The court case has sparked debate in Muslim-majority
Malaysia
A Malaysian court has ruled that non-Muslims
cannot use the word Allah to refer to God,
overturning a 2009 lower court ruling.
The appeals court said that allowing non-Muslims to
use the word would "cause confusion in the
community".
Christians argue that they have used the word in Malay
for decades and that the ruling violates their rights.
The 2009 ruling sparked religious tensions and led to
churches and mosques being attacked.
It came after the government said that a Catholic
newspaper, The Herald, could not use 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 then launched an
appeal.
'Disappointed and dismayed'
Chief Judge Mohamed Apandi Ali said on Monday: "The
usage of the word Allah is not an integral part of the
faith in Christianity."
"The usage of the word will cause confusion in the
community," he added.
The Herald editor Reverend Lawrence Andrew said he
was "disappointed and dismayed", and would appeal
against the decision.
"It is a retrograde step in the development of law in
relation to the fundamental liberty of religious
minorities," he said.
The newspaper's supporters have argued that Malay-
language Bibles have used Allah to refer 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 cannot say
that in all of the sudden it is not an integral part. Malay
language is a language that has many borrowed words,
Allah also is a borrowed word."
However, some Muslim groups have said that the
Christian use of the word Allah could be used to
encourage Muslims to convert to Christianity.
Churches and mosques were attacked following the
2009 ruling
"Allah is not a Malay word. If they say they want to use
a Malay word they should use Tuhan instead of Allah,"
Zainul Rijal Abu Bakar, a lawyer representing the
government, told the BBC.
Dozens of churches and a few Muslim prayer halls were
attacked and burned in the wake of the 2009 ruling,
highlighting the intensity of feeling about issues of
ethnicity and faith in Malaysia.
The case has baffled Muslim scholars outside the
country, where the use of the word Allah by Christians
is not controversial, the BBC's Jennifer Pak reports
from outside the court in Putrajaya.
Some Malaysians believe the governing Malay-Muslim
party is using the case to boost its Islamic credentials
among voters, our correspondent adds.
Malay Muslims make up almost two-thirds of the
country's population, but there are large Hindu and
Christian communities.
Prime Minister Najib Razak's coalition won elections in
May, but it was the coalition's worst result in more
than half a century in power.
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