Malaysia ends ban on letting Christians use the word ‘Allah’
- Malaysia banned Christians from using the word ‘Allah’ in 1986 on safety grounds
- But High Court has slapped down the rule, saying it infringes on right to religion
- Came after Christian woman launched legal battle over religious texts in 2008
- Christians in Malaysia say they have been using Allah to refer to their God for centuries, but Muslim leaders previously argued that it causes confusion
Malaysia’s High Court has ended a decades-long ban on Christians using the word ‘Allah’ to refer to their God in religious texts.
The ruling came as part of a case brought by Christian woman Jill Ireland Lawrence Bill who had religious texts seized 13 years ago because they contained the word.
Bill had argued that prohibiting Christians from using the word Allah – which means ‘God’ in Arabic – infringed on her right to practice religion and her right to education.
On Wednesday, a judge at the country’s High Court agreed.
A Malaysian Muslim activist holds a religious booklet, while waiting outside court during an earlier hearing on the controversy
The ruling overturns a 1986 law that banned Christians from using the word in publications on public order grounds.
The issue has previously caused violent unrest between Malaysia’s two-thirds majority Muslim population and its Christian minority groups.
Bill’s case stems back to 2008 when Bill arrived at Kuala Lumpur airport carrying religious texts on CDs from Indonesia.
The discs were seized by she launched an legal campaign to get them back, and in 2014 one of Malaysia’s lower courts sided with her and the discs were returned.
But because the lower court does not have the power to change laws, the matter was referred to the High Court to set a binding ruling.
The case was heard in 2017 with a ruling initially due in 2018, but it was repeatedly delayed as the two sides haggled out of court.
Coronavirus shutdowns further delayed the ruling, which was finally delivered on Wednesday.
Christians in Malaysia say they have used the word ‘Allah’ for centuries to refer to their God.
But authorities had argued against using the term in non-Muslim literature, saying it could confuse Muslims and entice them to convert.
In another high-profile case in 2014, Malaysia’s top court dismissed a bid by the Catholic Church for the right to use the word ‘Allah’ in the Malay-language edition of a church newspaper.
Malaysia has largely avoided overt religious conflict in recent decades, but tensions have been growing.
In 2014 a church was hit with petrol bombs, while Islamic authorities have seized Bibles containing the word ‘Allah’.
In 2017 a Christian pastor was dragged from his car by masked men and kidnapped.
He is still missing, with a public inquiry concluding he was probably snatched by ‘agents of the state’.
Less than 10 percent of Malaysia’s 32 million people are estimated to be Christians, coming from mostly ethnic Chinese, Indian or indigenous backgrounds, while 60 percent are Muslim ethnic Malay.