Answer
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
1- No Muslim can tolerate the slightest act of dishonoring the sacred name of Allah
2- Every Muslim leader and scholar should endorse the call to boycott the products and services of Marks and Spencer until they retract, commit themselves to refrain from such acts of sacrilege in the future and publish a clear written apology to that effect.
In his response to your question, Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, states:
Allah is the Name of Majesty and the Supreme Name of God, the Almighty, the Creator, and Sovereign Lord, the One and only God.
Allah is the proper name for God in the Arabic language.
So, it behooves everyone who believes in God to revere the name and honor it.
However, we are living in the strange times. As the Muslim philosopher, Ibn Rushd said, “Ignorance leads to fear, fear leads to hatred, and hatred leads to violence. This is the equation.”
Those who seek to desecrate the name of God Allah are doing that out of their sheer ignorance. They are mistaken in their belief that God in Islam is a tribal deity worshipped by Muslims. They may do well to know that Allah is the name used for God by all those who speak Arabic, whether Muslim, Christian or Jew or the pagan Arabs before and after Islam
Allah is defined thus by the Quran:
{Say, “He, God, is One, God, the Eternally Sufficient unto Himself. He begets not; nor was He begotten. And none is like unto Him.} (Al-Ikhlas 112: 1-4)
To revere God and worship Him is the first commandment. The Quran declares it as the first and second commandments God communicated directly to Moses and all apostles and messengers from Adam to Muhammad (peace be upon them all).
And we read in the Bible that the third commandment God issued to Moses was: “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” (KJV)
So, it behooves everyone who believes in God to honor God’s name.
For a Muslim it is of the highest priority; therefore, to dishonor the name of God ‘Allah’ is an ultimate act of sacrilege and hence an enormous sin.
Allah says,
{And in any honor the symbols of God, that is from the piety of hearts.} (Al-Hajj 22:32)
So no Muslim can tolerate the slightest act of dishonoring the sacred name of Allah. Instead, we must act in solidarity regardless of our theological and sectarian differences to take concerted action against such acts of sacrilege.
The onus falls on individual Muslims all over the world; and even greater responsibility on the Muslim governments.
Having said this, Muslims should act responsibly; we must never resort to violence or react hysterically or erratically.
Instead, the most effective way of responding to such acts is to boycott their products and services of such companies and thus to make them feel the hurt financially. That is the only language they understand.
The message to the Muslim community is to put its money where its mouth is.
I call upon every Muslim leader and scholar to endorse the call to boycott the products and services of Marks and Spencer until they retract, commit themselves to refrain from such acts of sacrilege in the future and publish a clear written apology to that effect.
Almighty Allah knows best.