Churches at risk in ‘Allah’ debate
THE New Year has started badly for Christians in Malaysia. In the past week, a number of churches have been firebombed, and Malaysian police have increased security at Christian places of worship around the country.
The trigger to these incidents was a ruling, issued on New Year’s Eve, by the Malaysian High Court, which allowed Roman Catholics to use the term “Allah” to describe the Christian God in the national language, Bahasa Malaysia (News, 18 December). This overturned an earlier ban by the Malaysian government. In response, the Malaysian Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Mohd Najib, quickly announced that the Ministry of Home Affairs would appeal in the case.
The dispute has deep roots. Of Malaysia’s population of 27 million, 60 per cent are Muslim, nine per cent are Christian, and there are substantial numbers of Buddhists (19 per cent) and Hindus (six per cent).
The resurgence in Islamic consciousness that has swept the world since the 1970s had a profound impact on Muslims in Malaysia, especially during the premiership of Mahathir Mohamad (1981-2003). One aspect of this was the purification of Islamic practice in Malaysia, a focal point being the language used in the sacred texts of the different faiths. Dr Mahathir’s government was concerned to protect religious terms that it considered to be the preserve of Islam.
The national languages of Malaysia and Indonesia are dialects of the same language, similar to British and American English. In 1982, the Ministry of Home Affairs banned Alkitab, an Indonesian translation of the Bible, because it used terms which the government wished to reserve for Islam.
Four years later, the same ministry specified 16 words that were “sensitive to persons professing the religion of Islam”. After a strong response from the Christian community, the list was reduced to four words, which were prohibited in any Malaysian-language Christian publication.
There has been little debate about three of those terms, but “Allah” has proved to be the main sticking-point. The Christian community argued that “Allah” had long been used by Christians to refer to God in Malaysian-language worship. Such is also the case among Arab-speaking Christians of the Middle East, where “Allah” is the standard Christian term of reference for God.
The challenge to the ban on non-Muslim use of “Allah” has been led by a Malaysian Roman Catholic newspaper, The Herald. Each time that it used “Allah” in its Malaysian language edition to refer to God, the newspaper was challenged by the Ministry of Home Affairs, and almost had its licence withdrawn on one occasion. Finally, in May 2008, the Roman Catholic Church took the matter to the courts for judicial review.
In an interview with Vatican Radio, the editor of The Herald, Fr Lawrence Andrew, argued that the case goes beyond the simple use of one term, and extends to the broader issue of religious and cultural freedom for all minorities in Malaysia.
His case has received indirect affirmation from some Muslim authorities. Muslim spokespeople Ustaz Maszlee Malik and Dr Musa Mohd Nordin describe the “Allah” debate as a “non-issue” from the perspective of Islamic jurisprudence, citing international Islamic authorities Sheikh Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Sheikh Dr Wahbah Az-Zuhaili, who “concurred unequivocally that the usage of the word ‘Allah’ has never been the monopoly of the Islamic creed. It is a terminology shared with the adherents of the Abrahamic faiths.”
Lawyers for the Malaysian government had argued the case for continuing its ban, on the basis that Christian use of “Allah” would cause confusion among Muslims. They argue that “Allah” is monotheistic, whereas the Christian God is trinitarian.
Within 24 hours of the new ruling, Muslims took to the streets in protest in the northern state of Penang. Protests were held in other places in the days that followed. Opponents used social-networking websites such as Facebook to rally support, garnering almost 200,000 signatures.
The website of The Herald has reportedly been hacked into on several occasions since the ruling. Attacks on churches have demonstrated that, although The Herald has led the challenge, all Christian groups are caught up in this dispute, as most of the buildings targeted are not Roman Catholic.
The attacks on churches have been condemned from all sides. Abdul Hadi Awang, the President of PAS, the Islamist opposition party, strongly criticised the arson attacks as “un-Islamic”, stating: “Islam respects the rights of other to practise their own religion, have their own places of worship, including churches.”
Prime Minister Najib announced a government allocation of $MYR500,000 to rebuild the Metro Tabernacle, the church most damaged.
Many ordinary Muslims have dissociated themselves from both the attacks on churches and the ban on the non-Muslim use of “Allah”. In the words of one, Ida Bakar: “For those taking the opportunity to defame Islam by using these bigots as though they are representative of all Muslims, please don’t. Arabs — Christian and Muslims — are probably laughing their headgears off at the sheer stupidity. I am cringing with utter embarrassment.”
Nevertheless, this represents a crisis point in Christian-Muslim relations in Malaysia. The attacks on Christian people and property are partly the fruit of a policy of increasing delineation (some even call it apartheid) between Muslims and non-Muslims. If Prime Minister Najib is serious about his recently announced “One Malaysia” slogan, he must consider the extent to which such bans serve only to worsen sectarian tensions in Malaysian society.
