The use of the word "Allah" should not be exclusively for Muslims, an Indonesian-American imam argued today, saying it was wrong and unacceptable.
"Allah is God, and God is Allah. It is not my right to stop someone from calling God 'Allah'," said Shamsi Ali, chairman of the Al-Hikmah mosque in Astoria, New York.
"If I limit the word 'Allah' to be owned only by 1.6 billion Muslims, then I am degrading the authority of Allah for being the God of 7 billion people," Shamsi said, defending the non-Muslims' use of the Arabic word for God.
"It is wrong and unacceptable. Who gives the right to Muslims to have the right only to use that word?" asked Shamsi after taking part in a forum at the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia campus in Kuala Lumpur.
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