The Bible Society of Malaysia (BSM) has expressed hope that the situation of Christian publications being seized would not recur.

“We hope and pray that in future, there will be no repeat of this or a similar situation where Bibles or other Christian materials are seized,” BSM president Ng Moon Hing said in a statement today.

Ng had also expressed his appreciation for the release of the 351 copies of the Malay language Bibles which were seized during a raid by the Selangor Islamic Affairs Department (Jais) on Jan 2.

“As these Bibles had been designated for delivery to Sarawak in the first place, we are content with this particular solution for this instance,” Ng ( right ) said, referring to the Bibles which were handed over to the Association of Churches in Sarawak.

He was also grateful to Selangor Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah for his role in resolving the issue.

“BSM is grateful for the personal involvement of the sultan in arriving at this resolution of the matter.

“We trust that with this resolution, the matter of our seized Bibles can be put to rest,” he said.

After close to a year, the Selangor government finally returned the seized copies on Nov 14.

The raid in January was reportedly in response to a complaint that BSM was housing copies of the Malay-language Bible, which used the word 'Allah' to refer to God.

Selangor passed an enactment in 1988 barring non-Muslims' use of a number of words deemed to be exclusive to Islam, including 'Allah'.

However Sabahan and Sarawakian Christians also use 'Allah' to refer to god in their Malay language Bibles and daily worship, a practice they say has been ongoing for over a century.

The incident has heightened tensions at a time when the Court of Appeal had upheld a government ban that Catholic publication The Herald  cannot use of the word 'Allah'.