10 Reasons Christians in Malaysia Should use be allowed to use the word Allah

It's been a long long time since my last post, but finally I'm returning back to my normal life, and I can finally blog again...and watch my movies. (pulp fiction was excellent).

However, I felt I had to write about this Allah as it seems to be getting a bit out of hand. Unfortunately, it's unlikely my blog would do anything about it, but hopefully in some small way it may help to clear the air about this rather controversial issue.

Firstly, let's be clear that it is indeed a political issue. As far as I remember, Dato' Seri Utama Dr. Rais Yatim, the information minister of Malaysia had a rather tough time with the Herald. He was a bit 'displeased' with the Herald publishing articles relating to politics in the run-up to the 2008 general elections in Malaysia. After a bit of a tussle that was leading nowhere, the Ministry then threatened the Herald with not renewing their license simply because the Herald had used the word Allah in it's Bahasa section (the Herald is published in 4 languages). As far as the Ministry was aware the word was only allowed for Muslims. This is where everything starts, The Herald chose to defend it's right to use the word Allah and a half-dozen court hearings later we're right back where we started.

So it is a political issue, it was brought up by a politician for political reasons so say the issue was politicized, is wrong as the issue started off as a political one.

With that in mind, let's move on to a very clear second point in the debate. It shouldn't be a debate. It's not a debate about whether Christians should be allowed to use the word Allah, it should consensus building discussion. To debate for the sake of debating would pit two sides against each other, and as the debate continues both sides become more entrenched in their opinion that any form on consensus becomes unlikely. If we truly wanted to find a solution, we'd move to garner consensus and understanding rather than debates. Unfortunately, too many blogs on both sides of the political and religious divide are guilty of this and it is indeed a sad sight. When we have a entire section of bloggers comparing the trinity to 3-in-1 Nescafe, it doesn't really create an environment of respect necessary for real conversations and dialogue to occur.

Finally we get in on the real meat of the issue, and I won't repeat what you can read elsewhere, but as a Catholic and a citizen of Malaysia I must emphasize my view and state my points.

1) East Malaysian Christians (not just Catholics) have been using the term for generations before the formation of Malaysia. To say they can't use the word is akin to telling them their religion is illegal.

2) The term Allah is an arab word for God. The Arab Christians refer to god as Allah as well. Therefore in it's current form as a Malay word borrowed from the Arab language, it should be 'borrowed' to all those who speak the language and not just the Muslims.(There are Malay Speaking people who are NOT Muslims)

3) Even within the Malay archipelago, the Indonesian Christians refer to god as Allah, yet the Indonesians seem OK with this, while Rais Yatim isn't.

4) It is just impractical and completely useless to ban a specific word from an entire section of the populace based solely on religious beliefs. To say you can't use the word Allah because you are not Muslim is a dangerous path to go down because to accept this is to accept religious discrimination.

5) The whole idea that this stems from the Christian desire to proselytize is actually true. The initial missionaries in this part of the world probably translated the bible to Malay and other various languages to convert the local populace. However, let's be fair, this was hundreds of years ago before Malaysia was formed. It would be fair to say that similar translations were done to the Quran to convert the local populace from Hinduism (or Buddhism) to Islam. The local populace in Sabah and Sarawak who accepted Christianity have their rights as well, and that includes the right to refer to god as Allah. As to how they were converted is irrelevant, what is relevant is they choose to remain Christian and they choose to worship in Malay, and it is their right to do so.

6) For the UMNO members who justify this action as a deterrent to apostasy from within the Muslim community in Malaysia...it is actually an insult to the Muslims (and primarily the Malays). It begets a thinking that in order to convert Muslims in this country, all I would have to do is to 'confuse' them with the word Allah and I would be able to convert Muslims (mostly Malays) en mass.  This obviously highlights how highly some of the top dogs of UMNO view their fellow race.

7) To say that the Malay term doesn't lend itself to the Christian understanding of God, is to neglect that the Christian Sabahans and Sarawakians have equal claim to both Malaysia and the Malay Language. They have as much right to declare Allah a Christian only term in Bahasa as the Muslims. To deny this, is to deny the Christian in East Malaysia their rights.

8) Christians and Muslims actually worship the same God (GASP!!). Yes, indeed. While many are unaware of this, let me repeat that Christians and Muslim worship the God of Abraham.  Abraham is the patriarch of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and whichever of the 3 you belong to, you believe that we worship the same God as Abraham...and Abraham only believed in one God. It is our understanding that is different, but the actual God we refer too, the actual SINGLE ENTITY we worship is one and the same, it would indeed be confusing if we'd have to use a different name now would it? Christians believe in the Trinity, but we also believe that there is one and only one God.

9) Why can't we use this as a common ground to improve inter-religious dialogue and understanding. It's bad enough when Jakim goes around with guidelines that Muslims shouldn't attend any function where there are symbols of crosses and crucifixions, what we need now is unity not division. How can we hope to unite the muslims and non-muslims of Malaysia, when my closest Malay friends would be unable to attend my wedding? Or even my wedding dinner for that matter, as we begin any meal with a grace? How do we achieve unity what is being preached is division and isolation for Muslims?

10) We shouldn't let issues like this be decided by politicians, it's way to important an issue to leave them up to bloody politicians.

As a finale though, we have to accept that the Christian understanding of God as a Trinity is not the same as the Muslim understanding of God. Therefore Muslims do feel uncomfortable with these two wildly contradictory understandings to refer to God with the same name Muslims also do feel a very real threat to the position of Islam in Malaysia, although I believe there is no such threat it doesn't discount the fact that a vast section of the Muslim community in Malaysia feel it.

That being said, these issues can only be tackled through inter-religious dialogue, and inter-religious understanding. It would be difficult for this to happen as long as the debate is tied up in court and politicians leading the government charge on this. It's also quite difficult when the Government itself has already entreched itself in one camp thereby closing the door for any sort of dialogue to take place.

That's my 2 cents. Don't spend it all in one place.