It was DR M who started the 'ALLAH' ban: To gain Malay favor, save his political skin?

To many Malaysians, former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad is the root cause of the key problems ailing the country, from disgusting racism and religious bigotry to breath-taking corruption and alleged grand theft of the nation's wealth.

Like it or not, this is the view of many people and has been so for decades. Even in the raging hot Allah controversy, Mahathir can be traced as one of the original sources that created this contentious issue, which has since gained weight and now threatens to permanently divide and scar Malaysia.

In his recent Maal Hijrah message, Prime Minister Najib Razak too pledged to defend the word Allah as being the exclusive right of the Muslims. Najib's words, aimed to please his Umno party, however outraged many others - Muslims as well as non-Muslims and both within and outside Malaysia.

As one Malaysia Chronicle reader, Billy Ong  succinctly put it:

“There was never any religious issue to begin with but politics all the way, and Najib in time to come, will pay dearly for this for treating Allah in such a disrespectful manner.”

Alkitab ban began in the 1980s

The Allah controversy is not new. As early as 1981, the Alkitab was banned. This was soon after Dr Mahathir Mohamad became the country’s fourth prime minister.

In 1982, the Alkitab was again banned by order under the Internal Security (Prohibition of Publications) (No. 4) Order made 22nd March 1982.

Whether it was merely coincidental or not, the contentious issue was always taken to its height whenever Dr Mahathir was at his lowest point politically.

It also becomes somewhat obvious now when looking back at the trend of things that Dr Mahathir could have been using the issue to emotionally stir up the Muslims for the purpose of diverting their attention to suit his political motives.

In 1986, when Dr Mahathir was the Home Minister, a circular was sent to all Christian publishers prohibiting Christian publications from using four words - Allah, Kaabah, Baitullah and Solat – claiming that the prohibition was to prevent any misunderstanding between Muslims and Christians.

Dr M's hand

So the fact is, all through the years, the Christian community has been suffering in silence since the Mahathir era.

Then in 1998, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued the a letter to Herald– an admonition – not to use the word ALLAH. Once again, this coincided with Dr Mahathir’s crisis with his deputy, Anwar Ibrahim.

The Herald received several letters from the Home Ministry thereafter, before its publication license was rejected for renewal in 2006. This forced the Herald to seek redress through the courts against the power of the Home Minister to set conditions on the use of the “Allah” word.

The Allah controversy erupted again in 2008 after the then Home Minister, Syed Hamid Albar, threatened to revoke the Herald’s newspaper permit, prompting the Catholic Church to pursue its Constitutional rights.

In 2009, the Kuala Lumpur High Court upheld the Catholic Church’s constitutional right to use the word “Allah”, shocking certain quarters within the Muslim community who had claimed sole rights to word, Allah. What followed thereafter did not help the Najib administration's efforts to win the hearts of wider population.

“Allah”, a copyright issue?

With the advent of the Internet and online news portals, the issue has attracted even wider attention around the world so much so that the Government can no longer pretend it is the champion of Islam. The more the Government uses its agencies to intimidate the people, the more the people are speaking up.

Besides Opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim and PAS Spiritual leader, Tok Guru Nik Aziz, a number of other world renowned Muslim scholars such as Dr Yusof Qaradawi and Tareq Ramadan have also condemned the Malaysian Government’s blinkered view over the Allah issue.

With a holier-than-thou attitude, it appears that in the eyes of people like Johor Islamic Council adviser Nooh Gadut, fellow Muslims who speak up against the appellate court’s controversial ruling are as good as “kafirs”. But whoever is the kafir can only be decided on the Judgment Day.

Would it be people like Dr Yusof Qaradawi, Anwar Ibrahim, or Tok Guru, or the ulamas who use the Friday sermon to pipe the government line and tell the people to welcome the Goods and Services Tax (GST) without really evaluating if it would help or further burden them.

