Govt's 'Allah' ban for non-Muslims invalid, High Court rules

Malaysiakini:



Govt's 'Allah' ban for non-Muslims invalid, High Court rules

The government has erred in issuing the 1986 ban on the use of the word "Allah" by non-Muslims, ruled the Kuala Lumpur High Court.

Thus, a Melanau Christian has the right to use the word “Allah” for religious and educational purposes.

Judge Nor Bee Ariffin today allowed the legal action by Jill Ireland in the 13-year long-running saga.

Ireland initially instituted an action for the return of Malay-language Christian CDs and religious books seized by Malaysian customs authorities at the Kuala Lumpur Low-Cost Terminal (LCCT), Sepang, in 2008.

However, following a court order ordering the items returned to the clerk in 2015, her legal battle has since then became one seeking court declaration over the right to use the word “Allah”.

Ireland was seeking a declaration that her constitutional right to practice her religion was violated by the imposition of a restriction or ban on the import of educational materials.

She also wanted a declaration that the use of the Publication and Printing Presses Act (PPPA) 1984 and the Customs Act 1967 to seize the CDs was an infringement on equality under the law.

Today's High Court decision came after numerous postponements since at least 2018, following several attempts to settle the matter.

This decision though is distinguishable and does not contradict a previous precedent set by the Federal Court in 2015, when it dismissed the "Allah" appeal by the Roman Catholic Church.

When reading out the lengthy judgment, Nor Bee said the home ministry's directive dated Dec 5, 1986, banning the use of "Allah", "Kaabah", "Baitullah", "Solat" by non-Muslims, has no statutory backing and is therefore illegal and irrational.

The directive was relied on by the authorities when they confiscated the eight CDs in 2008.

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kt notes:

I have to confess I've been one of those non-Muslims who argued against the Church using the 'Allah' word in its Christian prayers, though my arguments were not of a legal nor etymological nature but on commonsense.

I had then (2010) penned Allah, Elohim or Yahweh of which the following extracts are reproduced here for your perusal:

I find it rather incomprehensible that Father Andrew would assert ‘Elohim’ to be a foreign name for God while in the same breath dare to claim ‘Allah’ is not. I wonder whether he would consider 'Yeshua', 'Isa' or even 'Jesus' as ‘foreign’ names? And as he is from the Catholic Church, may I ask him what he considers 'Mary' or 'Mariam', the name of the Holy Virgin Mother, to be? [...]

And on the pedigree of God’s names, the first revelation of God’s personal identity is in the Tanakh (Jewish Bible) Book of Genesis 1:1 which says: "In the beginning Elohim created the heaven and the earth."

So, why did Father Andrew consider it a ‘foreign’ name? Aren’t we talking about the God of the Christian faith?

The second name of the Divine One as revealed to Moses was 'YHWH' or 'Yahweh' (later modified to 'Jehovah') which means ‘I AM WHO I AM’ or 'I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE'.

'Yahweh' is mentioned 6823 times in the Old Testament, while 'Elohim' scores 2570 times. How many times is ‘Allah’?

In fact 'Elohim' is used 66 times in a row at the beginning of the Bible before any other Hebrew word for the English word 'God'.

There are various other names besides ‘Elohim’ and ‘Yahweh’ to describe God and Jesus, with the latter being found in the New Testament.

As I mentioned quite often, my arguments were not based on legal or etymological grounds. Now that the High Court has ruled so, I shall keep my views to myself, wakakaka. Mind, I wonder whether the High Court's ruling applies only in Sarawak and Sabah, or also in the Peninsula?