Malaysia: Row over what to call God rumbles on

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The High Court of Malaysia has passed a ruling allowing non-Muslims to use the term “Allah” for God in their Malay-language worship services and literature. On face value, this should appear uncontroversial as Christians in that region have referred to God as “Allah” for 400 years, including using the term in translations of the Bible into Malay.

Lond-standing dispute

However, this development masks a 35-year dispute that has undermined Christian-Muslim relations in Malaysia in substantial ways. In 1986 the Malaysian government prohibited the use of “Allah” by non-Muslims. This policy is unique to Malaysia. In today’s Arab world, “Allah” is the standard term for God among Arabic-speaking Christians of different denominations. In neighbouring Indonesia, “Allah” is commonly used by Christians; the 1974 New Translation of the Bible in Indonesian renders the Old Testament Hebrew terms for God with “Allah”. These usages occur in their different locations without objection from local Muslims.

Matters came to a head in 2008. On January 3 of that year, the Malaysian Cabinet reaffirmed the restriction against non-Muslim use of “Allah.” In May, the Catholic Herald petitioned the High Court for judicial review, seeking permission to use “Allah” in its Malay-language edition. 

When the High Court ruled on December 31, 2009, that Catholics were allowed to use “Allah” to describe the Christian God in the national language, the decision triggered a storm among sections of Malaysia’s Muslim population. Within days, there were street protests against the ruling, and a string of churches of various denominations, a convent school, and a Sikh temple were firebombed.

Government fear of Muslim conversions to Christianity

The basis of the Malaysian government’s ruling lies in a fear stated overtly that Christian use of “Allah” could cause confusion among Muslims, leading to substantial conversions of Muslims to Christianity. Such fears have been stoked among Malaysia’s Muslim population by spurious statistics of Muslim apostasy circulated from various sources.

Within days of the recent March 10 High Court decision, coming out of a legal challenge to the confiscation of Christian literature that carried the term “Allah”, the Malaysian government filed an appeal against the ruling, retracing the steps taken by the government after the 2009 decision. At the same time, the Malaysian Home Ministry called for a dialogue between Islamic and Christian scholars as a means of resolving the contentious issue. This call was rejected by the Malaysian Council of churches, with a spokesman stating “Since the matter is now in the Court of Appeal, we are of the view that it is highly inappropriate for the issue to be resolved through a dialogue initiated by the Home Ministry, who is one of  the Appellants.”

Parallel to this development, Malaysian governments at both federal and state levels continue to pursue long-standing programs of Islamisation that take various forms. The ruling Perikata Nasional coalition government plans to table in Parliament a bill to extend the Shariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965 (Act 355) and pass a bill on the Control and Restriction on the Propagation of Non-Islamic Religions.

Intra-Muslim divisions

The tussle over specific issues such as banning of use of the term “Allah” by non-Muslims and broader programs of Islamisation do not simply pit Muslims against non-Muslims. Some Muslims are speaking out against these government policies. On April 3, a group of 58 Malaysian Muslims urged the federal government to address the “Allah” issue with empathy, justice and wisdom, calling for “more Malay language publications in comparative religion that are respectful to religious differences so that both Muslims and Christians are clear about the differences between their faiths even though both pray to the same ‘Allah’.“

However, these 58 voices represent liberal Muslim perspectives that arguably have limited traction with current government policy. Much more water must pass under the bridge before present tensions in Malaysian Christian-Muslim relations have a chance of easing.

This article first appeared in the May 2021 issue of "Evangelicals Now" at https://www.e-n.org.uk/2021/05/world-news/row-over-what-to-call-god-rumbles-on/

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