‘allah’ copyrighted to malaysian muslim?

… so implied deputy internal security minister, johari when he said "only muslims can use the word ‘allah’".

“Only Muslims can use ‘Allah’. It’s a Muslim word, you see. It’s from (the Arabic (language). We cannot let other religions use it because it will confuse people,” he said when contacted today.

pigilah! the only confused people is you yourself and your UMNO gang!

“We cannot allow this use of ‘Allah’ in non-Muslim publications, nobody except Muslims. The word ‘Allah’ is published by the Catholics. It’s not right.”

see, according to him, the word ‘allah’ is copyrighted to muslim… er… malaysian muslim that is. you remember my previous post, rita from malta said that ‘allah’ is used in the maltese/catholic spoken and written form. it is not exclusively for muslim only.

to show the meaning/origin of the word ‘allah’, here is a comment made by someone with handle ‘a muslim’ (who may or may not be a muslim) in several bloggers’ post (whom had blog on this issue).

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Allah’ (Arabic: Alla-h) is the standard Arabic language word for "God", nothing more, nothing less.  In Bahasa Malaysia the standard word for God is ‘Tuhan’.

The term Allah, is most likely derived from a contraction of the Arabic article al + ila-h "deity, god" to  al-la-h meaning "the [sole] deity, God" (ho theos monos); another theory traces the etymology of the  word to the Aramaic Ala-ha-.

While the term Allah is best known in the West for its use by Muslims as a reference to God *, it is used by  Arabic-language-speakers of all Abrahamic faiths, including Christians and Jews in reference to "God".

The term Allah was also used by pagan Meccans as a reference to the creator-god, possibly the  supreme deity in pre-Islamic Arabia.

Note: * This Western misguided belief is also held by some uneducated persons in Malaysia, such as  Malaysian Deputy Internal Security Minister Johari Baharum.

The concepts associated with the term Allah (as a deity) though differed from tradition to tradition.

In pre-Islamic Arabia, Allah was not the sole divinity, had associates and companions, sons and  daughters. There was also a kind of kinship of between Allah and the jinn (spirits).

In Islam, Allah is the pivotal essence of the Muslim faith, Allah is only, the one God, all-merciful and  omnipotent, transcendent creator of the universe, and the judge of humankind.

The Arabic-language-speaking Christians today use other words besides Allah for ‘God’ other than  ‘Allah’, they for example use terms Alla-h al-ab meaning God the Father, Alla-h al-ibn means God the  Son, and Alla-h al-ruh al ghodus meaning God the Holy Spirit.

There are both similarities and differences between the concept of God as portrayed in the Qur’an and  the Hebrew Bible (Toarh). The Torah and the Qur’an however both reject the Trinitarian (the Father, the  Son, and the Holy Ghost) conception of God as three persons in one substance.

(Information sourced from Wikipedia and elsewhere. ) God=Allah=Tuhan, etc. you can use such terms as you like, none is exclusive or reserved for use by any  particular religion or belief.

So Johari, what are you creating unnecessary disharmony for? Perhaps for a few UMNO gold stars?

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ok fine if you stupid gomen get confused (but don’t blame the majority muslim as the confused ones) and don’t want herald to use the word ‘allah’…. maybe herald can comply with that… BUT why on earth must herald stop its bahasa section all together? not fair at all!! and we had out PM crying that he is fair to all??

since i read herald regularly (btw watch out for this coming week – 23 dec – issue; i have 2 of my articles published), i understand that the bahasa section is getting popular these days. we now see readers writing in (readers’ letters) to the bahasa section. it would be a pity if the bahasa section is pulled off just as it was starting to get popular! (among the sabahans and sarawakians). er… perhaps that is the reason the gomen want it to be pulled off?

here are the links of bloggers who posted on this topic. i have the links in my other post earlier but people might missed them so i’m re-producing the links here.

blogs on this issue (will update periodically)

ronnie liu: UMNO-led BN is a racist political entitiy
bob:  is it really just about terminology?
jeff ooi:  (catholic) herald’s KDN under threat?
zorro:  there they go again
the malaysian
haris ibrahim:  why forbid that which god has enjoined?
kenny law:  allah, god, yahweh. what’s in a name?
ktemoc:  what in god’s name…
malaysian unplug:  islam ala malaysia
kenny law:  johari – ‘allah’ for muslim only
haris ibrahim: do not utter the lie….