KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) – A Malaysian court on Wednesday ruled that non-Muslims can use the word ‘Allah’ to refer to God, in a key ruling on a divisive issue for religious freedom in the Muslim majority country.
Two ethnic Malaysian political parties immediately expressed concern and called on the government on Thursday to challenge the ruling.
The Supreme Court considers a 35-year government ban on the use of Allah and three other Arabic words by Christian publications to be unconstitutional, said Annou Xavier, the plaintiff’s lawyer.
The government had earlier said Allah should be reserved exclusively for Muslims to avoid confusion that could lead to conversion to other religions, a position that is unique to Malaysia and that was not a problem in other Muslim-majority countries with significant Christian minorities .
Christian leaders in Malaysia say the ban is unreasonable because Malaysians who speak the Malay language have long used Allah, a Malay word derived from Arabic, in their Bibles, prayers and songs.
The Supreme Court ruling apparently contradicts an earlier ruling by the country’s federal court in 2014 that upheld the government ban following a legal protest by the Roman Catholic Church, which used the word Allah in its Malay newsletter.
“The court has now said 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, as enshrined in the constitution,” he added.
Muslims make up about two-thirds of the 32 million people in Malaysia, with large ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities. Christians make up about 10% of the population.
Most Christians in Malaysia worship in English, Tamil or various Chinese dialects, and refer to God in those languages, but some Malay-speaking people on the island of Borneo have no other word for God except 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 guideline.
The United Malays National Organization and the Conservative Islamic Party said in a joint statement that they viewed the court ruling with concern and demanded that the government take the matter to the Court of Appeal. Interior Ministry officials could not be immediately reached for comment.
The government ban was imposed under the rule of a UMNO-led coalition, but the coalition was ousted in a historic 2018 election. UMNO returned last year to rule under a new Malaysian-dominated government in a series of political ways.
Government adviser Shamsul Bolhassan quoted the newspaper The Star as saying that the four words could be used in Christian material according to the court ruling, as long as it made it clear that they were meant for Christians only and a symbol of a cross was displayed. .
The decision was the result of a lengthy legal challenge by a Christian woman whose authorities confiscated religious material at the airport with the word Allah when she returned from Indonesia in 2008.
The controversy over the use of Allah has provoked violence in Malaysia. Anger over a lower court ruling against the 2009 government ban led to a series of arson and vandalism at churches and other places of worship. This ruling was subsequently overturned by higher courts.