Malaysian Mirror
The church is challenging the Home Ministry decision banning it from using the word "Allah" in its paper as part of conditions for getting an annual publishing permit (Herald editor Father Lawrence Andrew today said it had received its 2010 publishing permit on Monday.)
'Church's misunderstanding'
Lawyers for the government today argued that not being allowed to use the word "Allah" in no way infringes the church's constitutional right to carry out its religious duty.
Senior federal counsel Mahamad Naser Disa suggested that the church's "misunderstanding" and misuse of the word "Allah" would create confusion and raise religious tensions in the country.
"Allah is the holy name and a special verse in Islam. Any deviation to the holy verse of Allah is an insult to the religion of the country and the Federal Constitution," he said, and asked the court to reject the church's challenge.
"As far as the proper name Allah is concerned, it has absolutely no plural, reflecting the notion of the One and Only God whose Essence absolutely excludes the purport of consisting of three distinct co-eternal persons, whether in the imagination, in actuality, or in supposition," Mahamad Naser said, reading an exceprt from an article titled "Heresy Arises From Words Wrongly Used" published by the Institute of Islamic Understanding Malaysia (better known by its Malay acronym Ikim).
"Furthermore, the fact that it is a proper noun alone renders erroneous the critical assumption that the term Allah belongs to a national language and is an Arabic derivative.
"Indeed, for those who care enough to check the truth, such an absurd claim has long been debunked as inconsistent with the rules of the Arabic language itself by authorities like Ibn al-Barri, al-Layth and al-Khalil (in his Kitab al-'Ayn)," he added.
Mahamad Naser repeated an earlier claim that the home minister's decision to bar Christians using the word "Allah" was in line with provisions protecting the "special position" of Islam enshrined in the Federal Constitution and which the entire government and the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong have sworn to uphold.
Asked to comment on today's hearing, Andrew rejected the federal counsel's earlier claim that Arab Christians subscribe to a different view from Malaysian Christians who believe in the concept of God in three aspects - "God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit".
"All Christians the world over believe in the Nicene creed, which came out of the Council of Nicaea in the year AD 325," said Andrew, referring to the concept of the trinity.
KUALA LUMPUR - The High Court has set Dec 30 to deliver its verdict on an application by the publisher of the Herald to challenge the ban on the use of the word "Allah" in the Catholic weekly magazine.
On Feb 16, the Titular Roman Catholic Archbishop Murphy Pakiam, the Herald publisher, had filed for a judicial review naming the Home Ministry and the government as respondents.
He is seeking declarations that the decision by the respondents on Jan 7, 2009, prohibiting him from using the word ''Allah'' in the Herald was illegal and that the word ''Allah'' was not exclusive to Islam.
The High Court will deliver its decision on whether the Catholic Church can publish the word "Allah" to also mean "God" outside the Muslim context, after a full morning spent on submissions.
On Feb 16, the Titular Roman Catholic Archbishop Murphy Pakiam, the Herald publisher, had filed for a judicial review naming the Home Ministry and the government as respondents.
He is seeking declarations that the decision by the respondents on Jan 7, 2009, prohibiting him from using the word ''Allah'' in the Herald was illegal and that the word ''Allah'' was not exclusive to Islam.
The High Court will deliver its decision on whether the Catholic Church can publish the word "Allah" to also mean "God" outside the Muslim context, after a full morning spent on submissions.
The church is challenging the Home Ministry decision banning it from using the word "Allah" in its paper as part of conditions for getting an annual publishing permit (Herald editor Father Lawrence Andrew today said it had received its 2010 publishing permit on Monday.)
'Church's misunderstanding'
Lawyers for the government today argued that not being allowed to use the word "Allah" in no way infringes the church's constitutional right to carry out its religious duty.
Senior federal counsel Mahamad Naser Disa suggested that the church's "misunderstanding" and misuse of the word "Allah" would create confusion and raise religious tensions in the country.
"Allah is the holy name and a special verse in Islam. Any deviation to the holy verse of Allah is an insult to the religion of the country and the Federal Constitution," he said, and asked the court to reject the church's challenge.
"As far as the proper name Allah is concerned, it has absolutely no plural, reflecting the notion of the One and Only God whose Essence absolutely excludes the purport of consisting of three distinct co-eternal persons, whether in the imagination, in actuality, or in supposition," Mahamad Naser said, reading an exceprt from an article titled "Heresy Arises From Words Wrongly Used" published by the Institute of Islamic Understanding Malaysia (better known by its Malay acronym Ikim).
"Furthermore, the fact that it is a proper noun alone renders erroneous the critical assumption that the term Allah belongs to a national language and is an Arabic derivative.
"Indeed, for those who care enough to check the truth, such an absurd claim has long been debunked as inconsistent with the rules of the Arabic language itself by authorities like Ibn al-Barri, al-Layth and al-Khalil (in his Kitab al-'Ayn)," he added.
Mahamad Naser repeated an earlier claim that the home minister's decision to bar Christians using the word "Allah" was in line with provisions protecting the "special position" of Islam enshrined in the Federal Constitution and which the entire government and the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong have sworn to uphold.
Asked to comment on today's hearing, Andrew rejected the federal counsel's earlier claim that Arab Christians subscribe to a different view from Malaysian Christians who believe in the concept of God in three aspects - "God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit".
"All Christians the world over believe in the Nicene creed, which came out of the Council of Nicaea in the year AD 325," said Andrew, referring to the concept of the trinity.
No comments:
Post a Comment