Malaysia court rules non-Muslims cannot use 'Allah'

[William Parcher]

Malaysia court rules non-Muslims cannot use 'Allah'

A Malaysian court has ruled that non-Muslims cannot use the word Allah to refer to God, even in their own faiths, overturning a 2009 lower court ruling.

The appeals court said the term Allah must be exclusive to Islam or it could cause public disorder.

People of all faiths use the word Allah in Malay to refer to their Gods.

Christians argue they have used the word, which entered Malay from Arabic, to refer to their God for centuries and that the ruling violates their rights.

One Malaysian Christian woman said the ruling would affect the community greatly. "If we are prohibited from using the word Allah then we have to re-translate the whole Bible, if it comes to that," Ester Moiji from Sabah state told the BBC

 

[theprestige]

Way to stay classy, Malaysian Muslims.

 

[Aepervius]

I don't know what is the msot stupid. Judge making that ruling, or people using the word allah to refer to gods having a different name , like Yhwh. I think i will never "get" religion.

 

[Cleon]

people using the word allah to refer to gods having a different name , like Yhwh.

"Allah" just means "God," with the capital G. Arab Christians and Jews (not to mention Yazidi and other religions) use "Allah" to refer to the same deity.

Malaysians aren't Arab, but my impression is the word just got adopted into the regular language.

 

[theprestige]

I don't know what is the msot stupid. Judge making that ruling, or people using the word allah to refer to gods having a different name , like Yhwh. I think i will never "get" religion.

FTFA:

Christians argue they have used the word, which entered Malay from Arabic, to refer to their God for centuries and that the ruling violates their rights.

Seems like the word migrated into Malaysian, as a generic term synonymous with "god", several hundred years ago. Not sure there's really anything stupid about that.

And perhaps there's not really anything stupid about the judge's ruling, either. If Malaysian Christians using the word "allah" to refer to their god really does risk social unrest, then in the narrow interest of reducing violence in the community, it may have been a reasonably pragmatic ruling.

I think there's probably a lot that is stupid in this situation, but I don't agree that either of the two points you raised are very stupid at all.

 

[Giz]

FTFA:


Seems like the word migrated into Malaysian, as a generic term synonymous with "god", several hundred years ago. Not sure there's really anything stupid about that.

And perhaps there's not really anything stupid about the judge's ruling, either. If Malaysian Christians using the word "allah" to refer to their god really does risk social unrest, then in the narrow interest of reducing violence in the community, it may have been a reasonably pragmatic ruling.

I think there's probably a lot that is stupid in this situation, but I don't agree that either of the two points you raised are very stupid at all.

That’s even worse; the ruling is effectively saying that non-muslims cannot refer to their god as ‘God’.

As for ‘preventing social unrest’, pandering to an intolerant faction seems to be a rather immoral and backwards looking way of preserving civility.

 

[A'isha]

That’s even worse; the ruling is effectively saying that non-muslims cannot refer to their god as ‘God’.

It's slightly more complicated than that, since there is a Bahasa Malaysia/Bahasa Indonesia word used for "God", tuhan, in addition to the Arabic loanword (it's the word used in the Indonesian Constitution: "Negara Republik Indonesia yang berkedaulatan rakyat dengan berdasarkan kepada, Ketuhanan Yang Maha Esa" - "The Republic of Indonesia with sovereignty of the people and based on the belief in the One and Only God").

The standard Malaysian and Indonesian Bible makes use of both words, to translate the two different words used for God in the original: "YHWH" and "Elohim", corresponding to the way the English Bible translates those as two different words: "Lord" and "God". Arabic Bibles do the same thing, translating YHWH as "al-Rabb" and God as "Allah". Deuteronomy 6:4's "Listen, O Israel! The LORD our God, the LORD is one" (repeated in Mark 12:29) is thus rendered as "Dengarlah, hai bangsa Israel! TUHAN Allah kita, TUHAN itu esa" in Indonesian and Malaysian Bibles.

As the person quoted in the article notes, if Christian Bibles can't use the word Allah, they would have to be completely retranslated, which isn't easy considering the linguistic issues with translating every reference to "Adonai", "Elohim", "YHWH", and so on with just the single term tuhan. And that's even before you start addressing the fact that "Allah" (and the related "ilah", "a god") has been used by Malaysian and Indonesian Christians for at least 400 years (the first part of the Bible printed in Malay, Ruyl's Gospel of Matthew printed in 1629 - only eighteen years after the King James Bible was completed! - uses it).

As for ‘preventing social unrest’, pandering to an intolerant faction seems to be a rather immoral and backwards looking way of preserving civility.

Yes, I completely agree.

 

[Xulld]

Allah be over here if you need me . . ..

 

[DC]

I don't know what is the msot stupid. Judge making that ruling, or people using the word allah to refer to gods having a different name , like Yhwh. I think i will never "get" religion.

Allah's name is YHWH

 

[DrDave]

Allah's name is YHWH

I thought his name is Allah, and his surname is Lalalabamba

 

[Spindrift]

I thought his name is Allah, and his surname is Lalalabamba

It though it was Wanadoizhavfun.

 

[DC]

I thought his name is Allah, and his surname is Lalalabamba

lol i love that.

 

[theprestige]

That’s even worse; the ruling is effectively saying that non-muslims cannot refer to their god as ‘God’.

I'd say it's pretty bad. But "worse" than what, exactly?

As for ‘preventing social unrest’, pandering to an intolerant faction seems to be a rather immoral and backwards looking way of preserving civility.

Sometimes you must pass judgement on the society you have, not the society you wish to have or plan to have at a later time.

I think it's up to judges to deal with what is, and let the legislature and the executive deal with what should be.

If I had to deal with a population of irrationally, gratuitously violent muslims, and I knew I could reduce the risk of violence and bloodshed by telling Christians to back off the word "allah", I'd have a hard time morally justifying a different ruling than the one reported here.

My take is that this particular ruling isn't particularly stupid or wrong, but that Malaysian society has a serious Muslim problem. Or, as I said earlier, "stay classy, Malaysian Muslims".

 

[marplots]

No problem. I'll quit saying Allah and start saying "Snickers."

 

[fuelair]

I thought his name is Allah, and his surname is Lalalabamba

I think you left out a "la" there!!

 

[fuelair]

And, more importantly, at one point the singer says he is soy sauce, not marinara. Not sure why, but...............

 

[WildCat]

If I had to deal with a population of irrationally, gratuitously violent muslims, and I knew I could reduce the risk of violence and bloodshed by telling Christians to back off the word "allah", I'd have a hard time morally justifying a different ruling than the one reported here.

So if you were on the SCOTUS for the Brown v. Board of Education case you'd vote to keep schools segregated because of the feared reaction of violent racists?

 

[This is The End]

If I had to deal with a population of irrationally, gratuitously violent muslims, and I knew I could reduce the risk of violence and bloodshed by telling Christians to back off the word "allah", I'd have a hard time morally justifying a different ruling than the one reported here.

Wow.

 

[A'isha]

If I had to deal with a population of irrationally, gratuitously violent muslims, and I knew I could reduce the risk of violence and bloodshed by telling Christians to back off the word "allah", I'd have a hard time morally justifying a different ruling than the one reported here.

There already was a different ruling than the one reported here. For four years, in fact - this is an appeals court overturning a ruling that had been made in 2009.

 

[Polaris]

Must be nice to live in a country with so few problems that this is a priority.