Allah's Name
Zeinab Yusuf Saiwalla: In Muslim majority Malaysia, the government recently refused to allow the distribution of tens of thousands of bibles that were printed in the country’s main language – Bahasa Malaysia. The controversy is not new; in 2009 the Malaysian Home Ministry prosecuted The Herald, Malaysia’s sole Catholic publication, and threatened it with the loss of its printing license for the use of Allah in describing the Christian God in its Malay-language section.
The Herald defended its usage of the term Allah, arguing that it was backed by a centuries-old tradition within the Arabic language where non-Muslims in Arab countries used Allah to mean God. Continue Reading →