There is no Hotoke (仏) except Allah?: How Japanese Muslims Attempted to Comprehend Divinity in Islam

This article is an introduction to the debate over the Japanese translation of the word “Allah” used by Dr. Mujahid Matsuyama, one of Japan’s leading experts in Islamic theology and jurisprudence. Matusyma Yohei writes essays on Islam in Japan for Genron (Views), a major Japanese discursive website. What I present here is my English translation of his article published in Genron Website.

It is quite challenging to translate Islamic principles into Japanese, which has a very distinct grammatical structure from Arabic, along with a religious, cultural, and political background that is completely different from that of the Islamic world. When considering the pre-modern reach of Islam, one can safely say that Japan is one of the countries that had extremely limited interaction with Islamic civilizations, in contrast with many neighboring nations and peoples. In the modern era, the history of an Islamic presence in Japan can be largely divided into a pre-World War II period that began in the nineteenth century and a post-World War II period.

Japan’s pre-war relations with Muslim countries generally followed its foreign policy towards East and Southeast Asia (especially its colonial policy toward neighboring countries), and these interactions were largely based on political interests. From the Meiji and Taisho eras onwards, we find scattered mention of certain Muslim groups, mainly by the Japanese Army. However, these stemmed from small-scale and sporadic, individualized efforts. It was only with the Japanese Empire’s advance into mainland China during the Manchurian Incident that more significant focus was given to the Muslims of Manchuria and northern China, and specifically their usefulness as an anti-Han and anti-communist force. Although such developments may have contributed somewhat to the growth of Oriental studies in Japan, it is highly doubtful that they contributed intellectually or spiritually to a nascent Japanese Muslim community.

Some Japanese Muslim intellectuals like Mujahid Yohei Matsuyama, as in the article I present here are cultivating intellectual soil for the future in order to nurture Islamic scholarship in Japan. This is by no means an easy task. However, as Islamic civilization has proven numerous times in its long history, Muslims, guided by the wisdom of Tawhid, will find ways to express and practice the ideals of Islam through the local language and culture. This article is yet another example of that.

After World War II, the number of Muslim workers in Japan began to increase as Japan’s economy developed, and the oil shocks of the 1970s led to a renewed interest in the Middle East. Under these circumstances, some Japanese people began to convert to Islam from the 1980s onward, contributing to the development of Islamic studies in Japan. However, as Japanese Muslim intellectual Mujahid Yohei Matsuyama points out, Japanese Islamic studies often fails to discuss the fundamental divergence (or similarity?) between the historical, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds of the Japanese and Islamic civilizations.

Some Japanese Muslim intellectuals like Mujahid Yohei Matsuyama, as in the article I present here are cultivating intellectual soil for the future in order to nurture Islamic scholarship in Japan. This is by no means an easy task. However, as Islamic civilization has proven numerous times in its long history, Muslims, guided by the wisdom of Tawhid, will find ways to express and practice the ideals of Islam through the local language and culture. This article is yet another example of that.

Dr. Naoki Yamamoto

There is no Hotoke[1] (仏) except Allah?: How Japanese Muslims Attempted to Comprehend Divinity in Islam

Dr. Mujahid Yohei Matsuyama 

When the Jesuit Francis Xavier began his Christian mission in Japan, he is said to have equated Dainichi Nyorai of the esoteric Shingon sect with Deus and told people to “Worship Dainichi.

Later, however, when Xavier realized that “Dainichi” was an inappropriate translation, he turned around and called for “Dainichi na ogami asso” (Do not worship Dainichi).

That being said, there is a record that it was not Xavier who equated Deus with Dainichi, but the priests of the Shingon sect.

Historical fact is not the issue here. In any case, Xavier and his followers finally gave up translating “Deus” into Japanese, and proceeded to proselytize in Japan by saying “デウス Deusu” as in Latin.

