KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — A court in Muslim-majority Malaysia ruled Oct. 14 that only Muslims are permitted to use the Arabic word “Allah” to describe God, overturning a lower court’s 2009 decision that allowed others to use the word.
“The usage of the word ‘Allah’ is not an integral part of the faith in Christianity,” Chief Judge Mohamed Apandi Ali said in the ruling, supporting the government’s case. “The intended usage will cause unnecessary confusion within the Islamic community.”
Allah is the Arabic word for God.
“The name ‘Allah’ does not appear, even once, in either the Old or New Testaments. In the Bible world, God has always been known as ‘Yahweh,’” Ali said.
The ruling was aimed primarily at a Catholic newspaper, The Herald, which had been printing the word in its Malay-language stories to describe the Christian God, until the government deemed it was illegal in 2008. When The Herald sued, a lower court ruled in favor of free speech in 2009 and allowed the paper to use the word.
“Some Muslim groups have said that the Christian use of the word ‘Allah’ could be used to encourage Muslims to convert to Christianity,” the BBC reported.
Christians in Malaysia had used the word “Allah” for decades in churches and Malay-language Bibles, but the government decided a judicial ruling was needed to determine if the terminology should be legal.
Based on this ruling, Southern Baptist representatives in certain Muslim contexts may now have more to consider when deciding whether or not to use the word “Allah” to refer to the Christian God.
In the Middle East and in many other Muslim countries, Christians are able to use the word “Allah.”
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