‘We respect Allah ruling, but…’

The government must stop listening to the “stupid people” and instead educate Muslims regarding verses in the Quran which mentions non-Muslims discussing about Allah with the Prophet Muhammad.

PETALING JAYA: The Court of Appeal’s decision to ban the word ‘Allah’ in Christian publication The Herald does not change the fact that Islam allows non-Muslims to use the word in the first place, PAS said today.

But both PAS vice president Mahfuz Omar and PAS central committee member Khalid Samad said that this morning’s ruling – a culmination of years of interfaith struggle between the country’s two major religions – must be respected.

“I respect the court’s decision. But it is also the right of the Catholic church to also appeal against the decision at the Federal Court. Such a process cannot be denied,” Mahfuz, who is also Pokok Sena MP, told FMT.

But Khalid said that rather than banning the use of ‘Allah’ by non-Muslims for fear of retaliation by “stupid people”, the government should focus on educating the Muslims on what the Quran said over the issue.

“The government should educate Muslims regarding all the verses of the Quran which mentions non-Muslims discussing about Allah with the Prophet Muhammad, and using the word freely without any hindrance whatsoever,” the Shah Alam MP said.

“Instead, our government seems to be very proud that we are the only Muslim nation that practices this ban – that we are going beyond even what the Prophet Muhammad had done.”

Government lawyer, Suzan Atan, had reportedly submitted before the judges on Sept 10 that the Home Minister banned the use of the word ‘Allah’ in the Herald on grounds of national security and public order.

She had pointed out that the High Court’s 2009 ruling that the Herald should be free to use the word ‘Allah’ was met with attacks on houses of worships, presumably by Muslims who believed the word was exclusive to their religion.

“It’s unfortunate that the government is taking into consideration the people who insist on being stupid on this issue, who don’t accept what Islam says on this matter,” Khalid said.

‘No confusion’

He rejected Department of Islamic Development’s (Jakim) line of argument that allowing non-Muslims to use ‘Allah’ would threaten the faith of Muslims, saying: “It’s just like how everybody uses the word ‘God’ and ‘Tuhan’. There’s no confusion there.”

On the contrary, Khalid insisted that opening up the word ‘Allah’ to other religions would build a common platform among the country’s different believers, and hence encourage interfaith discussions.

“The question of pluralism also doesn’t come into play because the Quran says the only religion accepted by Allah is Islam,” he added.

Khalid also maintained that the issue was political rather than religious – he claimed that right wing Malay groups were championing the cause to make Islam exclusive to Malays and erect barriers between themselves and the non-Muslims in the country.

“They want to maintain special position, hegemony in the country… they want to distance the Malays from the non-Malays in the country, so that issues such as good-governance, which is supported by non-Malays, does not become a matter of interest for the Malays,” said Khalid.