Did Xavier and his colleagues really think it was not so important to translate “Deus” into Japanese? Not at all. Catholic missionaries understood that the translation would greatly impact the success or failure of their mission in the new land, and they devoted themselves to researching the language spoken in the field of the mission. This was no different in Japan. Nevertheless, the missionaries who came to Japan gave up translating “Deus” into Japanese.

This fact indicates that a word to name the Creator of heaven and earth could not be found in the Japanese language, at least not at that time. João Rodrigues wrote that Xavier said, “The Japanese have not had a name to call Deus in Japanese, because they have not known Him until today.”

In China in the 17th and 18th centuries, a great controversy arose among Catholic priests who were involved in missionary work in the Qing Dynasty over the translation of “Deus.” In the 19th century, Protestant missionaries in England and America were divided over the translation of the English word “God,” this time between the camps that thought it should be translated as “神 (Sheng)” and the camp that thought it should be translated as “上帝(Shangdi)” meaning superior emperor. In the end, this conflict was not resolved, and both a Chinese translation of the Bible that translated “God” as “神 Shen” and a Chinese translation of the Bible that translated “上帝 Shangdi” were printed. This controversy was also a major event that determined the translation of “God” in Japanese.

Now we the Japanese accept “神 Kami” as a translation of “God” without any sense of unease. However, the Chinese word “神” (Shén) had a different meaning from the Japanese word “神 Kami.” In modern Japanese, the Chinese word “神” Shen has been given the Christian meaning of “God” and combined with the Japanese word “Kami.”

Among the Christian missionaries in Japan at the end of the 19th century were many Americans who were following in the footsteps of the missionaries who favored “神 Shen” as the Chinese translation of “God.” As a result, especially after the publication of the Hepburn translation of the Bible (1872), the word “神 Shen,” taken from the Chinese translation of the Bible – without much academic verification – was adopted as the Japanese translation of the English (Christian) “God,” and it became a permanent part of the English language.

Now we the Japanese accept “神 Kami” as a translation of “God” without any sense of unease. However, the Chinese word “神” (Shén) had a different meaning from the Japanese word “神 Kami.” In modern Japanese, the Chinese word “神” Shen has been given the Christian meaning of “God” and combined with the Japanese word “Kami.”

As Yanabu Akira points out, the word “Kami” in modern Japanese has become doubly twisted in meaning through this process. The modern Japanese have used this twisted word “神 Kami” to understand the ancient Japanese Kami, as well as the “gods” of the emperor, Christianity, and other religions. If, as Tsuda Sokichi suggests as a possibility, the linguistic interference associated with the translation of “God” as “神 Kami” also influenced nation-building in Japan during and after the war, then the series of translations that formed the perception of “Kami” = “神” = “God” was the great translation of the century (or the great mistranslation?) for modern Japan.

“神 Kami” in Arabic in Islam

The problem of translating “神 Kami” is not the exclusive domain of Christianity. The same problem can obviously be considered in the case of Islam.

How can we translate the Islamic equivalent of “Deus” or “God” into Japanese? Or, what words have actually been used in the past? I would like to briefly summarize the issues.

…If Allah is not translated as “Kami,” but as “Allah,” then how should we render the word “Ilāh”? Should it be “Kami” or some other word? Should the confession of faith, “There is no ilāh except Allah,” be translated as “There is no Kami but Allah”? There has been no lively debate on this issue, either among Japanese-speaking Muslims or among scholars.

