Christian newspaper challenges M'sia's govt in court for right to use 'Allah'

http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/...ory_230951.html
KUALA LUMPUR - A ROMAN Catholic newspaper went to court on Friday to challenge the Malaysian government's ban on its use of the word 'Allah' as a translation for God.
Authorities in this Muslim-majority nation ordered The Herald weekly in December to stop using 'Allah' in its Malay-language section.

The paper - the main organ of the Catholic church in Malaysia - was warned it could lose its publishing license if it defied the order.

Lawyers representing The Herald told the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Friday that they want to go to trial to reverse the government's order.

'We are saying that the decision should be squashed and there should also be a declaration that ... The Herald is entitled to use the word 'Allah' in its publication,' lawyer Porres Royan told reporters after a brief hearing.

The government told The Herald to drop the word 'Allah' because it refers to the Muslim God. But the newspaper insists 'Allah' has been used for centuries to mean 'God' in Malay.

'It is basically a birth right to use the word 'Allah' because it is the only word for God in the Malay language,' The Herald's editor, Rev. Lawrence Andrew, told reporters.

The court is expected to hear further arguments next week.

Dozens of Christians packed on Friday's hearing, including Malaysia's Roman Catholic archbishop.

The Herald - which publishes reports in English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil - is still using the word 'Allah', but some fear it could lose its publishing license when it comes up for annual review in October.

The case illustrates growing complaints by religious minorities that their rights have been undermined by government efforts to bolster the status of Islam, Malaysia's official religion.

Ethnic Malays - who are legally required to be Muslim - comprise nearly 60 per cent of Malaysia's 27 million people, while ethnic Chinese and Indians - mostly Buddhists, Christians and Hindus - are the main minorities.

Religion factored in election loss
Dissatisfaction with court rulings over the right to leave Islam, along with religious issues like the demolition of Hindu temples by state authorities, contributed to the ruling government's poor performance in March elections, when it lost its two-thirds majority in Parliament.

In a separate case, the Sabah Evangelical Church of Borneo has also filed a lawsuit to be allowed to use 'Allah' after officials last year banned the import of books containing the word.

Hearings in that case remain in the preliminary stages.

Comment:Are Allah mean Muslim God or name or God In Malay?which is right?

^ Allah means God in Arabic..

Edit* Same with Alkitab

Allah means God which is Tuhan in Malay.

Allah was mentioned in the bible too but spelled 'Alah'...

^ um very nice, It means Tuhan too in Indonesian and God in Arabic .God doesn't always represent the Muslim God. All people could use it, not just restricted in Islam.
Allah was mentioned as in just couple sentences ?? Jesus is Allah's son, you know.

If 220 million people know the different, why can't Malaysians too?

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In the Arab world, the word for God is "Allah" if you are a Christian or a Muslim. But in other places, they use their local term for "God" (Dieu, Dios, Gott, etc.) and Allah the Arabic word sepecifically in the Islamic context. Tuhan should be used so that they can differentiate between Christianity and Islam.

I thought Allah meant God, and God meant Allah! lol

How can they be any different.

Like i have addressed before....

Allah is an Arabic word that meant God and widely used by Christians in Indonesia and Malaysia.....
the people of Indonesia have no trouble recognizing the difference....why can't Malaysians ?

It is different in the term of concept friend.... It will take you years to compare the concept of God in Islam with Judaism and Christianity. The concept of God in Islam can be learned through the study of Tauhid (Unitarianism of God), Tauhid is the basis of Islam before it goes to other stages in Islam, it is a part of Syariah, Syariah is not particularly about cutting thiefs' hands or stoning the adulterer, it consists of Unitarianism, Morality and Ethical Codes, Religious Disciplines, Financial, Criminalhood, and Matrimonial. Syariah is the way of muslim life, I do not know what is the significance of Western World frightening themselves with this Syariah term as it is just a plain thing. So I made my generalization that most Westerners are close minded instead of their care of unbalanced Human Rights or their knowledge about the variation of creed by other world inhabitants as pathetic. If not all Westerners are not ignorants then I without any hesitation apologize as I am not an egoist.

Islam is conceptionally pure monotheism, it is an ideology but the ideology is called a religion after it has been perfected by disciplines which are called religious rites. It is an ideology when called in the name of Haneef (the straight path) and a religion when it is called Islam. Islam is totally different from Judaism-Christianity and the claim that it is continuing the tradition of Judaism is an absolute falsehood. Islam exists before prophet Muhammad (pbuh) perfected the religion. Islam does exists before Moses (pbuh) and before Jesus (pbuh).

The name of God may be used the same by the Christians and Muslim in the Middle East, but the concept is different.

Check these Arian Christians sites about their view on Theology concept through their Crypto-Judaism tradition:
http://forum.arian-catholic.org/showthread.php?t=123
http://forum.arian-catholic.org/showthread.php?t=154

any cantos here?

We do not need cantos friend, we just prove it through linguistic and etymology studies.

Allah is purely an Arabic word, it has no gender attribution in the way of writing it, means that it is written without any gender classifier in Arabic. It also shows on solely One meaning. It has no restriction for human to utter this name like the name Yahuweh in Judaism. Allah is used obviously in Quran and bible which is translated to other languages of the world is not obvious in using Allah to describe God. Well, if you happen to know, Gospels are originally in Aramian and Torah in Hebrew. Christians are not prevented reading their holy books in their mother tongue, but Muslim must and obligatory to read Quranic verses in Arabic in the Arabic dialect used by prophet Muhammad (pbuh) when he receive the revealation (this is apply only to muslim and myself, you don't have to believe it, just in case you feel we try to impose our faith on you, we are no pushing people to our faith like Westerners trying hard to impose their ideas and ideologies on us though they seem like leaving free spaces for people, we are far from West here, but who knows in their country).

I personally think, (this is not a dogma to others, it is my belief!) the name of God is not important, since we muslims know that our concept of God is One pure unattributed God without any earthly images and He must be worshipped without any graven image. We not only have Allah as the main God's name, but we have along 99 God's most Glorious names and those Sacred names represent some of His Holiest images. There may be more than billions names for Him, but muslim ought to know at least 99 names, that is more than enough.

While Christians may have many kind of concepts such as Binitarianism, Trinitarianism, Nasoreanism, etc

I agree that the name of God is not important, it is what you believe in your heart that is important. It doesn't matter what name you use to call him, as long as in your heart you are doing the right thing.