KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) – A Malaysian court on Wednesday ruled that non-Muslims may use the word “Allah” to refer to God in a major ruling on a divisive issue of religious freedom in the majority country Muslim.
Two ethnic Malaysian political parties immediately expressed concern and on Thursday urged the government to challenge the ruling.
The Court found the 35-year-old government’s ban on the use of Allah and three other Arabic words by Christian publications unconstitutional, said the plaintiff’s lawyer, Annou Xavier.
The government has previously said that Allah should be reserved exclusively for Muslims to avoid confusion that could convert them to other religions, a unique position in Malaysia and that it has not been a problem in other Muslim-majority nations with Christian minorities. important.
Christian leaders in Malaysia say the ban is unreasonable because Malay-speaking Christians have long used Allah, a Malay word derived from Arabic, in their Bibles, prayers and songs.
The high court ruling seemed to contradict an earlier decision by the country’s Federal Court in 2014 confirming the government’s ban following a legal challenge by the Roman Catholic Church, which had used the word Allah in its bulletin in Malay language.
“The court has now said that the word Allah can be used by all Malaysians,” Xavier said. “Today’s decision enshrines the fundamental freedom of religious rights for non-Muslims in Malaysia” enshrined in the constitution, he added.
Muslims make up about two-thirds of Malaysia’s 32 million people, with large ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities. Christians make up about 10% of the population.
Most Malaysian Christians worship in English, Tamil or various Chinese dialects and refer to God in these languages, but some Malay-speaking people on the island of Borneo have no word other than God other than Allah.
Three other words – “kaabah” or the holiest shrine of Islam in Mecca, “baitullah” or house of God and “solat” or prayer, were also banned in the 1986 government directive.
In a joint statement, the United Nations National Organization of Malaysia and the Conservative Islamic Party said they viewed the court ruling with concern and demanded that the government continue the case in the Court of Appeals. It was not immediately possible to contact Interior Ministry officials for comment.
The government ban was introduced under the rule of a UMNO-led coalition, but the coalition was ousted in a historic 2018 election. UMNO re-ruled under a new Malaysia-dominated government last year of a series of political maneuvers.
The Star newspaper quoted government lawyer Shamsul Bolhassan as saying that the four words can be used in Christian materials in accordance with the court ruling, as long as it is clearly stated that it is intended only for Christians and appears the symbol of a cross.
The sentence was the result of a lengthy judicial challenge by a Christian woman whose religious material containing the word Allah was confiscated by airport authorities when she returned to Indonesia in 2008 at her home.
The controversy over the use of Allah has provoked violence in Malaysia. Anger over a lower court ruling against the government ban in 2009 sparked a series of arson attacks and vandalism in churches and other places of worship. This sentence was later overturned by higher courts.