KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) – A Malaysian court ruled Wednesday that non-Muslims may use the word “Allah” to refer to God in a major decision on a divisive issue for religious freedom in the Muslim-majority country.
Two ethnic Malaysian political parties immediately expressed concern, urging the government on Thursday to challenge the ruling.
The Supreme Court found a 35-year government ban on the use of Allah and three other Arabic words by Christian publications to be unconstitutional, the prosecution’s lawyer Annou Xavier said.
The government has previously said that Allah should be reserved exclusively for Muslims to avoid confusion that could lead them to convert to other religions, a view that is unique to Malaysia and has not been a problem in other Muslim-majority countries with significant Christian minorities.
Christian leaders in Malaysia say the ban is unreasonable because Christians 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 seemed to contradict an earlier decision by the country’s federal court in 2014, upholding the government ban following a legal challenge by the Roman Catholic Church, which had used the word Allah in its Malaysian newsletter.
“The court has now said that the word Allah can be used by all Malaysians,” said Xavier. “Today’s decision enshrines the fundamental freedom of religious rights for non-Muslims in Malaysia,” as enshrined in the constitution, he added.
About two-thirds of Malaysia’s 32 million inhabitants are Muslims, 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 in Borneo Island have no word for God other than Allah.
Three other words – “kaabah” or Islam’s holiest shrine in Mecca, “baitullah” or house of God, and “solat” or prayer, were also banned in the 1986 government directive.
The United Malays National Organization and the Conservative Islamic Party said in a joint statement that they viewed the court’s ruling with concern and demanded that the government pursue the case in the Court of Appeals. Interior Ministry officials could not be immediately reached for comment.
The government ban was enacted under the rule of an UMNO-led coalition, but the coalition was ousted in the historic 2018 elections. UMNO returned to rule under a new Malaysian government last year after a series of political maneuvers.
Government attorney Shamsul Bolhassan was quoted by The Star newspaper as saying that the four words can be used in Christian material according to the court ruling, as long as it clearly states that it is for Christians only and has a symbol of a cross is displayed.
The ruling was the result of a long-standing legal challenge by a Christian woman whose religious materials containing the word Allah were seized by authorities at the airport when she returned home from Indonesia in 2008.
The controversy over the use of Allah has provoked violence in Malaysia. Anger over a lower court ruling against the government ban in 2009 led to a series of arson and demolitions in churches and other places of worship. That ruling was subsequently overturned by higher courts.