This article first appeared in "The Church Times", Issue 7661, 15 January, 2010
The trigger to these incidents was a ruling, issued on New Year’s Eve, by the Malaysian High Court, which allowed Roman Catholics to use the term “Allah” to describe the Christian God in the national language, Bahasa Malaysia (News, 18 December). This overturned an earlier ban by the Malaysian government. In response, the Malaysian Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Mohd Najib, quickly announced that the Ministry of Home Affairs would appeal in the case.
The dispute has deep roots. Of Malaysia’s population of 27 million, 60 per cent are Muslim, nine per cent are Christian, and there are substantial numbers of Buddhists (19 per cent) and Hindus (six per cent).
The resurgence in Islamic consciousness that has swept the world since the 1970s had a profound impact on Muslims in Malaysia, especially during the premiership of Mahathir Mohamad (1981-2003). One aspect of this was the purification of Islamic practice in Malaysia, a focal point being the language used in the sacred texts of the different faiths. Dr Mahathir’s government was concerned to protect religious terms that it considered to be the preserve of Islam.
The national languages of Malaysia and Indonesia are dialects of the same language, similar to British and American English. In 1982, the Ministry of Home Affairs banned Alkitab, an Indonesian translation of the Bible, because it used terms which the government wished to reserve for Islam.
Four years later, the same ministry specified 16 words that were “sensitive to persons professing the religion of Islam”. After a strong response from the Christian community, the list was reduced to four words, which were prohibited in any Malaysian-language Christian publication.
There has been little debate about three of those terms, but “Allah” has proved to be the main sticking-point. The Christian community argued that “Allah” had long been used by Christians to refer to God in Malaysian-language worship. Such is also the case among Arab-speaking Christians of the Middle East, where “Allah” is the standard Christian term of reference for God.
The challenge to the ban on non-Muslim use of “Allah” has been led by a Malaysian Roman Catholic newspaper, The Herald. Each time that it used “Allah” in its Malaysian language edition to refer to God, the newspaper was challenged by the Ministry of Home Affairs, and almost had its licence withdrawn on one occasion. Finally, in May 2008, the Roman Catholic Church took the matter to the courts for judicial review.
In an interview with Vatican Radio, the editor of The Herald, Fr Lawrence Andrew, argued that the case goes beyond the simple use of one term, and extends to the broader issue of religious and cultural freedom for all minorities in Malaysia.
His case has received indirect affirmation from some Muslim authorities. Muslim spokespeople Ustaz Maszlee Malik and Dr Musa Mohd Nordin describe the “Allah” debate as a “non-issue” from the perspective of Islamic jurisprudence, citing international Islamic authorities Sheikh Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Sheikh Dr Wahbah Az-Zuhaili, who “concurred unequivocally that the usage of the word ‘Allah’ has never been the monopoly of the Islamic creed. It is a terminology shared with the adherents of the Abrahamic faiths.”
Lawyers for the Malaysian government had argued the case for continuing its ban, on the basis that Christian use of “Allah” would cause confusion among Muslims. They argue that “Allah” is monotheistic, whereas the Christian God is trinitarian.
Within 24 hours of the new ruling, Muslims took to the streets in protest in the northern state of Penang. Protests were held in other places in the days that followed. Opponents used social-networking websites such as Facebook to rally support, garnering almost 200,000 signatures.
The website of The Herald has reportedly been hacked into on several occasions since the ruling. Attacks on churches have demonstrated that, although The Herald has led the challenge, all Christian groups are caught up in this dispute, as most of the buildings targeted are not Roman Catholic.
The attacks on churches have been condemned from all sides. Abdul Hadi Awang, the President of PAS, the Islamist opposition party, strongly criticised the arson attacks as “un-Islamic”, stating: “Islam respects the rights of other to practise their own religion, have their own places of worship, including churches.”
Prime Minister Najib announced a government allocation of $MYR500,000 to rebuild the Metro Tabernacle, the church most damaged.
Many ordinary Muslims have dissociated themselves from both the attacks on churches and the ban on the non-Muslim use of “Allah”. In the words of one, Ida Bakar: “For those taking the opportunity to defame Islam by using these bigots as though they are representative of all Muslims, please don’t. Arabs — Christian and Muslims — are probably laughing their headgears off at the sheer stupidity. I am cringing with utter embarrassment.”
Nevertheless, this represents a crisis point in Christian-Muslim relations in Malaysia. The attacks on Christian people and property are partly the fruit of a policy of increasing delineation (some even call it apartheid) between Muslims and non-Muslims. If Prime Minister Najib is serious about his recently announced “One Malaysia” slogan, he must consider the extent to which such bans serve only to worsen sectarian tensions in Malaysian society.
This article first appeared in "The Church Times", Issue 7661, 15 January, 2010