Posts Tagged ‘Allah’
Malaysian churches attacked over one word – “Allah”
Prime Minister Najib Razak visiting a torched church
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
There have been more attacks on churches in Malaysia, in a growing dispute over the use of the word Allah by non-Muslims.
The police say petrol bombs were thrown at a church and a convent school in the state of Perak, and at a church in Sarawak on the island of Borneo. Another church in the south of the country was daubed with black paint.
The attacks come days after four churches near the capital, Kuala Lumpur, were hit by petrol bombs.
Religious tensions in Malaysia have increased since a court ruled last month that a Roman Catholic newspaper could use the word Allah in its Malay-language edition to describe the Christian god…
Sarawak and neighbouring Sabah state are home to most of Malaysia’s Christians, who account for 9.1% of the country’s 28 million people. “The situation is under control and the people should not be worried,” Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein was quoted as saying by state news agency Bernama.
Correspondents say some of Malaysia’s majority Muslim community suspect Christians of wanting to use the word Allah to encourage Muslims to convert to Christianity.
The government has appealed against the ruling, in contrast to countries like Indonesia, Egypt and Syria where Christian minorities freely use the Arabic word to refer to God.
The question yet to be resolved is who leads the terrorist attacks on churches. Every part of the world has experienced communal violence over some localized bigotry. None are justifiable.
Malaysian court rules your god may be called “Allah”
Flying Spaghetti Allah
A court in Malaysia has ruled that Christians have a constitutional right to use the word Allah when referring to God.
The High Court said a government ban on non-Muslims using the word was unconstitutional.
The court was ruling on a lawsuit filed by the Herald, a publication of the Catholic Church in Malaysia, in 2007. The authorities had insisted that Allah was an Islamic word which could only be used by Muslims.
The BBC’s Jennifer Pak in Kuala Lumpur said some Muslim groups suspect the Catholic Church is seeking to encourage Muslims to convert to Christianity – a move which is illegal in Malaysia…
The Herald filed for a judicial review after it was temporarily ordered to stop publishing in 2007 for referring to “Allah”.
The publication said it had been been using the word for decades, and had a constitutional right to do so.
Just one more jive problem with religion in politics.
Issues of semantics are usually dumb enough on their own. Listen to the average teabagger falling out of their army shoes over “socialist” this-or-that, or Dick Cheney blustering about this week’s favorite “war” on whoever he hates or fears or both – and you know you’re wasting time trying to negotiate common sense from the body politic.
Add politics to the scrum – and you discover yourself knee-deep in ancient effluent.
Iranians freak out over jeans with name of God on the butt
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission
A Chinese clothing manufacturer probably thought it was on to a winner by exporting jeans bearing the Islamic expression “In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful” to Iran. But an otherwise sound marketing ploy was undone by one embarrassing flaw: the phrase (Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim in Arabic), which graces each of the Qur’an’s 114 chapters, was prominently displayed on the pockets of the jeans’ backsides, something likely to be seen as disrespectful by devout Muslims.
The perceived slight, first reported in the Iranian media, prompted a firm response from the police who announced they had seized the garments and arrested three businessmen said to have imported them.
Asriran website said the jeans, tailored for women, had sold for around $10-$12 in Tehran’s southern and eastern districts and bore labels reading Made in the PRC (People’s Republic of China).
The country of origin is embarrassing for Iranian authorities, given the close political and economic relationship between Iran and China. Beijing is Tehran’s biggest trading partner and has used its veto on the UN security council to protect Iran from further sanctions over its nuclear programme…
However, Asriran accused China of “attacking Iranian Muslim sacred symbols in the most offensive manner: In Islam, Allah is a respected word that you need to have ablutions before saying. Now it is embroidered on the sitting place of these jeans. Worse, they are sold in Tehran, which many would like to call the heart of the Islamic world.”
Since the manufacturer now has excess stock of these jeans, where might they show up next?
