MALAYSIANS DEBATE ONLINE OVER GOD'S NAME

A COURT GIVES CHRISTIANS THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT
TO USE THE WORD "ALLAH", MUSLIM ACTIVISTS MOBILIZED

KUALA LUMPUR (AP) - Malaysia is bracing for a potentially bruising linguistic battle after its government vowed to challenge a court ruling allowing local Roman Catholics to refer to God as Allah. The legal tussle is raising tensions between Malaysia's ethnic-Malay Muslim majority, who represent about 60% of this resource-rich nation's population, and its large ethnic-Chinese and Indian minorities. Muslim groups are preparing demonstrations against a High Court ruling on New Year's Eve to overturn a three-year-old government ban on the Catholic Church using the Arabic word Allah as a translation for God in its Malay-language newspaper. Among other things, the verdict potentially upholds the constitutional right of the church's weekly Herald newspaper to refer to Jesus Christ as the son of Allah - something that could anger many Muslims here and hurt Prime Minister Najib Razak's efforts to bring Malaysia's different religious groups closer together. The Arab word Allah has been used by Malay-speaking Christians for centuries, much as it is used by Christians in Arabic-speaking countries or in Indonesia, where, like Malaysia, the concept of a single deity was introduced by Arabic-speaking traders.

Rev. Lawrence Andrew, editor of the Herald, says there's no other appropriate term for God in Malay. Many powerful Islamic leaders here disagree, however, and fear some Muslims could be misled by Christians using the word Allah. They say the word should be reserved for Islam alone. The Internet is one of the few means of expression that isn't tightly controlled by the state in Malaysia, and ethnic-Malay Muslims as well as minority ethnic-Chinese and Indian Malaysians have been logging on in droves to comment on the New Year's Eve high court ruling. A Facebook group formed to protest non-Muslims using the word Allah has attracted over 36,000 members in just a few days. The page describes itself as a group for "awakened Muslims" pushing back against Christian efforts "to confuse the Islamic community." Meanwhile, hackers attacked the Web site of the Roman Catholic Church's weekly newspaper, the Herald, on Sunday. Moderate Muslims and non-Muslim Malaysians took to the country's various online-based publications to defend the right of Christians to use the term Allah. Today, the word Allah is widely used by Christians in Muslim-majority Indonesia and Malaysia, as well as by Christians in Arabic-speaking countries such as Egypt, Syria and elsewhere.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

Hearing the question from the mullah (Muslim educated in Islamic theology), Sri Goracanda Babaji said, "He whom you call Allah, we call Bhagavan. Both these words refer to the same Supreme Personality of Godhead. He is called by different names in the Koran, the Puranas, and in different countries and languages. … By chanting the Lord's holy names, by narrating His pastimes, and by worshipping His Deity form, one gradually becomes more and more devoted to the Lord. When the worshipper attains pure devotion, he can see the spiritual form of the Supreme Lord. Philosophical speculation and fruitive work will not help one to see the Lord.

Śrīla Saccidananda Bhaktivinoda Thākura :
“Jaiva-dharma (The Universal Religion)”
Chapter 11: ‘Nitya-dharma - Eternal Religion’
Bhaktivedanta Memorial Library - www.bvml.org/SBTP/