In Islam (Arabic), there are two main words that can be translated as “神 Kami.” One is “Allah” (الله), the name of the Creator, and the other is the generic noun “ilāh” (إله), meaning “that which is worshipped.” The word “Allah” is considered the proper name of the Creator and has no plural or feminine form. The word “ilāh” is a common noun, and is sometimes used to refer to Allah, and sometimes to the object of worship in other religions. According to one theory, the word “Allah” is a contraction of the definite article “al” prefixed to the word “ilāh. According to this theory, “Allah” means “The Ilāh.” The two words “Allah” and “Ilāh” are also found in the Shahada, which is the fundamental creed of Islam: “There is no Ilāh except Allah” (لا إله إلا الله). Note that in Japanese this phrase is often translated as “アッラーの他に神は無し（There is no kami other than Allah: Allah no hokani Kami wa nasi).” Here, “Allah” is transcribed in katakana[2] as “アッラー” and “ilāh” is translated in Chinese characters as “神 Kami.” It is a fundamental tenet of Islam that only Allah is considered as “ilāh” and no other being is considered as “ilāh.” Allah is the “true Ilāh” (إله حق) and any other worshipped being is a “false Ilāh” (إله باطل). The word “ilāh” is a direct description of the nature of the proper name Allah. Behind the question of the translation of “Allah” hangs the question of the translation of the word “ilāh” with equal importance.

The Theory of “Allah = Lord of the Heavens”

In Japan, contact with Muslims increased after the Meiji period (1868-1912), and some Japanese people became converts to the Islamic faith. Nevertheless, few people raised the issue of the translation of “Allah” or “ilāh,” and the majority of the commentators indulged in extremely facile discussions – if we may even call them discussions.

Ippei Tanaka (born 1882, died 1934) was one of the Japanese Muslims who took the most optimistic position on this issue. Tanaka, who had no particular problem with the translation of the word “Allah,” referred to Allah as “神 Kami” (or sometimes　真主 Shinshu “true Lord”) and compared Him to the Japanese “Kami” without any particular reservation.

Tanaka also compares the Islamic doctrine that Allah has ninety-nine “正名 true names” – often referred to today as the “九十九の美名 ninety-nine beautiful names” – with the Japanese doctrine that the Japanese have eight million gods (八百万の神々） under the deity 天之御中主神 Ame-no-Mikano-Nushi no Kami. He also pointed out the similarity in mentality between the hierarchical structure of Japanese deities with 8 million deities under them, and other somewhat forceful opinions, explaining that the ideals of Islam and “kami-nagara-no-Michi” (Japaneseism) are in agreement with each other. Like Tanaka, it is a common attitude in Japan to this day to refer to Allah as “神 Kami” and to use the entity called “神 Kami” in Japan as the object of comparison. For example, Japanese academicians generally explain “Islam considers Allah as the only 神 Kami. This is different from the Japanese view of religion, which believes in many 神 Kami. The perception of Allah as a “Kami” for Muslims is accepted by ordinary Japanese audiences as quite natural.

On the other hand, there are those who associate Allah with a specific divine being in Japan, in the same way that Xavier once called “Deus” “Dainichi. For example, Kotaro Yamaoka (b. 1880, d. 1959), a Japanese Muslim, explained the meaning of “Allahu-Akbar” as “He is Amaterasu Omikami, the One True Kami, and is an honorific pronoun for Allah.”

According to Saburo Shimano (b. 1893, d. 1987), Yamaoka also compared Allah to “Amida Buddha.” Bunhachiro Aruga (b. 1868, d. 1946), another Japanese Muslim known for his passionate missionary efforts in Japan, regarded Allah as the same being as the “One God” (as he considered Him), Ame-no-Minakanushi. Like Tanaka, Aruga had a very optimistic outlook on the relationship between the Japanese spirit and Islam, and he believed that Islam was “the religion that best fits the Japanese people” and “fits the spirit of our country since its foundation.” He also not only identifies Allah as the deity Ame-no-Minakanushi, but also makes positive references to his attitude toward the emperor and the imperial family, and argues that there is no contradiction between the dedication to the Islamic faith and the dedication to the national identity of Japan. Aruga distinguishes between “respect” for Amaterasu, the emperor, and the entire imperial family, and “reverence” for the “One True Lord” (Allah), and argues that it is natural for even Muslims to “respect” Amaterasu, the emperor, and the entire imperial family.

