Najib’s government needs new formula for ‘Allah’ row, says Singapore daily

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 2 — The Najib administration needs a “new formula” to deal with the squabble by the country’s Muslim and Christian communities over the use of the “Allah” word, Singapore’s Straits Times said today in an opinion piece.

Salim Osman, the Singapore daily’s senior writer, said Malaysia’s government needs to balance the fear of confusion and conversion among Muslims and the rights of Christians to exercise their religious freedom.

The ‘Allah’ word has been used by Christians in Malaysia for centuries. — File pic

“Prime Minister Najib Razak’s government will have to look for a new formula to deal with the issue; it requires a balance between the need to placate Muslims who fear a growing problem of apostasy because of the use and alleged abuse of the word Allah by non-Muslims, and fulfilling the civil rights of Christians to choose the name of God in their Malay-language texts,” he wrote in the article titled “Constructive dialogue needed over use of ‘Allah’.”

Salim said both Muslims and Christians, who are the two main groups involved in the tug-of-war over the Arabic word, need to have constructive dialogue with each other with the aid of the government.

“Both sides need to talk to each other, not against one another, in a constructive dialogue that is co-ordinated by the government. Some concessions will need to be mutually offered, without compromising theological positions on the word for God. It should be the start of a long journey in search of a solution to the issue.”

In his opinion piece, Salim also had referred to the previous arrangement between Christian leaders and past prime ministers, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, where church leaders were assured that the word “Allah” could be used within the Christian community.

Salim pointed to Rev Dr Hermen Shastri’s January 2010 interview with news portal The Nut Graph, where the Christian leader had said that the churches did not take court action for over 20 years because of the assurance from Dr Mahathir and his successor Abdullah.

The same interview states that a 1986 government gazette and 1988 state enactments had declared “Allah” and other words as being exclusive to Islam.

In The Nut Graph interview, Shastri, the secretary-general of the Council of Churches of Malaysia (CCM), had said: “Mahathir’s position was if Christians use the word ‘Allah’ among ourselves, sell our bibles in Christian bookshops, and indicate it’s a Christian publication, then that was fine.”

But Salim said the understanding between Christian leaders and government officers broke down during Abullah’s rule in 2007, leading to the court case by the Catholic Church over the use of “Allah” in the Bahasa Malaysia section of its weekly publication The Herald.

The Catholic Church won a landmark judgment in December 2009 when the High Court ruled that it had a right to use the word, but the Home Ministry has appealed the case, with no date fixed for its hearing yet.

Salim said the Allah issue, which he described as a polemic, will not die down even after Election 2013 as it will continue to be used by political parties across the divide for their own gain.

“The issue will be kept alive even after the general election due before the current mandate ends on April 28, because Umno and PAS will step up their rivalry to win Malay electoral support by asserting their positions on the issue.

“Meanwhile, the opposition Pakatan Rakyat will demand the right of Christians to use the word, so as to garner support from Christian Bumiputeras in Sabah and Sarawak,” Salim wrote.

A controversy arose in 2011 over blocked and confiscated shipments of Malay-language bibles catering to the Bumiputera Christians, which were subsequently released by the government.

It was turned into election fodder in the run-up to that year’s Sarawak polls, as Christians there make up nearly half of the state’s population.

The Najib administration had come up with a 10-point formula in April 2011 in a bid to resolve the issue.

In its 10-point resolution, the Cabinet through its minister Datuk Seri Idris Jala, assured the huge Bumiputera Christian population in Sarawak and Sabah they are free to bring in and use their bibles in Malay as well as in indigenous languages, and that no restriction will be applied.

Jala also said that the Bible could now be printed locally in any language, including in Iban, Kadazan-Dusun and Lun Bawang.

Muslim and Christian leaders here have been at loggerheads over use of “Allah” despite the 2009 High Court judgment that ruled Muslims did not have an exclusive right to the Arabic word.

Muslims are Malaysia’s biggest religious group at 60 per cent, while the minority Christians, who form just under 10 per cent of the 28 million total population, have been at the forefront of issues confronting the non-Muslim community, which are provided for under the country’s constitution.

Debate resurfaced last December after DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, who is also Penang chief minister, called on Putrajaya to lift a ban on Malay-language bibles in Sabah and Sarawak, where the “Allah” word had been in use for centuries.

A Sabah church group has also alleged that the religious freedom of Christian Bumiputeras was under attack, pointing out that most adherents of the faith in Malaysia came from east Malaysia and used the Malay language.

A Buddhist group has urged the National Unity and Integration Department, which is under the purview of the Prime Minister’s Department, to resolve the drawn-out dispute over the usage of “Allah”.

The Malaysian Islamic Development Department also upset church leaders with its Friday sermon two weeks ago in which it warned Muslims nationwide of “enemies of Islam” that would try to confuse them into believing that all religions share the same god.

Malay right-wing group Perkasa chief Datuk Ibrahim Ali, who had purportedly called upon Muslims to burn copies of the Malay-language Bible that contained the word Allah, is now being probed by the authorities.