Let's all call God Allah??? News story

Let's All Call God Allah: Dutch Bishop



ABC News - Australia



August 16, 2007





A Roman Catholic Bishop in the Netherlands has proposed

people of all faiths refer to God as Allah to foster

understanding, stoking an already heated debate on religious

tolerance in a country with one million Muslims.



Bishop Tiny Muskens, from the southern diocese of Breda,

told Dutch television that God did not mind what he was

named and that in Indonesia, where Bishop Muskens spent

eight years, priests used the word "Allah" while
celebrating

Mass.



"Allah is a very beautiful word for God. Shouldn't we all

say that from now on we will name God Allah?" he said.



"What does God care what we call him? It is our
problem."



A survey in the Netherlands' biggest-selling newspaper De

Telegraaf found 92 percent of the more than 4,000 people

polled disagreed with the bishop's view, which also drew

ridicule.



"Sure. Let's call God Allah. Let's then call a church a

mosque and pray five times a day. Ramadan sounds like fun,"

Welmoet Koppenhol wrote in a letter to the newspaper.



Gerrit de Fijter, chairman of the Protestant church in the

Netherlands, told the paper he welcomed any attempt to

"create more dialogue", but added: "Calling God 'Allah'
does

no justice to Western identity. I see no benefit in it."



A spokesman from the union of Moroccan mosques in Amsterdam

said Muslims had not asked for such a gesture.



Bishop Muskens, who will shortly retire, has raised eyebrows

in the past with suggestions that those who are hungry may

steal bread and that condoms should be permissible in the

fight against HIV and AIDS.



Some Dutch Muslims welcomed his comments as a valuable

gesture of support coming just days after the Koran was

branded a "fascist book" which legitimises violence in
the

vein of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.



Issues of immigration and integration had faded from the

Dutch political agenda over the last year, after a period of

unprecedented social tension sparked by the 2004 murder of

Theo Van Gogh, a filmmaker critical of Islam, by a Muslimmilitant.