But like it or not, nowhere in the world, including Malaysia, would the word Allah be copyrighted. In fact, in the Quran, Allah never forbade anyone to use His name. The prophet Mohamad was quoted saying to a group of non-Muslims, “Your Allah and our Allah is the same..."

So, where is the logic that the word Allah can only belong to the Muslims? The same argument that was being used since Dr Mahathir’s era can no longer hold water once people come to know understand what the dispute is about.

As former Umno Supreme Council member Saifuddin Abdullah rightly pointed out, "nothing can remain within closed doors" in the age of the Internet.

Therefore, the moment the stop-order was issued in Sabah a week ago, resulting in some 2,000 copies of the Herald being confiscated, Malaysians found out about it soon enough.

A broader understanding

The word Allah in this country has been used as early 1629 when a Bible translator, A.C. Ruyl translated the Gospel of Matthew into Bahasa Melayu. The word Allahu was used in Matthew 1:23: “maka angkou memerin’ja nama Emanuel artin’ja Allahu (the Greek word THEOS) serta segala kita”.

In 1631, the first dictionary from Malay to Latin, “Dictionarivm : Malaico-Latinvm” had defined the word Allah as: n Alla, vel alla-te-alla Deus, followed by Van Hasel’s translation of the gospels of Luke and John in 1646.

In 1733, in what was the first complete Malay Bible, the book of Genesis was translated by M. Leijdecker, where the word God in Genesis 1:1 was rendered: “Pada mulanja dedjadikanlah Allah akan swarga dan dunja.” (Gen. 1:1).

Then in 1879, translation of the Book of Isaiah by H. C. Klinkert in the second complete Bible had used the name Allah in Isaiah 12: 2: “Bahwa-sanja Allah djoega salamatkoe” followed by the Kebaktian Sa’hari Harian in 1890: “Ia Elkhadir dan kakal Allah”

In 1938, the first translation of the Gospel of John in modern Malay had also used the name Allah: “Maka pada awal pertama adalah Firman, dan Firman itu bersama-sama dengan Allah.” (John 1:1). The word, Allah has therefore been with the Christian church in Malaysia for decades.

Mind-boggling

The name Allah has been used in East Malaysia amongst the Christian bumiputra there for centuries. In Indonesia and even the Middle East, the name praise of Allah rings in churches.

Many of the Christians in Peninsular Malaysia who had initially shaken their heads over the use of the Arabic word finally agreed that Allah is preferred compared to Tuhan.

I cannot imagine, for example, the predicament of a pastor preaching to a community of believers from both East and Peninsular Malaysia - should he use the word Allah or Tuhan or both or alternately. It is mind-boggling and sheer stupidity to have such double-headed rules.

Therefore, the heads of Malaysian Churches met in Kuala Lumpur (1985) and then in Kuching (1989) over the issue and they decided to unanimously to keep the name “Allah”. The Bible Society of Malaysia honored this decision when it published the revised Malay Bible, the Alkitab Berita Baik in 1996.

The same name, Allah, is also used by the Sikh community in its holy book, and they have been doing so long before the Allah row erupted.

It suffices to say that certain individuals are trying hard to persecute the Christian community, but to no avail. Instead, the entire plot has backfired on the ruling coalition as it tried to reap political gain from the issue.

As for the Christian community, whether in Sabah, Sarawak or the Peninsular, the question has been raised time and again who they choose to obey.

Matthew 11:28 sums it all: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” This is exactly what is ringing in churches across the country.

When it comes to the crunch, would the followers of any religion ever give in to the persecutors? The answer is a big No! Therefore, the Allah controversy created during the Mahathir era, in my opinion, is an ill-conceived plot against 10 percent of the country’s population. It is a deliberate and hard-headed tactic used with impunity to achieve a certain political outcome.

I believe for the first time, the East Malaysian churches are awakened to the latest development in Putrajaya which affects their daily lives. Will they be a safe deposit for the BN in the coming General Election?

I doubt it. Christians, being peaceable, will not create chaos, but they will express their disappointment at the ballot box.

Malaysia Chronicle