Allah, Kami and Arā no Kami : A Study of the Japanese Way of Understanding Islam

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  • アッラー，神，アラーの神 : イスラームの日本的理解をめぐる一考察
  • アッラー,カミ,アラー ノ カミ イスラーム ノ ニホンテキ リカイ オ メグ

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The Japanese say that Muslims believe in Ara-no-Kami (God ofAllah). This idiom, Ara-no-Kami, is a compound word consisting ofKami (god or deity in Japanese) and Ara- (the Japanese rendering ofAllah, Islamic God). Most Japanese do not doubt that the idiomis an exact translation of the word Allah. In this paper the exactnessof the translation in conveying to the Japanese the meaning of one ofthe most significant concepts in Islamic cosmology is disscussed.In this respect Saussurian semiology recently interpreted by K.Maruyama was found to be useful. First, two words-sets, one Japaneseand the other Arabic, are examined. These words convey a meaningakin to god, deity or supernatural being. From this it was concludedthat the value of the word kami, as a sign in the Japanese languagesystem, differs greatly from that of Allah in Arabic. Thus a simplerendering of Allah as Kami might be erroneous. Moreover, the idiomAra-no-Kami is more than just a mistranslation. Clearly, the Japaneseconsider the Islamic God as one of many gods, since the wordkami connotes not one but many gods (eight million according to acommon expression) which is quite opposite to the creed of the orthodoxIslamic faith. Indeed, the first of the five pillars of Islamic creedis shahada, a confession of faith, which is represented in the phrase"there is no god but Allah (God) ."Difficulties of translation imply more than the mere correctrendering of words, for in them resides the entire complex problemof "the translation of culture," a central tenet of anthropologicalmethodology.

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