Judges to Malaysian Christian newspaper: Stop saying ‘Allah’

A Catholic newspaper may not use the word “Allah” to refer to God, a Malaysian appeals court ruled Monday. The all-Muslim, three-judge panel reversed a 2009 finding by a trial court that allowed the Malay-language newspaper, The Herald, to print the word.

Chief judge Mohamed Apandi Ali said in the ruling: “The usage of the word Allah is not an integral part of the faith in Christianity. The usage of the word will cause confusion in the community.”

Rev. Lawrence Andrew, founding editor of the Herald, said in response: “God is an integral part of every religion,” and said the paper will appeal to Malaysia’s highest court, according to Reuters.

The Christian Federation of Malaysia issued a statement calling the ruling “yet another erosion and infringement of the constitutional protection to the freedom of religious communities to profess and practise their faith.” However, Federation Chairman Rev. Eu Hong Seng said the ruling does not appear to apply to the use of “Allah” in the Bible, educational materials, or during worship.

United Bible Societies translator Kenneth J. Thomas in New York wrote a technical paper on the use of ‘Allah’ in Bible translations in 2006, saying “From the beginning of contacts between Jews, Christians and Muslims there was use of ‘Allah’.

“Christians accept ‘Allah’ as their term for the supreme being in most of the world where Muslims are the majority community. They affirm that Allah is not an exclusively Muslim name for the supreme being but is a generic term dating from pre-Islamic times that is now shared by Christians, Muslims and others.”

“It is a standard principle of translation to use the words and expressions in common use, and that principle also applies to the word for the deity. In spite of allegations that Allah is not the same as the elohim and theos in the Bible, the use of Allah by Christians speaking Arabic and many other languages demonstrates its acceptance as a word to be used in their Bibles. Christians should not be encouraged to avoid the use of Allah where it has been traditionally used.”

Most of this article was first published at World Watch Monitor. Republished with permission.

More Eternity stories: 

* Finding the right words to reach Muslims – June 2013

Image: Used under CC licence from Flickr/ET