Four days before the Allah issue returns to court, the Malaysian Islamic Development Department
(Jakim) today hit out at non-Muslims for challenging the Muslim faith by insisting on using the word.
The Islamic authority, in its Friday sermon today, claimed that apart from Allah, the words solat (prayer), tauhid (belief in God), Rasul (prophet), Kaabah and Haji (holy pilgrimage) were exclusive to Muslims.
"The position of Islam is being threatened from every corner. We must be aware of our responsibility in this issue. These are the rights of Muslims that cannot be intruded by anyone as it will affect the beliefs and thoughts of Muslims,” said Jakim in the sermon.
“Are we prepared to hear non-Muslims calling their churches ‘Rumah Allah’ and calling their Gods ‘Allah’? This will threaten the faith of young Muslims.
“The non-Muslims are out to confuse Muslims by claiming that all religions are equal."
Jakim then urged Muslims to unite in protecting the purity and identity of its religion.
Last month, the Kuala Lumpur Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church failed in its bid to strike out the government’s appeal against the High Court’s landmark ruling in 2009 which held that Catholics who use Bahasa Malaysia in their worship and the Al-Kitab (the Bible in Bahasa Malaysia, pic) have the right to use the word Allah to refer as their God.
The controversy began when former Home Minister Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar signed an order prohibiting the Herald from using the word Allah in the Bahasa Malaysia pages of its weekly publication.
This led to KL Archbishop Tan Sri Murphy Pakiam filing a judicial review application in 2009 to allow Herald to use the word Allah.
The High Court subsequently allowed the church’s application and lifted the Home Minister’s ban.
The Herald is published in four languages, and has been using the word Allah as a translation for Almighty God in its Bahasa Malaysia-language section, which caters to the Sabahan and Sarawakian Catholics studying and working in the peninsula, since September 1995, but the government argued that Allah should be used exclusively by Muslims.
Though the Catholic Church brought the suit against the government, other Christians and even the Sikh community have made it clear that the word Allah should not be exclusive to Muslims, pointing out its centuries-long usage in Malaysia and Indonesia, as well as in the Middle-east for more than 2,000 years. – September 6, 2013.
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