| Uproar over Use of 'Allah' in Malaysia |
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| by Tom McGregor | Sun, Jan 3, 2010, 01:24 PM |
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The Wall Street Journal reports that, "the legal tussle is raising tensions between Malaysia's ethnic Malay Muslim majority, who comprise around 60% of this resource-rich nation's population, and its large ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities. Muslim groups already are preparing demonstrations against a High Court ruling on New Year's Eve to overturn a three-year-old government ban on the Catholic Church using the Arabic word Allah as a translation for God in its Malay-language newspaper." On Sunday, Sharufuddin Tengku Ahmad, government spokesman, said that the government will file an appeal against the ruling. The verdict potentially upholds the constitutional right of the Church's Herald newspaper to refer to Jesus Christ as the son of Allah, among other things. This may likely enflame numerous Muslims in Malaysia and inhibit Prime Minister Najib Razak's efforts to unite Malaysia's different religious groups closer together. According to the Wall Street Journal, 'the Arab word Allah has been used by Malay-speaking Christians for centuries, much as it is used by Christians in Arabic-speaking countries or in Indonesia, where, like Malaysia, the concept of a single God was introduced by Arabic-speaking traders. Rev. Lawrence Andrew, editor of the Herald, says there's no appropriate term for God in Malay." A number of Islamic leaders disagree with this notion. They dread that some Muslims could be misled by Christians using the word 'Allah.' They insist that the word 'Allah' should only be spoken by Muslims. To read the entire article by the Wall Street Journal, link here: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
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written by Percy St. Clair , January 04, 2010 Interesting. Today we in Americal tend to thnk that "Allah" is a Muslim word for God, and that this word maesn God only to Muslims; but in fact it is a word that means God to many persons in the middle east who are not Muslim : many Catholics have referred to God as "Allah" over many centuries, and still do at present. Write comment
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Malaysia is on the brink of religious revolt over a hard-scrabble linguistic battle after the government pledged to challenge a court ruling permitting Roman Catholics to refer to God as Allah.
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