By the way, the idea of equating the Shinto god (Ame-no-Minakanushi) with the Islamic god (Allah) may seem like an acrobatic exercise from the perspective of modern Japan, where the common understanding of the “Japanese spirit (Shinto) = polytheism” is widely accepted. However, it is said that in Fukko Shinto since the time of Atsutane Hirata, a monotheistic and creator god-like character was assigned to the deity Amano no Mikunoshujin. Before and during the war, there was a debate among Japanese Christians to equate Ame-no-Minakanushi with the Christian God. The identification of Allah with Ame-no-Minakanushi by Aruga and others, who are Muslims, was not an original thought.

The argument that “Allah” cannot be translated to any other word

Although the accompanying context differs depending on whether the term “Kami” or “Ame-no-Minakanushi” is used, it is possible to say that both Tanaka and Aruga followed a common strategy in applying existing Japanese words to the translation of Allah. In contrast to the optimistic commentators mentioned above, Masao Hara (b. 1882, d. 1972), a member of the Dainihon Kaikyo Kyokai,[3] took the position that the term “Allah” in Japanese is “untranslatable.” Hara was not a Muslim, but a nationalist who deeply believed in (national) Shinto. Hara’s position is as follows:

The words “Allah” and “Ilāh” in Islam have a completely different meaning from “Kami” in Japanese. Therefore, the Japanese word “Kami” cannot be applied to the translation of “Allah,” which Muslims believe is the true “Ilāh.” We can only call Allah “Allah,” Ilāh “Ilāh” and Kami “Kami.” The words of the Islamic confession of faith must be recited in Arabic as “لا إله إلا الله” (Lā ilāha illallah) and should not be translated into Japanese as “there is no Kami but Allah. This is because Allah is not included in the scope of what is meant by the word “Kami” in Japanese.

This position may be taken as the exact opposite of that of Tanaka and Aruga. However, Hara, like Tanaka and Aruga, presents a positive view of the compatibility of the Japanese spirit and Islamic faith. In other words, because “Allah” and “Kami” are different, Hara concludes that Muslims who “worship Allah as the absolute supreme being” may at the same time recognize and “revere” various entities called “Kami” in Japanese. “Allah” and “Ilāh” are different concepts from “Kami,” and therefore, they are not the same thing. Hara concludes that “Allah” and “Ilāh” are different concepts from “Kami,” and therefore, reverence for what is called “Kami” in Japanese does not cancel belief in Allah, the one and only Ilāh. Such arguments of Hara have been critically evaluated by some. However, there was a certain historical imperative behind his argument.

After the Manchurian Incident,[4] the Empire of Japan faced the urgent problem of controlling the Muslim population. When Muslims became residents or subjects of the Empire of Japan at the same time, the problem naturally arose that their belief in the Creator of heaven and earth (Allah) as the sole object of worship was incompatible with their recognition of the Emperor as the actual Kami. In his memoirs describing Japan’s policy toward Muslims on the mainland, Takeuchi Yoshimi relates the words of a young Japanese man who was training Muslims in Mongjiang (now the central part of Inner Mongolia). The young man, whose duties included instructing Muslims to visit shrines, said that while he “could understand that the Hui faith was right for them,” he was extremely serious about convincing them that “our Japanese Kami is even higher […] than the Hui’s Kami (Allah). I want to convince them that our Japanese Kami is even higher.” This young man’s “anguish” symbolizes the difficulty of having Muslims, who consider the Creator of heaven and earth as the sole “Kami,” as residents and subjects of the Japanese state, which reveres the emperor as its “Kami” – “subtlety,” in Takeuchi’s words.

One aspect of this difficulty arises from placing the Islamic “Allah” on the same footing as the Japanese “Kami.” If Hara’s argument for the prohibition of translation was a way to get around this problem and to keep the Muslims under the Japanese state, then it is a reasonable “compromise.”

In fact, Hara wrote, “The Japanese spirit should thus embrace and guide the Muslim world. There should be no fear or aversion to it. I believe that our people, in the light of the ancient high spirit of our country, must embrace Islam and be its leaders.”

