At least they agreed on one thing: only in Malaysia is Allah an issue

ARCHIVES 2013

By admin-j On Sep 5, 2013

(TMI) – The forum “Is Allah exclusive to Islam – Law, Faith and Politics” was organised by MySuara.net, an online TV portal yesterday.

In a heated online television discussion yesterday, three Muslim scholars were still agreed on one thing: that the use of the word “Allah” to describe gods of different religions – including the Christian god – is an issue only in Malaysia and nowhere else in the world.

But it still was an issue to two of the scholars as they argued there was an agenda behind Christians using Allah to refer to their god in Malay bibles.

“Christianity is said to be over 2,000 years old. They should have a big vocabulary bank to choose from to refer to God. The fact that they chose Allah was evidence that they have an agenda,” argued Dr Khalif Muammar Harris, associate professor of the Center for Advanced Studies on Islam, Science and Civilization at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.

Agreeing with him, another panellist echoed the refrain of some that Christians had used the word to mislead East Malaysians to convert them to Christianity. Making this point was Dr Yusri Mohamad, chairman of the Coalition of Supporters of Islam (Pembela), who wanted the word “Allah” banned in Malay bibles.

“It is a Christian virus in the country. They cannot be faulted for having their own missionaries, but they are propagating the virus of pluralism, that all religions are the same,” he said.

The forum “Is Allah exclusive to Islam – Law, Faith and Politics” was organised by MySuara.net, an online TV portal yesterday.

It was moderated by ex-Perlis mufti Dr Asri Zainul Abidin and held as a curtain raiser to Putrajaya’s appeal set to be heard on Tuesday.

The appeal is against a 2009 High Court ruling that allowed the Catholic Church to use the word “Allah” in its weekly newspaper, the Herald.

Dr Asri, in his opening comments, said the word Allah was in a Catholic bible he bought in Jordan some time ago.

“They have been using the word a long time ago, and so it’s a non-issue in the Arab world,” he noted.

But Dr Yusri responded that the word was currently being misused in the Malay bible.

“Yes, the problem is exclusive to Malaysia, but my personal opinion is it cannot be used in bibles. The National Fatwa Council also felt the same.

“The world would not turn upside down for the Christians if they are not allowed to use the word. It is actually not a big issue to them even if the word is banned. It’s not as though they don’t have an alternative word that will not upset their Muslim friends,” he said.

The third panellist, PAS Member of Parliament for Shah Alam Khalid Samad, felt that it was not an issue.

He argued that instead of banning the word from non-Muslim tracts, religious leaders and scholars should instead educate and create awareness on what Allah means to Muslims.