Malaysia’s Ministry of Internal Security threatened the Catholic weekly Herald newspaper with non-renewal of its publishing licence because the publication uses the word “Allah” in its Malay-language section.  The ministry insisted that “Allah” was reserved for the exclusive use of Muslims.

After the Catholic archbishop and an evangelical church group sued, the ministry abruptly reversed itself.  Asia News reports.

Fr Lawrence Andrew, the Herald’s editor, told AsiaNews that Sunday morning, 30 December, at 10 am, he received a letter dated 28 December from the Ministry of Internal Security renewing the paper’s permit for 2008.

“This letter places no restrictions whatsoever and includes the permit for all the languages, including the Bahasa Malaysia Segment,” he said.
. . .
The Ministry’s position was anti-historical. According to a great many scholars and academics the term ‘Allah’ has been used by Arab Christians in the Middle East long before the birth of Islam and that the latter received the word from Christians.

Let’s hope that Malaysian Islamic leaders don’t make a commotion over this common-sense decision.

Previous related posts: