Q406 :I have just nete back from Malaysia where some
ladies informed me on seeing my necklace which bears my name in Arabic,
that they were told not to wear theirs because Arabic is the language
of the Qur’an. Wearing such a necklace with Arabic writing and then
going about to attend a normal routine counts as an insult to Islam. I
promised to write to you for advice and netmunicate your answer to
them.
A406 : Arabic writing and Arabic characters are the
same as those of any other language. The fact that Allah has chosen to
reveal His messages to mankind in Arabic does not impart any sanctity
to the language itself or the way it is written. You may be aware that
there have been over the centuries some people who advocated beliefs
and ideologies which are totally un-Islamic. There have been and still
are people who call for discarding Islam altogether from the life of
the Arabs. They express all this in Arabic and they have published
books in Arabic which violates every aspect of the Islamic faith. If
the Arabic language had the sanctity some people suggest, Allah would
have made it impossible for those people to express their blasphemous
views in this language. While the idea that Arabic writing is sacred
continues to be held by well meaning people, it is unfortunate that
some of us tend to give too much importance to forms and appearances,
while forgetting about substance. From another point of view, an
action is considered to be an insult if it is meant to belittle or
degrade the person or the idea to which it is addressed. When a lady
wears a necklace bearing her name she is simply wearing a piece of
jewelry which has a shape she likes. The thought of insulting anyone or
anything does not even occur to her. Hence, it is perfectly permissible
for a woman to wear such a necklace and go about her business in the
normal way. However, if the inscription on the necklace includes
Allah’s name, then the lady should not wear that necklace when she goes
to the bathroom. She either takes it off, or, if she cannot, she keeps
it under her clothes.
Our Dialogue ( Source : Arab News – Jeddah )