1. Daily Express (http://www.thedailyexpress.com.my)
Allah signature drive initiator slams Dompok, 13 March 2009
Kota Kinabalu: The initiator of the signature campaign to lift the ban on the use of the word "Allah" by Christians in the country, Ronnie Klassen, expressed shock and regret over remarks by Minister in the Prime Minister Department Tan Sri Bernard Dompok that the campaign is redundant and being organised by the opposition.
In a statement, Thursday, Klassen said the remark was shocking and unbecoming considering that it came from someone who once was rather critical of the ban by the Home Ministry on the use of the word "Allah" by the Herald, a Roman Catholic weekly.
He recalled that in an interview with a popular online news portal early this year, Dompok, who is thus far the only Christian Federal Minister who publicly made his stand on the issue, even defended Herald and fought for its right to use the word "Allah".
Klassen thus wondered whether Dompok, who is United Pasok Momogun KadazanDusunMurut Organisation President, was really sincere when he championed the issue or had since changed his stand.
© Copyright 2009 Sabah Publishing House Sdn. Bhd.
2. Berita Harian Online (http://www.bharian.com.my)
Mais beri amaran kepada Majlis Peguam, 13 Mac 2009
Undi guna perkataan Allah dalam kitab agama bukan Islam dipersoal
SHAH ALAM: Majlis Agama Islam Selangor (Mais) memberi amaran akan bertindak terhadap Majlis Peguam jika gagal mematuhi peruntukan Enakmen Agama Bukan Islam (Kawalan dan Perkembangan di Kalangan Orang Islam) 1988.
Pengerusinya, Datuk Mohamad Adzib Mohd Isa, berkata Mais sedang mendapatkan pandangan peguam majlis itu mengenai tindakan Majlis Peguam mendapatkan maklum balas orang ramai melalui undian di laman webnya berkaitan penggunaan perkataan Allah dalam kitab agama bukan Islam.
Katanya, Mais berpendirian penggunaan kalimah Allah hanya eksklusif untuk orang Islam, malah penggunaannya sudah diwartakan di bawah enakmen berkenaan sebagai perkataan tidak boleh digunakan oleh bukan Islam.
"Adalah salah bagi bukan Islam menggunakan perkataan Allah dalam kitab agama atau penerbitan agama bukan Islam dan mereka boleh didakwa.
"Enakmen ini diwujudkan Badan Perundangan Negeri-Negeri selaras Perkara 11 (4) Perlembagaan Persekutuan yang memperuntukkan undang-undang negeri boleh digubal untuk mengawal dan menyekat pengembangan iktikad atau kepercayaan agama antara penganut Islam," katanya semalam.
Laman web Majlis Peguam yang dilayari semalam didapati mengemukakan tajuk undian sama ada wajar mana-mana bangsa seperti penganut Islam mendapat hak eksklusif menggunakan perkataan Allah dan sehingga kini menerima kira-kira 600 undian.
Mohamad Adzib menegaskan perkataan Allah adalah tunjang konsep ketuhanan dalam Islam melalui lafaz syahadah yang menjadi rukun Islam pertama.
Beliau berkata, larangan penggunaan kalimah Allah oleh agama selain Islam mengelak kekeliruan penganut Islam mengenai konsep esa Allah kerana Allah yang dimaksudkan dalam agama Yahudi dan Nasrani adalah tidak tunggal dan mempunyai anak.
Sementara itu, Menteri di Jabatan Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Aziz, berkata Majlis Peguam tidak terlepas dan boleh dikenakan tindakan jika melanggar peraturan negara.
Bagaimanapun, beliau berkata, kerajaan tidak bercadang meminda Akta Profesion Undang-Undang 1976 bagi memperketatkan dan mengehadkan bidang serta kuasa Majlis Peguam kerana ia tidak perlu.
Katanya, Majlis Peguam adalah entiti seperti individu yang membolehkan kerajaan mengambil tindakan sewajarnya jika melanggar peraturan atau undang-undang negara.
"Mengikut Seksyen 42 Akta Profesion Undang-Undang 1976, kuasa Majlis Peguam antara lain untuk memberikan pandangannya mengenai apa-apa perkara berkaitan dengan perundangan serta pentadbiran dan pengamalan undang-undang negara.
"Majlis Peguam juga berperanan melindungi dan membantu orang awam dalam semua perkara membabitkan undang-undang di samping sesetengah perkara politik, tanpa perlu membabitkan diri secara terus dalam proses politik negara.
"Majlis Peguam seperti rakyat biasa tertakluk kepada undang-undang dan tidak akan terlepas jika melanggar peraturan," katanya menjawab soalan Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir (BN-Jerlun) di Dewan Rakyat.
