Malaysia: Muslim leader says Christians should stop demanding religious equality

Where did Ismail Ibrahim get the idea that there was something wrong with Christians asking for equal rights in a majority-Muslim state? Has he been reading Islamophobic literature?

Also: Arabic-speaking Christians were using the word "Allah" the God of the Bible since before the invention of Islam. "Stop demanding religious equality, says ex-Fatwa Council chief," from the Malaysian Insider, December 28 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 28 ― Non-Muslims should drop their demand to use “Allah” for their gods as the Arabic word is fundamental to Islamic belief and therefore exclusive to Muslims, National Fatwa Council former chairman Datuk Dr Ismail Ibrahim was reported saying in a Malay daily.
Ismail was weighing in on the latest debate over the Arabic word for god, in a row between Islamist opposition party PAS and its secular ally, DAP, which appears to be a hot-button topic in the run-up to national polls due soon.

“Enough is enough, enough with all the other policies, including the ones enshrined in the Constitution that has been claimed for equality, to be granted equal rights... therefore the right to recognise the concept of the divinity in this religion, don’t grab, challenge and manipulate so. The name ‘Allah’ is still something basic and fundamental to Islam.

“The name ‘Allah’, from a philosophical point, its definition and concept is not equal with the name Tuhan, God, Lord and so on in the usage of other religions,” he was quoted as saying by Sinar Harian in its front-page report today.

Ismail was further reported saying those insisting the word “Allah” be allowed for use in Malay bibles should desist due to linguistic and cultural differences.

He gave an example that Arabs could swear by the word “Wallahi” hundreds of times in their daily conversation but the oath was incomparable to that understood by Muslim Malaysians in the local language and that this difference between an ordinary oath and the Syariah term was explained in the Quran.

“The same, therefore, with the use of the name ‘Allah’ that is being attempted to be compared with other languages, especially Arabic, even though this comparison should be understood from a linguistic and cultural angle between Malay and Arabic,” Ismail told the newspaper.

Without naming anyone, he urged the parties against looking for petty reasons to justify the usage of “Allah” for the Christian god.

Christians form 9.2 per cent of Malaysia’s 28.3 million-strong population, with many in east Malaysia using the Malay language and the word “Allah” to refer to their God.

In recent years, the Christian and Muslim religious communities have been engaged in a tug-of-war over the word “Allah”, with the latter group arguing that its use should be exclusive to them on the grounds that Islam is monotheistic and the word “Allah” denotes the Muslim god.

A legal tussle over the use of the word “Allah” remains unresolved, with the Catholic Church still barred from publishing the word in its weekly newspaper, despite winning a High Court decision on December 31, 2009....

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duh_swami | December 30, 2012 3:55 AM | Reply

Allah is a word in the sense that everything in language is a word...But actually the Doctor is right that Allah is a name...
When Moses was conversing with the burning bush, he asked for a name...But the bush evaded the name issue by replying, I AM THAT I AM, which means 'Existence is Existence' and is not a name...The 'word' God, is not a name, it is a title, God has no name...That's because only things have names and are a duality...The name Allah, 'the-god' is a duality, making it a false God, but ok as a fake god...If anything, because of the duality, Allah is the 'Lord of Matter', since all evil happens in matter, Allah is the 'Lord of Evil' as well...and it shows...

Kepha replied to comment from duh_swami | December 30, 2012 6:38 AM | Reply

You do have a point. However, the name YHWH was one that was not uttered by Jews from a very early date (out of scruples against blasphemy), and we are not sure of its actual pronunciation in Hebrew. The modern "Yahweh" is as much a conjecture as the medieval "Jehovah".

I do not know much about the Malay language, except that when I was in the State Department, my colleagues posted to Kuala Lumpur or Jakarta were not paid the language incentive pay I got for knowing Thai in Bangkok and Chinese in Guangzhou. My guess is that Islam introduced the idea of one supreme God to the Malay world, and with it, the Arabic word. And I would be very interested to know how the earliest Malay Bibles handled the word for God, since I understand that a Dutch Reformed missionary named Leydecker or something like that produced such a translation before the end of the 17th century.

Now, those Malaysian Christians who are ethnically Chinese have it easy, since the terms Shangdi (上帝) and Shen （神) for God don't appear to be affected.

john spielman | December 30, 2012 1:13 PM | Reply

It's ironic that in the US, Muslims are trying to deceive the Christian church by equating Allah of Islam with YHWH of the Bible.
Though "Allah " may be Arabic for "god", the very nature of GOD as revealed in the Books of Moses and the writings of the Old Testament prophets and in the person of Jesus in the New Testament is clearly not the same as the nature of the Allah in the Quran and hadiths of Muhammed.
GOD of the bible is righteous holy just and merciful and loving. Allah is capricious, sadistic, and neither just nor merciful.
And so it should be, because Muhammed received his revelations from a demon masquerading as an angel of light, making Islam a wicked counterfeit of Christianity.

gravenimage | December 30, 2012 3:38 PM | Reply

Malaysia: Muslim leader says Christians should stop demanding religious equality
...........................

Well, of course. Malaysia is a Muslim-majority country, and there is no equality for Infidels under Islam.

Also: Arabic-speaking Christians were using the word "Allah" the God of the Bible since before the invention of Islam.
...........................

Yes. "Allah" if used for the God of the Bible is just the same as "God", or "Gott", or "Dieu", or "Dios", or any other name for the deity. It is only when it is conflated with the appalling Allah of the Qur'an that there is an issue.

But Muslims always want to control Infidels.

tanstaafl | December 30, 2012 5:50 PM | Reply

Allah means Mohammed. Simple.

cosmicviolence | December 30, 2012 11:28 PM | Reply

So this is the muzloid mindset -not universal brotherhood and love but dictating to other people what words they can and can't use. "Oh no, that's our word, you can'tuse that!"
Is it any surprise the muzloids are the most reviled, the most backward, the most peanut-brained and the most hated peoples on this otherwise beautiful blue planet of ours?

billposer | December 30, 2012 11:54 PM | Reply

If, as Muslims believe, there is only on god, then it makes no sense to say that Allah refers to the Muslim god and that Christians must use another word to refer to their god. By hypothesis, Muslims and Christians must worship the same god; in order for them to worship different gods, there would have to be at least two.

gravenimage replied to comment from billposer | December 31, 2012 12:56 PM | Reply

Bill, trying to apply logic to Islamic "thought" is a losing proposition.

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