What’s in a name? asked William Shakespeare. Quite a lot, according to Malaysia’s high court. This week it upheld a ban on non-Muslims using the word “Allah”. The court rejected a challenge by the Roman Catholic Church to overturn the ban decreed by a lower court

I believe that on this ruling Malaysia has got it wrong both politically and religiously.

It is accepted that the increasingly hard line adopted against Christian and other minorities in Malaysia is a pandering by the government to extreme-right Muslim parties.Those supporting the ban offer arguments that it will preserve the fabric of Malaysian society.

Religiously, the ruling makes no sense at all. Islam has never claimed a monopoly on Allah. If anything Quranic texts demonstrate that Islam is a continuation of the previous Abrahamic faiths. Allah is designed to be inclusive. We should be happier for more people to use the word Allah than fewer.   »»» Malaysia-Chronicle.com

The “Allah” ban in Maylasia is unique in the Muslim world. The Arabic word is commonly used by Christians to describe God in such countries as Egypt, Syria and even nearby Indonesia, which is the world’s world’s largest Muslim nation.

The Aramaic word that Jesus used for God is “Elaha” and one of the Hebrew words for God is “Eloah”. Today, there are about 12 million Arabic-speaking Christians. They and their ancestors have been calling God “Allah” in their Bibles, hymns, poems, writings, and worship for over nineteen centuries.

Allah himself, through the revelation given to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be on him) plainly declares that Allah is the God of Muslims, Christians and Jews. The Roman Catholic Church has for over a thousand years declared through its Popes and its official documents that Christians, Jews and Muslims worship the same God. Someone in Malaysia is promoting this false debate in order to stir up ethic strife.

Even Malaysia’s radical Islamist political party PAS has said that the use of “Allah” is permitted among people of the three Abrahamic faiths. PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang made the statement in supporting an earlier court decision that allowed the Christian weekly newsletter The Herald to use the word.
In Islam’s early days, a delegation of Christians, accompanied by their bishop, came from Mecca’s neighbouring province of Narjan to discuss a treaty with the Prophet Muhammad. He allowed the group to say their Christian prayers in his own mosque. Furthermore, we also know that some of the Prophet’s companions and some other early Muslims, who were very faithful to the Prophet’s teachings, sometimes prayed in Christian churches when they were not able to go to a mosque.

It appears that the current Maylasian government is promoting this false debate in order to stir up ethic strife. To do so, Muslim government officials are willing to ignore the plain teaching of Allah himself, who said:

“Those who believe in the Qur’an, and those who follow the Jewish scriptures, and the Christians–all who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and work righteousness shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.”(Qur’an 2:62)

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