3. New Straits Times Online (http://www.nst.com.my)
Stop polls on use of word 'Allah', Bar warned , 13 March 2009
SHAH ALAM: The Bar Council has been warned that action may be taken against it over its online poll on the use of the word "Allah" in non-Muslim publications. Selangor Islamic Religious Council chairman Datuk Mohamad Adzib Mohd Isa said it was consulting with its lawyers over the Bar Council's poll and what action could be taken against it.
He said the Bar Council should follow the provisions of the Non-Muslim Religious Enactment 1988.
"It's wrong for non-Muslims to use the word Allah in their religious books or publications and they could be prosecuted for doing so under the enactment," Adzib said.
The Bar Council's website is conducting several polls. Two of the polls asked people to vote on whether Muslims have the exclusive right to use the word Allah and whether The Herald and other religious publications be allowed to use the word.
Close to 1,100 people have voted.
Bar Council secretary Lim Chee Wee said he was astounded with Adzib's opinion that they could not even seek public views.
Lim said many had expressed their opinions, including Kelantan Menteri Besar Datuk Nik Aziz Nik Mat, who was in favour of a broader use of the word Allah. "The Bar Council means no disrespect to any religion."
© Copyright 2009 The New Straits Times Press (M) Berhad. All rights reserved.
4. Indian Catholic (http://www.indiancatholic.in)
Catholic Church & 'Allah' in Malaysia, 14 March 2009
by Fr Lawrence Andrew, SJ
The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was asked to comment on the use of the word ‘Allah’ by non-Muslims during a TV 1 interview on Wednesday Feb 18. In his spontaneous response he asked the same question that Utusan Malaysia had asked a week earlier in one of its articles Mengapa baru sekarang? (Why now?).
Certainly this is a question that is being asked around by some people today. We do not want to make this discussion to become a political controversy. Nevertheless we have an obligation, as the leading Catholic Weekly, to give correct information about the use of the word ‘Allah’ in the Church.
We begin by stating that the word ‘Allah’ is not a new word in the theological vocabulary of the Christians since the time of the Sultanate of Malacca, of the Straits Settlements, of the Federation of Malaya and later of Malaysia. Thus, the use of the word ‘Allah’ was known even before the various Malay groups and other ethnic groups came to make Malaysia their homeland. Some of the vociferous people who have championed the Ketuanan Melayu, as reported in the various dailies, are people who have come from the neighbouring countries within the last two or three generations of their family histories. They have come later than the arrival of the Catholic Church in Malacca.
This is testified by the fact that we have a Malay-Latin Dictionary printed in 1631, in which the word ‘Allah’ is cited. To have a word in a dictionary means that that particular word has already been in use in the community prior to the dictionary.
The word for ‘God’ in Latin is ‘Deus’ and in Malay is ‘Allah’. After the coming of the Dutch in the country a Dutch-Malay Dictionary was produced in 1650 where the word for ‘God’ in Dutch is ‘Godt’ and in Malay ‘Allah’.
Who can deny this historical evidence? We do not want to labour the existence of the Bible in Malay as it is already known to the outside world, treasured in some reputable Museums in Europe. So, we do not want to be the laughing stock of the world by categorically denying its existence. However, it is important to stress that before the Anglicization of the country took place in the fields of education, commerce, governance and others — whose legacy is still felt, among others, in the common use of the anglicized titles and attributions of the Police Force of our country — there was already in the Catholic Church the use of the language of Malay as its means of communication.
We have another piece of historical evidence to prove that we have been praying in Malay. Last week (Mar 1) on Page 1 we carried a scanned picture of two pages from the prayer book of the period before the turn of the twentieth century. This shows that we have material proof to claim that the Catholic Church has been using the Malay language in her worship and has no hidden agenda to confuse the Malays, as some of the panelists in the state owned TV1 on Tuesday February 17 from 9.30pm to 10.30pm, have accused the Catholic Church of doing.
Historically, then, who has brought about the confusion kekeliruan in our land about the word ‘Allah’? We do not want to do the despicable thing of pointing our fingers at others or to find a scapegoat in order to cover up for the lack of ingenuity, honesty and integrity. Experience tells us that it is always good to be objective if we want to know the truth. Did not Jesus teach us that “Truth will set us free”?
Let us do a simple and quick exercise by tracing the evolution of the word ‘Allah’ in our dictionaries. Let us begin with the dictionaries that were published after May 13, 1969 which event is a watershed mark in our nation. Till today we have no evidence of any party or Government official saying that there existed some confusion or kekeliruan among the people prior to that infamous date!
