YOURSAY ‘The sultan has decreed all non-Muslims can’t use ‘Allah’.’

 

Sikhs will continue to use 'Allah' for God

 

Ferdtan: Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais), please take action against Bukit Gelugor MP Karpal Singh like you did against Catholic weekly The Herald editor Father Lawrence.

 

Both said the same thing - they said publicly that the Christians and the Sikh community respectively will use ‘Allah’ to refer to God.

 

Yes, you must show impartiality - organised a similar raid together with the police (using the newly implemented SOP (standard operating procedure) imposed by the Selangor state government) to confiscate all Sikh holy book - the ‘Guru Granth Sahib’ - that contained the banned word ‘Allah’.

 

Didn’t our sultan decree it not to be used by any non-Muslim? If not, many Christians will get confused; non-Muslim Christian cannot and yet non-Muslim Sikh can?

 

What does this mean? It only means one thing - that this controversy has never been about religion or about who has the right to the word. It reeks of Umno politics.

 

So people, there is no point in putting forth your case quoting from Bible or Quran - till the cows come home, the argument will never end. It is a political issue and can only be solved politically, if that is what Umno wants.

 

Pemerhati: It is very dangerous to allow the Sikhs to use the word ‘Allah’ because the Sikhs can use that word to influence the Malays.

 

In fact, we can already see one major Sikh influence on the Malays as some Malay men are now already wearing turbans, just like the devout Sikhs. If this is not nipped in the bud, many more Malays will begin to look like the Sikhs.

 

The Malay women too started following the Sikh custom of covering the heads and now the vast majority of Malay women follow that custom...

 

Anticonmen: Jais will now ask the Sikhs to use the name ‘Baillah’ for the Sikh God so as not to confuse Muslims who risk conversion into Sikhism, going by the line of argument given by the Appeals Court.

 

The word ‘Allah’ is also found in the Upanishads, a 4,000-year-old Hindu scripture. The Vedas and Upanishads are the oldest known scriptures.

 

Sali Tambap: Similarly the words ‘Allah Taala’ is in the Iban language - ‘Allah Taala’ being synonymous to God. I wonder why the Iban bibles were seized.

 

Mohamad Abdul Malik: Since the word ‘Allah’ was in their original holy books, the Sikhs have the right to use them.

 

There is also no allegations or records of the Sikhs trying to 'convert' Muslims. But for the Christians, I personally think that they should just forgo the ‘Allah’ word.

 

After all, it's not in the original Bible. By taking the government to court and announcing that they will continue using it irrespective of the court’s decision, it has been perceived more as a challenge to the authorities.

 

Zen: Indeed, the Christians never used the word ‘Allah’ in the Old Testament or the New Testament.

 

The God of the Christian is always Lord the God or Lord Tuhan. God's names mentioned in Old Testament are Elohim, Elyon, Adonai, El-Shaddai, Yahweh, Jehovah, Kyrios and the New Testament are Abba, Theos and Kyrios. No mention was made to Allah.

 

Borneo Son: Zen, we are not talking about the English translation of the Bible but the Alkitab and Bup Kudus, the Iban Bible.

 

Obviously, the word ‘Allah’ cannot be found in either the Old Testament or New Testament in the English language.

 

505 Rakyat: The original language of the Bible was certainly not English. It was a mixture of Hebrew and Arabic. And later, Latin. The Bible was never originally in English.

 

Geronimo: Hello PDRM (Royal Malaysian Police), you arrested Father Lawrence for sedition because he said the Christians will continue to use the word ‘Allah’.

 

Now Karpal had said the Sikhs will also continue to use the word. Both are very similar offences in nature, but why no arrest yet on Karpal?

 

To Perkasa, Jati and Isma, what are you all waiting for? No time to make police reports? As for Jais, when are you going to raid the Sikh temples and confiscate all their holy books?

 

This Allah issue has become one humongous joke, if I may say.

 

Samurai: If you follow a certain minister's claim that only a small number of people protested the price hikes hence the silent majority of Malaysians approve of it, then you could say the same of the 'Allah' case.

 

Over the past 100 years only a small group of easily confused Umno people are afraid of it being used by others as they are weak minded, but there are millions of Muslims over the past century who have never protested. So we could say the majority don't really see this as an issue.

 

But then again, we are indeed being ruled by a 47 percent minority government, after all.

 

SusahKes: You ask for evidence of conversion by using Alkitab - tak da (none). Some of Umno's ministers have attended missionary schools, were they converted? Tak da.

 

The whole Middle East have bibles and churches that use the word ‘Allah’ in their native Arabic language. Are the mullahs there concerned about conversion? Tak da.

 

But the reverse is taking place in massive numbers in East Malaysia. From stating Islam in ICs just because their name has a ‘bin’ to forced conversion . So, why is the majority so fearful of the minority?

 

Whatsup: Yes, see how docile Christians are. Especially those in East Malaysia - repeatedly supporting their MPs and Aduns (state representatives) despite being betrayed (for silver, so to speak) by them time and again.

 

Shed a few drops of tears and everything's forgiven and forgotten. Thanks to Umno, it will only get worse. I shudder to think what's next on Umno's agenda.

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