Because "our Allah and your Allah is one" (Qur'an 29:46), but that doesn't mean that many Muslims even in modern, moderate Malaysia are willing to allow the Christians to forget who's boss. An update on this story. "Government calls for calm over Allah court ruling issue," from The Star, January 2 (thanks to Twostellas):
KUALA LUMPUR: The Government is calling for calm among Muslims and non-governmental organisations and asking everyone to respect the court's decision over the use of the word Allah while it takes steps to appeal against the decision.Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Major-General (Rtd) Datuk Jamil Khir Baharom said the groups should be patient and allow the matter to be resolved through the legal process.
"I will meet the NGOs soon to hear their views and to discuss further the matter with them," he said in a statement on Saturday.
On Thursday, the High Court allowed the Catholic weekly, Herald, to use the word Allah.
Judge Datuk Lau Bee Lian had ruled that usage of the word was constitutional as long as the periodical was confined to educate the followers of the Christian faith.
Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, meanwhile, said the High Court's decision allowing the Catholic weekly publication to use the term Allah must be governed by strict conditions.
He said whatever justifications offered for the approval, it would not diffuse the anger of Muslims in the country.
"This is because 'God' in other religions is translated as 'Tuhan' in Bahasa Melayu or Arabic, not 'Allah'. "Allah specifically refers to God in Islam. If they understand that, they would use the word 'Tuhan', not 'Allah'.
"I accept the term 'Allah' had been used in Sabah and Sarawak before the two states joined Malaysia but it is difficult to stop them from doing so now... but in the peninsular, we have not heard of such practice," he told reporters after presenting a keynote address at the Malay Undergraduates Convention at Universiti Malaysia Terengganu here on Saturday.
Dr Mahathir said what he was afraid of was that the term Allah might be used in such a way that could inflame the anger of Muslims.
"They may use it on banners or write something that might not reflect Islam," he said.
In George Town, the police said it would station personnel outside the High Court building here Sunday following a planned demonstration by a Muslim non-governmental organisation.
State police chief Deputy Comm Datuk Wira Ayub Yaakob said his men would only move in if the demonstration turns chaotic.
"The protesters must know their limits," he said when contacted....
why would any Christian to use the word allah in the first place. it is not the same Christian God!
Once more: I just can't understand why a Catholic publication has its heart so set on the use of "Allah", in place of one of the true names of God.
What does it buy them? Respect from Muslims? Acceptance? Hardly. Respect or admiration from most other Christians around the world? I can speak only for myself when I say, "Nope".
Rather than "Allah", it would be more frank to use "Satan".
I think it's good that the Catholic church refers to the islamic god as Allah. It demarcates the true God from their moon-god. Plus it brings attention to a volatile area of the world where Christians and other than muslims are regularly persecutued, murdered and unlawfully imprisoned by this warped and deadly mindset. I say go for it.
Quran 29:46 is an exercise in intellectual dishonesty...
Our God says he has a son...Our other god says he has no son...One of these gods is confused...A case of deity cognitive dissonance? On one hand god has no son, but on the other hand God has a son, and in the middle of all that they managed to lose three daughters... A confused god is no God at all, so who is fibbing here...29:46 is certainly fibbing...
Allah is not the same god as any other god...Allah is the ancient moon god of Chaldea called Sin...Islams moon symbol
is Sins symbol...It is Allah/Sin who deserve the statement, 'Our god and your god is one'...
This is clearly islamophobic. Shame on the Malaysian government for implying a connection between muslims and violence. How could an islamic government fall for the patently false and pernicious islamophobic lies spread by the zionists and their allies? Living in a country that is 60% muslim you would think they would know what to expect from their muslim citizens, right?
People must take it with a pinch of salt when the government said it would respect the court's decision. Next it would appeal, and if this court passed whatever judgment, the Federal Court would definitely pass the judgment that would be favorable to the government. Period.
Allah has been patented by the Malaysian Islamist government and the government uses the coded word that the Muslims would be angry turnng them into demonic frenzy and the lapping police dog would be protecting and instigating the Muslims to demonstrate against the judgment of the High Court. This is clearly contempt of the court. The Islamist government is getting away with day light robbery and even murder.
The whole world is laughing at bolehland (meaning every thing can in the land) calls Malaysia.
"Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Major-General (Rtd) Datuk Jamil Khir Baharom said the groups should be patient and allow the matter [the High Court's decision to allow the Catholic Weekly to use the word "Allah"] to be resolved through the legal process." -- from the article.
What this means is that the government has every intention of making sure the ruling is overturned, so just be patient boys and girls. Since the courts are composed of jurists who will be susceptible to pressures of various kinds, ranging from threats by the state to remove them from office to intimidation or direct threats of physical violence from the Muslim mob, it will be interesting to follow this story to see what level of pressure is applied or amount of blood gets spilled as it winds its way through the judicial review process to its inevitable conclusion.