In this way, he insisted that the empire should show understanding, inclusion, and guidance for the beliefs of the Muslims. This was also not only Hara’s personal argument, but also the demand of the times. Hara’s argument, which may seem like a tirade if one looks only at the conceptual part of it, may have been a practical compromise in the face of limited options.

Postwar Trends

Among those who, after the war, re-examined the issue of translating “Allah” into Japanese from an academic perspective was the social anthropologist Kazuo Otsuka (b. 1949, d. 2009). He summarized his reflections on this issue in his essay “Allah, Kami, and Kami of Allah.”

In this essay, Otsuka, referring to the arguments of Saussure and Maruyama Masao, points out that translating “Allah,” as the sole object of worship in Islam, into Japanese as “Kami” or “Kami of Allah” would cancel the semantic exclusivity originally inherent in the Arabic word “Allah.” In the end, Otsuka concludes that it is appropriate to transliterate “Allah” as “Allah” in katakana. In the sense that no translation is necessary, this is similar to Hara’s position above.

Otsuka’s argument that “Allah” should be transcribed in Katakana as “Allah” instead of “God” or “Kami of Allah” is widely accepted and practiced to this day. Otsuka’s argument has a certain persuasive value even today, as he makes a convincing argument for the translation of “Allah.” However, little attention is paid to the question of the translation of “ilāh” – that is, whether it is acceptable to translate “ilāh” as “Kami,” or, in other words, whether it is acceptable to describe Allah as “Kami.” This point remains a challenge for Japanese Muslims.

As mentioned above, the fundamental creed of Islam is to regard Allah alone as the true “ilāh” (i.e., the one to be worshipped). This creed can be summed up in the words of the confession of faith, “There is no ilāh except Allah.” Since the word “Allah” is only transcribed in Katakana, the translation of the word “ilāh” that directly and primarily explains the meaning of the existence of “Allah” must be considered next. If Allah is not translated as “Kami,” but as “Allah,” then how should we render the word “ilāh”? Should it be “Kami” or some other word? Should the confession of faith, “There is no ilah except Allah,” be translated as “There is no Kami but Allah”? There has been no lively debate on this issue, either among Japanese-speaking Muslims or among scholars.

Is it possible to call Allah “Hotoke”?

Of course, since word-for-word “one-to-one” translation is an illusion, no matter what translation is applied to a word, there will eventually be a semantic discrepancy between the word and the original. This is inevitable. Given that translation is an activity of transferring not individual words but the entire text into another language, the semantic discrepancies associated with individual translations can be adjusted and compensated for in the translation of the entire text.

Besides, “Kami” as a translation of “god” is now firmly established in the Japanese language in a way that is difficult to move. It would be impossible to change it now. If this is the case, “ilāh” may have no choice but to be translated as “Kami” in the end. At the very least, there is little doubt that “Kami” is the translation that is least likely to cause discomfort among modern Japanese speakers.

However, as we unthinkingly read “ilāh” as “Kami,” we gradually come to believe that “Kami” is the “correct” translation of “ilāh.” In fact, it is rare that attention is paid to the existence of a semantic discrepancy between “ilāh” and “Kami” when the Islamic “god” is referred to.

What can be done to remember this misalignment? It may not be so pointless to consider alternative translations. As a translation of “ilāh,” next to “Kami,” there is, for example, “天 ten: heaven” (in the sense of the superior emperor　上帝) as a word whose legitimacy should be considered. However, “天 ten” is now a dead word in modern Japanese. Of course, just because it is a dead word does not mean that it cannot be used. However, as an experiment, I would like to consider the possibility of using “仏 hotoke,” an object of worship comparable to “Kami” in Japan.

In light of the ambiguous and variable relationship between Hotoke and Kami in Japanese religious history, it is not entirely impossible to translate the word translated as “Kami” into “Hotoke” as an alternative.

