Saturday, January 16, 2010

KALIMAH ALLAH

There are many views on this hot issue. The reality is that the Arabs have been using Allah to describe the One God, the Supreme Being. This is true for both Arab Muslims and Arab Christians.In East Malaysia, they have been using this even before Merdeka.

But Allah is the ONE God for all mankind. Not one of many Gods. So, if we use Allah to describe the One God, then it is perfectly OK. So in this context, people of the Scriptures who believe in ONE God, are united in that they believe in one God.

In Malaysia, there is another name for GOD and that is Tuhan. In my view, those who believe in more than one God should refer to God as Tuhan and not Allah. Because ALLAH is ONE GOD FOR ALL MANKIND. Unless of course, they believe in One God for all mankind and in which case, they are partly a Muslim already....( two basic beliefs -belief in One God and belief that Mohammad is a prophet of God).

The above is my personal view and I stand to be corrected.

SEE MALAYSIAKINI REPORT BELOW ON HERALD MSIA (a Catholic Church publication):

Malaysiakini:What exactly did the High Court declare?

Let's be reminded that the Herald's application for a judicial review was only limited to have the home minister's prohibition on the use of the word 'Allah' in its Bahasa Malaysia section declared ultra vires.

Putting it in another way, the reason for the judicial review was to enable the word 'Allah' to be used in Herald's Bahasa Malaysia section for the benefit of East Malaysians.

Also too for other Bahasa-speaking Catholics who have since time immemorial used the term 'Allah' in their texts and prayers and is therefore their right to continue to do so under the constitution.

As such, the High Court's decision has wrongly been expanded by various sections of the public until it now appears that the Catholic Church has succeeded in getting the court to declare that the word 'Allah' can now be used by all and sundry for any old reason.

This was not the intention of the Justice Lau Bee Lan, Archbishop Murphy Pakiam, Father Lawrence Andrew or any other Catholic for that matter.

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