Malaysia bans the word Allah from bibles

M

Mrs.Lucysnow

Valued Senior Member
So what has happened to the liberal multicultural society in Malaysia?

"The Malaysian government has refused to release 10,000 Bibles which it seized because they contained the word Allah to refer to God."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8343626.stm

If allah merely refers to 'god' as in any god how can it offend muslims?

“Bibles in [the Malay language] have been used since before the independence of our country and have never been the cause of any public disorder,” he added.

http://www.interfaith.org/2009/11/09/malaysia-bans-allah-bibles/
 
This means Malay Muslims are trying to separate their religion from Judaism and Christianity even though main stream Islam accepts them as the people of the Book.

That means they are getting ready for a major fight....a thousand year religious war.

The world has too many people, this may be one way to reduce them...humans do not seem to work together...that is sad.
 
Lucysnow said:
If allah merely refers to 'god' as in any god how can it offend muslims?
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In many ways:

"Allah" does not merely refers to god: It is the specific name for the Muslim creator. Pre-Islamic Arabs were using this word, but Islam destroyed their religions and got the copyrights of the word. Islam re-defined the meaning of creator according to its own criteria, so Muslims don't like this word being used by other religions.

Christianity accepts Jesus Christ as the son of God. This is unacceptable for Muslims who think he was a prophet, and God can not have a son. In Bible stories, or the texts of Christianity, there are similar situations where Muslims wouldn't like to see name Allah.

Moreover, they think there has always been one and only religion (Islam) since Adam; Islam says that Judaism and Christianity, and their holy books have been modified, and Qur'an sent by Allah in order to correct them. So including this name (Allah) would justify what is written in Bible; which is unthinkable by Islam.

In terms of actual political clash between Christianity and Islam in Malaysia, Christianity would get some extra benefit using the popularity of the word. Malaysian government probably calculated these points.
 
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IF Allah were to be an exclusively Islamic word, I would think the Christians would have more reason to get upset.
 
baftan said:
Can you elaborate the logic behind of this?
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It just seems obvious to me that a Christian bible using the (exclusively Islamic) word 'Allah' to refer to the Christian God would sooner be upsetting to Christians reading that bible than to Muslims.

Please note: I am not saying that the word 'Allah' is exclusively reserved for Islam. Seems to me that 'Allah' just means 'God' in Arabic.
 
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It's when the word 'backlash' over here gets bandied about WRT terrorism, without the slightest mention of, say, Indonesia, that I wonder if perhaps we have our political correctness dialed a little too high.
 
Enmos said:
It just seems obvious to me that a Christian bible using the (exclusively Islamic) word 'Allah' to refer to the Christian God would sooner be upsetting to Christians reading that bible than to Muslims.
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Christians are more relaxed in terms of translating Bible to different languages and geographical differences than Muslims. It would upset to use word "Allah" in Bibles sold in U.S. maybe, but it wouldn't in Malaysia.

In the first glance, you can think the other way around: Not only Christians would get upset, but Muslims should also be happy since the name of their God (Allah) is included in Bibles; it's a kind of advertisement. Yet, it doesn't work like that because of the core reasons I explained above.

Please note: I am not saying that the word 'Allah' is exclusively reserved for Islam. Seems to me that 'Allah' just means 'God'.
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I am saying that the word "Allah" is exclusively reserved for Islam by Muslims. This is one of the core issue for their religion.
 
Actually Arab Christians use "Allah" as well. I don't think there's any overt scriptural or traditional support for this kind of restriction on other religions.
 
GeoffP said:
It's when the word 'backlash' over here gets bandied about WRT terrorism, without the slightest mention of, say, Indonesia, that I wonder if perhaps we have our political correctness dialed a little too high.
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I couldn't see the connection with OP.
 
It's a question of the issue of religious repression, which is assuredly the issue at stake.
 
GeoffP said:
It's a question of the issue of religious repression, which is assuredly the issue at stake.
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If you enlarge it, yes the issue is ultimately about religious repression. I had focused the word and its echoes in Muslims' mind.
 
baftan said:
Christians are more relaxed in terms of translating Bible to different languages and geographical differences than Muslims. It would upset to use word "Allah" in Bibles sold in U.S. maybe, but it wouldn't in Malaysia.
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Might that be because they speak Arabic in Malaysia, while they do not in the US?
'Allah' is simply Arabic for 'God'. Other than that Arabic speaking countries are often Islamic the word itself is not in principle referring to the Islamic God.

baftan said:
I am saying that the word "Allah" is exclusively reserved for Islam by Muslims. This is one of the core issue for their religion.
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While many Muslims may have decided to reserve it only for their God it is simply not the case that the word is actually reserved for just the Islamic God.
As I pointed out above, it is simply the Arabic word for 'God'.
 
Lucysnow said:
So what has happened to the liberal multicultural society in Malaysia?

"The Malaysian government has refused to release 10,000 Bibles which it seized because they contained the word Allah to refer to God."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8343626.stm

If allah merely refers to 'god' as in any god how can it offend muslims?

“Bibles in [the Malay language] have been used since before the independence of our country and have never been the cause of any public disorder,” he added.

http://www.interfaith.org/2009/11/09/malaysia-bans-allah-bibles/
Click to expand...

People with power usually don't deserve that power. Someone does not deserve the power, they are in no way able to make the right decision ever. The story repeats it self through out history until now. People are just selfish.
 
Islamic ideology encourages this sort of religious intolerance.

I don't think Islam will compete well in the modern world and you'll probably see more and more Muslims either denouncing Islam or converting to the more "peaceful" Xianity. Xianity has had more time to accommodate and has evolved to better serve modern civilizations. Trying to prevent Muslims from converting to xianity is a big concern of many Muslim leaders. Removing the word Allah is one of those preventative steps.

No big surprise really.

I met up with a Muslim friend of mine for a long time. I hadn't seen him much in the last year or so. yesterday he said, look, I just can't believe any of this any more. I'm not Muslim. Pretty much fits the demography of 25-35 year olds. That generation is leaving religion in droves.
 
Michael said:
Islamic ideology encourages this sort of religious intolerance.

I don't think Islam will compete well in the modern world and you'll probably see more and more Muslims either denouncing Islam or converting to the more "peaceful" Xianity. Xianity has had more time to accommodate and has evolved to better serve modern civilizations. Trying to prevent Muslims from converting to xianity is a big concern of many Muslim leaders. Removing the word Allah is one of those preventative steps.

No big surprise really.

I met up with a Muslim friend of mine for a long time. I hadn't seen him much in the last year or so. yesterday he said, look, I just can't believe any of this any more. I'm not Muslim. Pretty much fits the demography of 25-35 year olds. That generation is leaving religion in droves.
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But isn't Islam the world's fastest growing religion?
 
Thanks Baftan. Your explanation offers some light on the situation but I am truly surprised that they would go so far as to ban the books. I mean if the christian malay's have been using the term for a long time I wonder what has now changed in Malaysia to move them into action now this time. Basically I would think there are more important things to worry about than the use of the term in the bible and by other things I mean not upsetting the delicate social-cultural balance in their society. I mean its not as if they are maligning god. Does anyone know enough about Malaysia to offer some explanation of what has changed in their society?
 
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