At the beginning of this article, I mentioned that the Hepburn translation of the Bible is one of the Bibles that established “Kami” as a translation of “god” in Japanese. The translator of this Bible, James Curtis Hepburn (b. 1815, d. 1911), compiled a Japanese-English dictionary titled “Wa-Ei Rinshu” (Japanese-English Dictionary). In the entry for “God” in this dictionary, the corresponding Japanese words are “Kami” and “Shin” in Shinto and “hotoke” in Buddhism. The distance from God, “Kami” and “hotoke,” were originally – at least in Hebon’s eyes – almost equal. A world in which God could be translated as “Hotoke” might even be possible.

“Kami” is a word that originally developed its unique meaning in the animistic worldview of Japan. Like “hotoke,” humans can be transformed into “Kami.” Not only humans. Beasts, birds, plants, and insects can also be transformed into Kami.

The meaning of the word “ilāh” is “that which is worshipped,” as I mentioned above, but the nature of the object of devotion, of the object to which one turns and to which one seeks help in the Japanese tradition was not originally “Kami,” but “hotoke,” which is what the Japanese have always had in mind. In this respect alone, the nature of “ilāh” is closer to that of “hotoke” than to that of Kami. When we apply the word “hotoke” to “ilāh,” the Islamic confession of faith, “There is no ilāh but Allah,” can be translated as “There is no hotoke but Allah. It could even go further and be translated as “There is no hotoke but the greatest Hotoke.”

Of course, this would be a mistranslation. I do not think this is the correct translation. The Buddha is a concept unique to Buddhism, and basically refers to the existence of a human being who has attained enlightenment through practice. As a translation of “ilāh,” it is a very unnatural word.

“Kami” is a word that originally developed its unique meaning in the animistic worldview of Japan. Like “hotoke,” humans can be transformed into “Kami.” Not only humans. Beasts, birds, plants, and insects can also be transformed into Kami.

The proposed translation, “There is no Hotoke but Allah,” would be highly misleading. But is the misunderstanding created by this translation greater than the misunderstanding created by “There is no Kami but Allah”? When we deny that Allah is “Hotoke,” we cannot simply affirm the proposition that Allah is also “Kami.”

The proposed translation, “There is no Hotoke but Allah,” would be highly misleading. But is the misunderstanding created by this translation greater than the misunderstanding created by “There is no Kami but Allah”? When we deny that Allah is “Hotoke,” we cannot simply affirm the proposition that Allah is also “Kami.”

Dr. Mujahid Yohei Matsuyama is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of World Liberal Studies at Nagoya University of Foreign Studies. He specializes in the history of Islamic thought and Islamic theology. He is the author of Islamic Theology (Sakuhinsha), Reading Islamic Thought (Chikuma Shinsho), and editor of Introduction to the Qur’an (Sakuhinsha).

Dr. Naoki Yamamoto is an Assistant professor at the Graduate school of Turkic Studies at Marmara University. He completed his Ph.D. at the Graduate School of Asia and Africa Studies, Kyoto University in 2018. He specializes in Ottoman Tasawwuf and traditional Japanese culture. His publications include a Japanese translation of Sulami’s Kitāb al-Futuwwa and Introduction to Tasawwuf: A Comparison with Shonen Manga (Shueisha Web Essay Series).

[1]  Hotoke is the Japanese word for Buddha, the supreme being and enlightened one in Buddhism.

[2] Katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with Hiragana. Katakana is used for writing words borrowed from other languages.

[3] The Dai Nihon Kaikyo Kyokai (Great Japan Islamic Association) was an Islamic research and operative organization that once existed in the Empire of Japan. It was established in September 1938 by Senjuro Hayashi, former Prime Minister, who served as its first chairman, and lasted for seven years until its dissolution in October 1945. It conducted public relations activities to make Islam known to the Japanese people, and also offered opinions on the management of Muslims in the occupied territories under the guidance of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Greater East Asia Ministry. These activities were carried out under the guidance of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of East Asian Affairs.

[4] The Manchurian Incident (September 18, 1931) was a seizure of the Manchurian city of Mukden in China by Japanese troops in 1931, which was followed by the Japanese invasion of all of Manchuria and the establishment of the Japanese-dominated state of Manchukuo in the area.