Of late there is a lot of fuss going around in my country about religion. Precisely Islam and Hinduism. I think religion is a very sensitive matter. Thus anything relating to religion, either much or less, is not good. Let’s tell you a story in this regard.
Let's say Mr. X has come from Saudi Arabia and brought a football for his nephew. But the issue arises when they notice that the football has Arabic letters on it. They believe it will be disrespectful to the sacred religion if the kid plays with the ball. Apparently, you play football on foot and it is not counted as a good thing, here and all around the world in Muslim families. So the football cannot be used to play since it has Arabic on it. In spite of the tears of the little boy, they tore the football apart in front of the kid.
Look Arabic is a language, it's not any religion.
The religion is sacred, the Quran is a holy book, the verses of the Quran are sacred. But not the language or the letters/fonts.
People swear, call names, say nasty things in Arabic. In the same way, the Bengali language has its own rhetorical beauty. Here is nothing which has a touch of Hinduism in the Bengali language. Our God or Allah has a vast and beautiful mind. Allah doesn’t confine the relation to ours with him just in mere language. No matter what language you use, God will listen and understand you. God will only consider the honesty and your expression of the mind. God or Allah has the power to be present everywhere and he is the almighty.
The famous Bengali poet Abdul Hakim said
In countries where people speak their language
God understands the language.
যেই দেশে যেই বাক্য কহে নরগণ
সেইবাক্য বুঝে প্রভু আপে নিরঞ্জন!
Pious or God-fearing people and extremist people are two different things. I believe people who have trivial knowledge about religion turn out to be more extremists.
We Muslims give Arabic the utmost respect. Our government a few years back ran several anti-public urination campaigns. None worked except one. Where the government just wrote a notice not to urinate here and there in simple Bengali language, it didn’t work. But when they wrote the notice in Arabic, the results were amazing. Not only did people stop urinating in those places, but they also respected the notice since it was written in Arabic. It was also found that people were prostrating the notice written in Arabic.
On the other hand, where we Muslim countries consider Arabic as a holy language, people around the world fear the language as well. Apparently, the religion Islam or the Arabic language is being considered a part of terrorism. This has become a common stereotype.
Non-Muslims in Europe or America for example fear traditional Muslim attires like Jubbah or the Arabic language. You are seeing a picture here, as far as I know, this is a marketing stunt by a Palestinian organization named Rock Paper Scissors. They launched a shopping bag which had something written in Arabic. The idea was to flare up people who fear the Arabic language. Also to attract attention. The campaign was a success I guess.
People also have issues with people's names. I think you all have faced awkward situations just because of people’s names. Many Muslims are familiar with Abu Huraira. Do you know that the famous Sahabah (Companion of Prophet Muhammad) Abu Huraira's name literally means Father Of A Kitten. Prophet Muhammad called him by that name, and Sahabah Abu Huraira gladly accepted it and used this name.
I talked about the Sahabah because a few days back one of my brothers called an Uber. When the Uber rider came, he asked whether he was named Shubhra. Shubhra is a Bengali name and it means Fresh. The Uber rider asked whether he was a Muslim or Hindu. He asked why it mattered. The rider replied if he is a Hindu he won’t give him the ride.
My brother Shubrah and his wife wanted to name his kid Rood/Rodra meaning Sunshine. They didn’t name the kid Sunshine since the kid would have to go through a lot of bad experiences since he would be named after a Bengali word. What’s wrong with it? I wonder! In Bangladesh, people have a lot of issues with Bengali names. Many Bengalis think that the language Bengali is related to Hinduism.
To conclude I want to quote the famous poet Abdul Hakim,
Those who in spite of being born in Bangladesh, hates Bengali
I doubt about their birth
"যে সবে বঙ্গেত জন্মি হিংসে বঙ্গবাণী। সে সব কাহার জন্ম নির্ণয় ন জানি।।"
— Arabic Is a Language Not a Religion - School of Conscious Confusion