The finite human mind can’t be expected to fully grasp the infinite even if we are to name it God or Allah. And the more special our God is, the more special is our love and hate isolating us from adherents of other faiths.

Although the ‘Allah’ controversy originated as a problem in translation, banning the use of the word for non-Muslims here turned it into a political and legal tussle. However, the actual core issue is not where a translated word should stand but whether the various religions have been stacked in a hierarchical pyramid or placed in concentric circles.

The ‘Allah’ issue reflects an ideology of “specialness???. It concerns the legitimacy of the special use of a special name of a special God by a special people of a special time in a special place.

In the olden days, wrong translation of religious texts could lead to death, like the burning at stake of the French humanist Etienne Dolet in 1546.

Today in Malaysia, to prevent further escalation of violence, perhaps it would be helpful to revisit the intricacies of the translation process. Then instead of banning this word or that, we could give space to ourselves and others to appreciate the rights, feelings and understanding of all religions.

Translation has a primary relationship to disciplines such as linguistics especially semantics, pragmatics and applied and contrastive linguistics, modern comparative literature, cultural studies including gender studies and post-colonial studies, and philosophy of language and meaning, including hermeneutics and deconstruction, according to Jeremy Munday’s introduction to Translation Studies.

A translator does not live in a social vacuum. The social institutions to which he belongs are carriers of beliefs and values which may have an ideological bias. In general, writings are not cast in stone, so much so that the translator can’t even alter a word. On the other hand, he will need to select from choices of words.

Translation also carries the imprints of the times. For example, the names accorded to the Buddha in Chinese translated texts almost inevitably refer to the specific historical Buddha, whereas certain names addressed to the Buddha in the Pali original text implies that there are other enlightened beings beside the Indian prince Siddhartha.

Hence readers of the Pali scriptures would have a different view of Buddhahood (or transcendence). From here we can see how translation shape or condition an individual, the social-cultural environment and the Buddhist civilization in various countries.

Convention in use of language is a long evolutionary process. Once formed, it has a life of its own and should not be forcibly rooted out.

Therefore if the ‘Allah’ translation were to be defended as a matter of cultural right, it will mean an entirely different debate. If a word has been used for ages, banning it is an infringement of cultural rights and marginalization or colonization of The Other. It then becomes a manifestation of unequal power relationship.

Sacred words in religious language

A good translation would be one whereby the sense and meaning of the author is translated. When a translator reads a source text, he would gain certain impressions from the text. The challenge is how to convey the same impression to the readers of the target language. This also depends on type of readers and their level of understanding.

Translation is not only affected by the bilingual ability of the translator, but also if he holds the view whether sacred words can be tampered with, modified or substituted. In modern times, words in the sacred texts seem to have lost much of their original spiritual power. Advancement in the sciences has arguably contributed to the decay of religious language.

Is there one and only one correct translation, and anything outside this is deemed heresy?

Older versions of translation could still be re-translated if it is felt that new techniques in translation would serve the purpose better in changed times and places. [CPI editor’s note: cf. the ‘black’ Bible in American hip-hop slang]

The source text meaning is often embedded in language that is very culture-bound and to which the target language can never correspond. The problem becomes more acute if the time and place of the source culture is thousands of years ago in a faraway land. Any enlightenment or revelation would have to be explained from the language of that era.

Schleiermacher, founder of modern Protestant theology and of modern hermeneutics, preferred to move the reader to the writer, so that the reader would receive the same impression as if he reads in the original language. However, Martin Luther focused more on the target text and target readers. This shows that translation does not follow rigid rules, and culture-bound language can be modified or discarded.

Establishing identity from ‘naming’

When we name an object, we define by drawing boundaries around it. In doing so, we isolate it. We always name and categorize things and events, and then we acquire identities out of the procedure.

And when we cannot categorize, our mind becomes restless and we might even feel insecure. Once we pigeonhole it, compartmentalize it, we feel secure. Naming provides a false sense of security.

It is an illusion to cut a slice of reality and name it God or Allah. The finite and logical mind just cannot grasp the infinite. And the more special our ‘God’ is, the more special is our love and hate, and the more we are isolated from others and from the reality of interconnectedness of all living beings. Hence, the conflicts out of insecurity begin.

Words are just conventions. They symbolize the objects but they are not the object itself. The finger that points to the moon is not the moon itself. Confusion results when the finger is mistaken as the moon, the signifier for the signified.

In fact, a text that lacks coherent and systematic arguments and supporting evidence would be much more confusing to readers than the mere misnaming of a word. Particularly for sacred textual translation, this could give rise to all sorts of interpretations, even contradictory ones to the originator of the thoughts.

‘Allah is for Muslims only’

Invoking the Ultimate does not help if it is not to follow the finger that points to the moon. We need new sets of cultural tools to let go of self-centeredness – the central issue of religions.

Possessiveness or spiritual materialism is reflected in the minds of the proponents for the ‘Allah’ ban. Religious practices in most traditions tend to give rise to two opposing forces extending in a continuum: the letting-go of power and the grabbing of power.

Mere acquisition of a religious identity does not by itself address psychological issues of a believer, be it personal or interpersonal. The difficulties in integrating or actualizing the spiritual insights or attainments into one’s own personality structure and daily living are evident not only in Islam but in all religions.

John Welwood in ‘The Psychology of Awakening’ argued that “Spiritual practice involves freeing consciousness from its entanglement in form, matter, emotions, personality, and social conditioning…when people use spiritual practice to compensate for low self-esteem, social alienation or emotional immaturity, they wind up with neither a healthy spirituality nor a healthy psychology.???

Mere invoking of the ontological Ultimate Reality does not resolve the problem of psychological insecurity and deficient identity at the relative level. A gold chain, though golden is still a chain, despite the purported attribution of ‘divinity’ to it.

Limitation of inter-faith dialogue

Following attacks on places of worship, inter-faith dialogue has been often proposed as a way out of the predicament.

More frequent contacts between different religious traditions would no doubt promote understanding and acceptance between them. However, there should be more focus on how to dialogue and not just mere espousing of doctrines of each faith. The art of dialogue should be taught at young age.

Inter-faith dialogue should also move towards the stage of mutual transformation, whereby the ontological basis of each dogma could be challenged.

It is not possible to have a universal theology, but it is still possible to have universal experience of that indefinable experience of the Ultimate. And how to translate this into words, one might ask?

In the final analysis, it is more important to live the experience than to talk about it. We need to engage directly in the process of de-conceptualising so that the thought-constructions of the Ultimate are seen as mere shadows.