Rebuttal: The English Language

When a Salafi dismisses the English language as the language of the kuffar - the disbelievers - they demonstrate not religious zeal but a profound ignorance of God's own Book. The fatwa against English, or against any language on the grounds that it belongs to disbelievers, breaks every rule of common sense and contradicts the Quran directly.

First: Common Sense

A language is nothing more than a tool - a vehicle for carrying a message from one person to another. The credibility or corruption of any statement lies entirely in its content, not in the tongue it is spoken in. A declaration of disbelief can be made in any language on earth, including Arabic. A declaration of sincere faith can equally be made in any language on earth, including English.

The Salafi position, followed to its logical conclusion, requires us to believe that there are no genuine believers among English-speaking people - that the English language itself is somehow incompatible with faith. This is absurd on its face. Disbelievers have spoken every language in human history. If we look no further than the earliest pages of Islamic history, the Quran itself records idol worshippers who venerated the stone idols Al-Lat and Uzzah (53:19). These people did not speak English. They spoke Arabic. The language of disbelief, it turns out, has always included Arabic.

Second: The Quranic Verdict

The Quran does not merely fail to support this fatwa - it refutes it on two counts.

The first is a direct statement about the origin of all human languages:

[30:22] And among His proofs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the variations in your languages and your colors. In these, there are signs for the knowledgeable.

God created every language. Every human tongue - Arabic, English, Swahili, Mandarin, and every other - is listed among God's signs, His ayat. To declare any language contemptible is to declare contemptible something God Himself created and placed among His signs. The person issuing such a fatwa is not defending God's religion. They are disparaging God's creation.

The second count is more pointed still. The very language these Salafis would elevate above all others - Arabic - is the language in which the Quran delivers the following verdict about its native speakers:

[9:97] The Arabs are the worst in disbelief and hypocrisy, and the most likely to ignore the laws that GOD has revealed to His messenger. GOD is Omniscient, Most Wise.

The Arabs of this verse did not speak English. They spoke Arabic - and they are described in God's own words as the worst in disbelief and hypocrisy. Their kufr was expressed in Arabic and no other language. Whether these words apply specifically to the Arabs of the prophet's time or carry a broader application is open to discussion, but the point that matters here is this: at no moment in Islamic history did anyone issue a fatwa abolishing the Arabic language on the grounds that it was the language being used by the disbelievers. The logic was never applied to Arabic - because applied to Arabic, its absurdity becomes immediately visible.

That same absurdity applies equally when the target is English, or any other language God saw fit to create and place among His signs.