As with posters above, I don't understand why Christians would want to use any words or symbols that could in any way be associated with Islam. This especially applies to the word "Allah." Regardless of its etymological roots, it has come to be associated with Islam to such a degree, including its incorporation into such Muslim names as Abdallah, etc., that one would think Malaysian Christians would shy away from such usage. Perhaps they see it as an exercise in interfaith dialog, as in "see, my god is the same as your god," in which case they are doomed to failure. It takes two to tango, and as we have seen Muslims don't do the tango.
Agreed, Duh_Swami! ...allah is NOT the God of the Bible.
http://www.kingmessiahproject.com/is_allah_not_God.html
The best argument available that the Allah of the Quran is not the Judeo-Christian Jehovah God is "Allah is He God" which can be found at
http://www.answering-islam.org/Authors/Newton/allah.html
Fools in the West who think that "rule of law" is going to be able to save them from destruction at the hands of Muslims need only consider a case like this. All the courts in the land can pronounce whatever they want but if you have enough Muslims in any population a certain percentage of them (like the Bell Curve) will want to follow Islam and Sharia and will simply riot, kill, and force their ways onto the society. Or if the host society really wants to "stand up to the Islamists" it will require eternal vigilance that will in and of itself destroy the freedoms that are supposedly being protected. Cartoonists will require safe rooms in their house, judges will require 24/7 security, etc. etc. The bottom line is that it is not worth the trouble of allowing Muslims in the West given that the only end of it is the destruction of the West.
Makes sense to me!
After all the Jews always riot and kill when some non-believer uses the term Yahweh. Worse yet you can never beat them in court on this one!
Huh? You don't say! They dont sue or riot?
Well then the Hindus always riot and kill when some non-believer uses the term Bhagwan.
Huh? You don't say! They dont burn cars or riot?
Its got to be the Sikhs, I think they always kill and loot when some non believer says Nirankar.
Really? You say I am wrong.
Well I know for a fact that Christians attack Mosques when Muslims say that Jesus, the son of God, was just some itinerant traveling preacher-lesser prophet.
Wrong again you say? That's what I get for going to public school, watching MSNBC, and sleeping through Religion 101. I guess we are just going to have to be more tolerant and avoid the 99 different words that mean Allah and especially the one word for Allah that is revealed on one's death.
That's funny! Baha, Baha, Baha, Baha, Baha, Ha! How could you know the name if you have to be dead to learn it?
Oops! you say that the Mahdi says that Baha, is the 100th name of Allah? Sorry, I didn't know. I will definitely stay away from Comedy Clubs from now one?
Re: The Christian use of "Allah":
Arabic-speaking non-Muslims were using the name "Allah" before Muhammad arrived on the scene; hence the claim in the Qur'an that "our Allah and your Allah is one." If anything, I think Malaysia's Christians have more of a right to that name if they wish.
This is a supremacist power-play by Muslim authorities against religious minorities, and said minorities should assert their right to call their deity whatever they like as part of their freedom of belief, be it "Allah," "Clapton," or anything else.
Every Western talking head refers to Muslim violence in response to "insults" in exactly the same way. "Wow, they must REALLY love their God and their Prophet, I guess THAT'S why they responded so 'extremely'. We should be more respectful in the future..."
What few commentators seem to realise (or are too afraid of reprisals or job loss to vocalize), is that it is not the severity of the insult or the love for these personages that precipitates this level of violent response, but rather the extremely low level of esteem in which many Muslims hold the insulter. You aren't THAT offended or angry when a mosquito stings you, but you still squash the presumptuous little bugger flat.
I don't think it is that deep for them, they don't attack because they hold you in low esteem, rather they just attack like an untrained dog whose food bowl is touched instinctively protecting what they believe is theirs. The dog most likely acknowledges your superiority over him but can not help itself reacting the way it does. Animal trainers will test a dog before putting it out for adoption and if the dog reacts hostilely to a mannequin arm touching its food that is a good sign the dog will not be suitable for adoption, that it will have to be put down. Which brings us back to the Muslims who react this way, and the sad fact that unfortunately, they too will need to be put down or at the very least isolated and excluded from the West. You just aren't going to be able to train them to act differently.
Arab Christians should complain that Muslims are insulting the Christian use of the word Allah (for the God of the Bible) by using the word Allah in the Koran and in Islam to describe what is obviously Satan.
And do I love God any less because I DON'T react in this tired, aggro-driven manner? How fragile my faith must be, in that it provides me no recourse whenever I feel the slightest bit offended; whatever shall I do?
