Pakatan to hold rush meet over ‘Allah’ issue, Anwar says

Anwar said he thought the matter had been put to rest previously. — File pic

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 27 ― Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leaders will conduct an urgent meeting to discuss the controversial “Allah” issue that has resurfaced, Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said today.

Anwar said this when asked to comment on DAP and PAS taking different stands on whether the Arabic word “Allah” should be used by Christians to describe their god in the Alkitab, the Malay-language translation of the Bible.

“Now that this matter has resurfaced, I think it will require an urgent meeting of Pakatan leadership,” Anwar told reporters after a court hearing here.

Earlier on, the PKR de facto leader said that the matter had previously been settled in a meeting with leaders from all three PR parties ― DAP, PAS and PKR ― present.

“From my understanding, this issue was resolved. Not only was there a meeting, but there was a detailed elaborate discussion on the subject...” he said, saying that classical and religious texts were referred to in the meeting.

In a renewed debate over the use of the word “Allah”, PAS yesterday said that Christians should not use it in the Alkitab, claiming that it does not reflect the actual meaning of “God” in the original text.

PAS also said that using the word “Allah” in the Alkitab will confuse both Christians and Muslims.

But DAP insisted yesterday that Christians in Sabah and Sarawak, who use the Malay language to converse, should be allowed to use the word “Allah” in their Alkitab.

On Monday, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng had raised the controversial “Allah” issue in his Christmas message.

“For this reason, DAP urges the BN Federal government to allow the use of the word ‘Allah’ on the Bahasa Malaysia version of the Bible as has been allowed in Sabah and Sarawak for the last 50 years and practised in the Middle East for more than a thousand years,” Lim wrote in a statement on December 24 in English and Mandarin.

Christians form 9.2 per cent of Malaysia’s 28.3 million-strong population, with many of them in east Malaysia using the Malay language and the word “Allah” to refer to their God.

In recent years, the Christian and Muslim religious communities have been engaged in a tug-of-war over the word “Allah”, with the latter group arguing that its use should be exclusive to them on the grounds that Islam is monotheistic and the word “Allah” denotes the Muslim god.

A legal tussle over the use of the word “Allah” remains unresolved, with the Catholic Church still barred from publishing the word in its weekly newspaper, despite winning a High Court decision on December 31, 2009.

This is due to the Home Ministry filing an appeal in January 2010 against the High Court’s decision, which have since stagnated in the courts as no date has been set for its hearing.

Last year, shipments of the Alkitab, the Malay-language Bible catering to the Bahasa Malaysia-speaking Bumiputera Christians, were blocked or confiscated at ports, before the government finally bowed to pressure and released them.