More attacks vs Malaysian Catholics in 'Allah' row

[swariffin]

Religion of Peace? you be the judge

globalnation.inquirer.net/news/breakingnews/view/20100114-247299/More-attacks-vs-Malaysian-Catholics-in-Allah-row

			KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia—Malaysia's Catholic Church said Thursday the offices of its lawyers have been burgled and ransacked, in the latest of a spate of attacks triggered by a row over the use of the word "Allah."

In the past week nine churches have been fire-bombed or vandalized, escalating tensions in the multicultural nation where the Muslim Malay majority lives alongside ethnic Chinese and Indian communities.
The conflict broke out after the High Court decided on December 31 to lift a government ban on non-Muslims using “Allah” as a translation for “God.”
“Our lawyer’s offices were broken into and burgled sometime between Wednesday evening and Thursday morning and the office was ransacked,” said Father Lawrence Andrew, editor of the Catholic “Herald” newspaper.
“We believe the break-in is linked to the ongoing situation over the use of the word ‘Allah’ and we are very concerned,” he told AFP.
“The law firm does not have any money or many valuables so we believe this is purely aimed at intimidation.”
The church’s lawyer Derek Fernandez said a laptop was stolen in the attack on his firm’s offices in Kuala Lumpur’s southwest, and he was investigating whether any documents had been taken.
“This was a very professional job as there were very strong grills protecting the office that were cut and the locks carefully replaced after the break-in,” he told AFP.
District police chief Arjunaidi Mohamed confirmed the break-in and said his officers were probing the incident.
The High Court ruling in favor of the Herald, which argued for the right to use “Allah” in its Malay-language section, was suspended last week pending an appeal, after the government argued the decision could cause racial conflict.
Since then, churches have been hit with Molotov cocktails, splashed with black paint and had windows smashed with stones, triggering tighter security at places of worship nationwide.
About nine percent of Malaysia’s 28 million people are Christians, including 850,000 Catholics. More than half of Malaysia’s Catholics are from indigenous groups, mostly from Borneo, and who mostly speak the national language Malay.

Dear brothers and sisters,

I personally has no believe that this is the original view of the Malaysian Muslims with respect to their religious practice. I suspect that there is a hidden agenda within these actions. The former Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir Muhammad went to Maccassar and had a lecture that “Allah” should only be used for the Muslims. If the Malaysian banned the non-muslims to use the word “Allah”, I think that is their own internal affair. I will not interfere, though quite offended personally.

The big question is why spreading the issue to Indonesia who has lower educational standard compared to the Malaysian? To make the Indonesian muslim banned the use of the word “Allah” to Indonesian non-muslims? To start a big civil war between Indonesian muslims and non-muslims? Surely when it happened, the Indonesian will lose its international investors, and affected the economy heavily. At the end, the Malaysian will make profit out of it.

 

[swariffin]

I’m writing this post just for those genuinely interested in learning can have access to facts, I am no longer interested in debating Mosacked.

The word *Allah *is an Arabic proper noun meaning ‘God’, etymologically related to and having the same meaning as the Hebrew *Eloh *and the Aramaic/Syriac Alaha/Elaha. It is not the name of a god.

The word for ‘god/deity’ in Arabic is ilah. The difference between *ilah *and *Allah *is the same as the difference between god and God in English. The difference is not that ilah means ‘God’ (it does not) and Allah is the name of a god.

The direct origin of the word *Allah *is not clear. There are some people who believe that it is a conjunction of *al *(the) and *ilah *(god), but this is pure conjecture. It’s a bit like someone looking at the word Arizona and using their logic to conclude that it’s a conjunction of ‘arid’ and ‘zone’; it may make some sense, but it’s probably wrong. There are substantial grammatical and phonological problems with getting from al-ilah to Allah. In my opinion, the theory that it’s a loan word from the Aramaic word for God (Alaha) which was Arabised by removing the ‘a’ at the end (which denotes the definite article and would be superfluous in Arabic) is by far the stronger theory.

*Allah *was not and has nothing to do with any ‘moon god’. The only moon deity to be worshipped by Arabs was called Almaqah, and was worshipped in a southern Arabian kingdom called Saba`, not Makkah or Madina (which are in north-western Arabia).

So? Do you agree with that Malaysian Muslims?

 

[dzheremi]

I recently received in the mail a copy of an old LP record of a Mass held in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in 1968. It may interest people involved in this debate that the chants of the Mass, all in Bahasa Indonesia (which is mutually intelligible with Malaysian), are replete with uses of “Allah”. I wonder who complained back then? I mean…I was able to find the record and it was not in terrible shape, so it was probably not subject to public burnings or anything, like the Malaysian churches sadly have been.

It is all political posturing on the part of the court, I think, and of course the worst kind of cruelty from the Islamists. They should all be put in jail. If I were Malaysian, I would be deeply ashamed of this behavior (and no doubt many are; see this opinion piece).