is all right to call God by any name, since all good names belong to Him. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet! There is absolutely nothing wrong with ‘khuda’– literally, one who owes its existence to nothing. An important point needs to be made here though. Etymology is a rewarding and exciting subject for linguists and historians of language, but it has no relevance whatever to language as it is used in any given age and geographical context. For quite irrespective of the origin of a word, what matters is what a word means in that setting. ‘khuda’ is beyond reproach in that respect as well, regardless of its etymology.
The message of the Quran and the last Prophet (peace be upon him) then, is by no means just for the Arabs. It is for the whole world and for all times to come. Islam makes no unrealistic demands on its followers. One such demand would be to expect the non-Arab masses to learn Arabic. All that is required of all Muslims is that the message of the Quran be understood and their lives be lived accordingly. Everybody is free to receive, contemplate and express that message in the language he knows best, using translations and any other resources available in that language. The medium (Arabic) of the Quran is vitally important no-doubt, but only for scholars and teachers who study Islam directly from its original sources and produce those resources in the various languages of the world for the benefit of the masses.
A narrative that has been very popular among those crusading against the word is this: ‘khuda’ is equivalent to ‘god’ (with a small g) whereas ‘Allah’ refers to ‘God’ (with a capital G). Etymology is again pressed into service, claiming that ‘Allah’ is a contraction of ‘al-ilaah’ (the Arabic definite particle ‘al’ converting ‘god’ to ‘THE god = God’). Even if this is true, (as mentioned above) what is relevant is not the origin and history of a word but what it means as far as those using it are concerned. There is nothing in ‘khuda‘ that precludes its use for ‘God’. In fact, as a singular noun it has traditionally been used in Persian and the languages influenced by Persian precisely as an Arab would invoke ‘Allah’. This is how the word was used in Pakistan and by the non-Arabs around the globe before the Arabization of Islam in the 1980s.
When Shah Wali Ullah produced his famous Persian translation of the Quran, he naturally translated ‘Allah’ everywhere to ‘khuda’. It was more than 200 years before the aforementioned Arabization of Islam, so nobody batted an eye. He was not the first to do it either. In fact, as far back as the seventh century, Salman Farsi (RA) is reported to have translated parts of the Quran (some say only al-Fatiha) into Persian for the benefit of his compatriots. Though no reliable copy of the work has survived, he would conceivably have used the same word for God. There are disputes regarding the details of the event. That scarcely matters though, because to settle fundamental issues we refer to the Quran and the Sunnat (for explicit instructions) and/or to the broader principles derived from the two, not to the authority of any individual companion, and certainly not to that of Shah Wali Ullah.
The broader principle (in addition to the explicit Quranic position on the issue) is this: Islam neither has a particular language nor is it meant for peoples of any one geography or ethnicity. No doubt the language of the Quran is Arabic, but the Quran itself explains that that is so merely because it directly addresses folks who spoke Arabic, just like the earlier books were sent to nations in their respective mother-tongues. In the Hebrew Old Testament, for example, the personal name for God is Yahweh. In contrast, the Arabic speaking Jews and Christians without exception refer to God as ‘Allah’ and therefore the Arabic Bible translators use ‘Allah’ everywhere for God. If there is a problem, it is always in one’s concept of the attributes and characteristic actions of God, never in what He is referred to as.
The message of the Quran and the last Prophet (peace be upon him) then, is by no means just for the Arabs. It is for the whole world and for all times to come. Islam makes no unrealistic demands on its followers. One such demand would be to expect the non-Arab masses to learn Arabic. All that is required of all Muslims is that the message of the Quran be understood and their lives be lived accordingly. Everybody is free to receive, contemplate and express that message in the language he knows best, using translations and any other resources available in that language. The medium (Arabic) of the Quran is vitally important no-doubt, but only for scholars and teachers who study Islam directly from its original sources and produce those resources in the various languages of the world for the benefit of the masses.