Or maybe they're all just bent because they have no t.p. for their bunghole...
Mheh-heh, heh-heh...heh-heh-heh... :D
Uh... huhhuhhuh.
Since the usual western secular mind believes there really is no god at all, it makes no difference to him whether Allah is the One True God of Islam or Christianity. But just as Allah isn't the Christian God, neither is Yasu'a the same person as Issa, the Muslim Jesus, and that is the argument brought round full circle.
""our Allah and your Allah is one" (Qur'an 29:46),"
This is exactly why Christians should NEVER refer to Yahweh as Allah.
There is no connection between Islam and Christianity. The deities are not the same. Yahweh named Himself as such to Moses, certainly if He was Allah, He wold have said so.
It is time that Christians and Jews separate their faiths from that of Muslims. Though all three are monotheism's, Mohamed's Islam has nothing but superficial similarities to Judaism and Christianity.
A simple and critical comparison shows this clearly.
No Christian should ever use Allah for God.
In Exodus 14 Abraham is told that God's name is YHWH only.
Muslims should be banned from using God and Jesus.
They should use Allah and Isa only.
Allah in the Quran is Satan in the Bible and Isa is NOT Jesus.
Islam is NOT an Abrahamic faith (like Judaism and Christianity).
Mohommad was a FALSE prophet.
it appears as if the government is actually appealing to malay
muslims "to boil with rage" over court decision.
I agree with all comments that christians should not call allah as their God and let it be,whatever it is,for muslims only.
I believe it is antichrist the one that denies the Father and
the Son(1John2:22).
I am curious what Christians called "Yahweh", "Allah".
"Allah" was a principal father deity of the pagan Arabs, He had a complete mythology associated with Him, and was married to the Sun Goddess, and had three daughters, who were associated with the harvest.
This mythology would have been well known by those who traveled and traded at that time.
There were many in the ancient world who were synergistic,the Greeks and Romans are examples where they had Gods and Goddesses who had similar mythologies,and were viewed as nearly interchangeable, The deities Attis, Osiris,Tammuz,Dumuzi are examples of the "ever living ever dying" God of vegetation. these deities along with many others had similar mythologies and rituals.
The deity of the Jews and Christians could never have been associated with the deity of the Arabs, "Allah", pagan or otherwise. The mythologies are far to different for there to be a synergistic association.
The Jews and Christians had been monotheists long before Mohamed came on the scene. I am not clear as to who brought Christianity to the Arabian peninsula, Paul did preach in Syria, it doesn't make sense that he would call "Yahweh" "Allah" since the mythologies are so profoundly different. I would expect a well traveled Roman citizen would have known the difference between the two deities.
Can you please tell me what Christian sects called their deity "Allah"?
Did they participate in any way with the Christian church of Rome?
Ok ok ok...wait a minute guys...the word allah predates the revelation to the prophet Muhammad and goes back to the pre-islamic era. That means Christians have been using the word long before there were any muslims. It is an arabic word for God. So there...can we use it now?
"So there...can we use it now?"
No, msu! ...circular reasoning will not / cannot / does not magically transform allah into the God of the Bible.
allah has ALWAYS been a pagan moon god, so nice try ....
Jeez.anyway..i'm happy with the word God.
Muslims in Malaysia are so confused. This is the only country in the world that fights over God.
deep sigh .....
yeah, but not all "Gods" are the same, donchaknow.
I don't want to lose track of the central point here, which is that the Malaysian non-Muslims have the right to call their deity anything they like -- Allah, Jerry, or J. Throckmorton Snorkelwacker.
But I also take issue with oversimplifications of the "Allah" issue because they lead to weaker arguments against apologists.
You won't get anywhere telling someone who calls on the God of the Bible with a sincere heart that he or she actually worships the devil or various idols. I know this from experience because of all the entities I've been accused of worshiping as a Catholic (saints, Mary, statues, etc. Some even insist the famous Marian apparitions are the devil in disguise).
Nor can I look an Arabic-speaking Christian or one who by whatever tradition calls the deity "Allah" in the eye and tell them they are offering prayers or Mass itself to Satan or a pagan god.
Indeed, the logical conclusion of the name game boils down to the deity as a Rumplestiltskin-like figure (Deus Ex Rumplestiltskin?), whereby He'll only listen if we call Him by a single, special name... in which case all this talk about "God" would be equally futile. That view is not widely held among Christian denominations.
Lastly, for a non-Muslim, Islam's deity is an appropriation, and an amalgamation of pre-existing practices (Christian, Jewish, gnostic, pagan, etc.) as much as the rest of the religion is.
That's not a reason to disparage people who have not given into that supremacist misappropriation and maintained their own traditions.