A Malaysian court has ruled that non-Muslims cannot utilize the word Allah to make reference to God, even yet in their own faiths, overturning a 2009 lower court ruling.The appeals court said the word Allah must certanly be exclusive to Islam or it might lead to public disorder. People of all faiths use the word Allah in Malay to refer to their Gods.The 2009 ruling sparked tensions, with churches and mosques attacked. It came after the federal government said a Catholic newspaper, The Herald, could not make use of the word in its Malay-language edition to describe the Christian God. The newspaper sued, and a court ruled in their favour in December 2009.
The government during that time launched an appeal.
Upholding the appeal on Monday, chief judge Mohamed Apandi Ali said: “The utilization of the term Allah is not an integrated area of the faith in Christianity. The utilization of the term will cause confusion in the community.”
The newspaper's supporters have argued that Malay-language Bibles used Allah to make reference to the Christian God since before Malaysia was formed as a federal state in 1963.
“Allah is a term in the Middle East and in Indonesia it is a term both for Christians and Muslims. You can't say that in every one of the sudden it is not an integrated part. Malay language is a language that has many borrowed words, Allah is also a borrowed word.”
Some Malaysians believe the governing Malay-Muslim party is using the case to enhance its Islamic credentials among voters.
Malay Muslims make-up almost two-thirds of the country's population, but additionally there are large Hindu and Christian communities
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