In the Malay Kamus Dewan of 1970 the word ‘Allah’ was defined as Tuhan and ‘Tuhan’ as Allah yang menciptakan alam samesta; Allah yang Esa. Also in 1989 in the Kamus Dewan, the word ‘Allah’ was described as Tuhan yang Esa and ‘Tuhan’ as Allah yang mencipta alam semesta. The two words were used interchangeably at this point in history. During these two decades, no particular attributes were attached to the word ‘Allah’.
In the Kamus Dewan (Dwibahasa) of 1990, the word ‘God’ was translated both as Tuhan and Allah. However, it was in the 1992 Kamus Dewan (Inggeris Melayu) that the word ‘God’ was translated both as Tuhan and Allah but with the word ‘Allah’ now being nuanced by two words — in Islam — written in parenthesis. From this moment on the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka Dictionaries began to attribute the word ‘Allah’ to the God of the Muslims. So who has confused the people on the word ‘Allah’?
・Courtesy: Herald Weekly, Malaysia
5．Jakarta Post (http://www.thejakartapost.com)
Commentary: Allah is my God. Who is yours?, 14 March 2009
by Endy M. Bayuni
What is the correct translation of the Islamic expression la ilaaha illallaah, a verse Muslims around the world recite over and over again every single day in their prayers, instilling in themselves the concept of tauhid, or the one-ness of God?
In English and I suspect in most other major languages, the verse translates to "There is no god but God". But the widely accepted Indonesian (and Malay) translation, for some reasons, becomes Tiada tuhan selain Allah (There is no god but Allah).
What's the difference? It's apparently much more than semantics as it goes deep into the understanding of tauhid among Muslims, or in the case of Muslims in Indonesia and Malaysia, into their misunderstanding of the concept.
"There is no god but God" means that there is only one God. We all pray before the same Deity, but we pray differently. This is particularly true with the Jewish, Christian and Islamic faiths, all followers of the Abrahamic scriptures.
"There is no god but Allah", on the other hand, could mean that there are many gods, and that they come in different names and shapes, but only Allah is the only right one. We pray before different deities, but Allah is the most supreme of all.
The real message of tauhid is apparently lost in the Indonesian and Malaysian translation.
This seems to be at the heart of the ongoing debate in Malaysia over the use of the word Allah. The Malaysian government, backed by the Supreme Court, recently ruled that non-Muslims cannot use the word Allah. Allah is exclusively Islamic, as if the word had been patented or copyrighted.
Other religions, when referring to their god, must use another word. But they'd better watch it because in Islam, Allah has 99 other names.
A Catholic publication in Malaysia has recently been banned because it used the word Allah. This is in spite of the fact that, for decades, many Christian Bibles in Malay and Indonesian have freely used the word Allah, who in Christianity also has different names, including the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, but which are all still one and the same.
The move to ban the use of Allah in Malaysia is apparently founded upon fears among Muslim leaders that it is being used to proselytize, to convert Muslims. This fear is grossly unfounded since conversion from Islam is not permitted under the country's law anyway (though conversion into Islam is).
With the recent ban, Bibles in Malaysia will likely have to be revised with all references to Allah edited out. For Christians in Malaysia, this is a minor irritation that they can easily comply with. Christianity will not suffer as a result of the ban.
The biggest losers are Muslims in Malaysia, and Indonesia too if the Indonesian Ulema Council issues its own similar fatwa, as it usually does.
Muslims in this part of the world will continue to live with their own mistaken notion of tauhid. This latest claim of Allah's exclusivity only perpetuates that ignorance.
This is not the first incident in this part of the world where Muslims have exclusively claimed matters of faith, going against the grain of Islam, which preaches inclusion.
Some years ago, the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) came out with a fatwa that said Muslims must not respond to the greeting assalamualaikum (peace be upon you) when expressed by non-Muslims. The MUI claimed that the expression is holy, sacred and specifically Islamic, and therefore could only be uttered by Muslims.
Although non-binding, many Muslims in Indonesia have heeded the fatwa.
At a recent neighborhood gathering where I live, the chief of the neighboring community, a Christian, opened his remarks with assalamualaikum in respect of the majority Muslim audience. Few people in the room responded. It was not a chorus that one would have heard if a Muslim had said it.
Strangely, many in the MUI and other religious leaders who have lived and studied in the Middle East should know better that non-Muslims in that part of the world freely use the word Allah and expressions like assalamualaikum and insya Allah (God willing) in their daily conversations. There are no objections made by Muslims there.
Indonesia's mostly secular founding fathers had a much better understanding of tauhid than today's contemporary Islamic leaders when they made "Believe in One God", monotheism, the first of the five principles in the state ideology, Pancasila.
Religious leaders in Indonesia and Malaysia should be held responsible for keeping Muslims in perpetual ignorance, knowingly or not, for generations. The first thing they have to do now is to go to the basics of tauhid and get the translation right to put the followers back on the right path.
Insya Allah
（End）
