THE CONTROVERSY ON THE USE OF THE WORD “ALLAH”

THE CONTROVERSY ON THE USE OF THE WORD “ALLAH”

Many people have jumped on the band wagon to criticize the decision of Justice Datuk Lau Bee Lan in the case of Titular Roman Catholic Archbishop as Publisher of the Herald against the Home Minister in which she decided that the Minister’s decision in prohibiting the Herald to use the word “Allah” in the magazine Herald was illegal and null and void. The Home Minister has now filed an appeal to Court of Appeal to reverse the High Court Judge’s decision..

In order to fully understand the decision it is appropriate to know the relevant facts of the case and the law governing this dispute. The Archbishop applied for a permit to publish the magazine the Herald under a particular legislation. The Minister approved the permit on condition that the word “Allah” was not used in it. It is as good as not approving it. The Archbishop was not happy with the Minister’s decision. Under the law a quasi-judicial  (as opposed to a purely administrative)decision of a Government  servant , a statutory body or an inferior court can be challenged by the aggrieved party by making an application to the High Court for a certiorari which is an order to quash the decision complained of. The application is not an appeal against the said decision but a judicial review of the said decision. There is a subtle but important difference between a judicial review and an appeal. In an appeal the objective is to prove that decision complained of is wrong in law. However in a judicial review the complaint is that the decision maker’s, in this case the Home Minister’s, decision making process is wrong. For example he did not take into consideration matters he ought to have taken consideration, or he took into consideration matters he ought to have taken into consideration or he did not apply the appropriate law in making the decision. It is a review of the decision making process. If the process is wrong then the decision will be quashed.

It is very important to know exactly what the issue before the Court in this case was. It was not really whether the Christians can call their God “Allah”. The issue was this, if the Herald uses the word “Allah” in its magazine will this threaten national security and create misunderstanding and confusion among Muslims.I believe  many people are quite unaware of this. The Minister had stated this to be the reason why he put a condition that the word “Allah” cannot be used in the magazine. The Archbishop’s case was that the word “Allah” referring to God  does not belong exclusively to Muslims but can also be used by Catholics writing in Bahasa Malaysia, in fact they had used it in Sabah and Serawak  for a long time. The learned Judge had not handed down a written judgment. However it was reported that she held the Minister “failed to adduce evidence the use of the word (“Allah”) would threaten national security and create misunderstanding and confusion among Muslims”. It may well be that if the Catholics were not entitled to use the word “Allah” to refer to their God then if they still use it then this could threaten national security. On the other hand it may not.  There are obviously two schools of thoughts among Muslim scholars on this issue. The majority of them consider only Muslims can use the word because Allah must necessarily mean only one God. Allah cannot be a trinity of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit as believed by the Catholics.  However in my opinion the State i.e. the Minister must respect the Catholics’ belief that  their Allah is a trinity because our Constitution guarantees the freedom of religion. It does not matter if we do not agree with them. We have to respect their belief. The other School of thought is that in Islam the non-believers may call God “Allah”. They cite the Quran as authority. In fact in one instance when the non-believers were asked who created the world they would answer “Allah”. God did not object to this although these people worshipped idols. God told Mohammad peace be upon him to reply “Alhamdulillah” (“Praise be to Allah). Furthermore  Allah himself has declared that He is God of the whole universe (“Rabbul  ‘Alameen”).  Therefore if indeed the word “Allah” is not exclusive to the Muslims how can the use of it by the Catholics be a threat to national security and confuse the Muslims? It is for them to be taught to believe strongly that there is only one God and the concept of trinity is just wrong. This is very fundamental. Even if only the Muslims can use the world Allah and the Herald also calls God “Allah”, will this threaten national security?  It is also important to remember that the learned Judge held  that the Minister failed to prove this i.e. the use by Herald of the word “Allah” will threaten national security. That being the case the Minister must be held to have made a wrong decision.  I would also like to suggest that he cannot put a blanket prohibition on the use of the “Allah” by the Herald. That would be manifestly wrong. The Herald may well want to use it in an innocent way for example to say Allah created Adam and the earth and He is most kind and merciful. Is that wrong?

Let us wait for the Court of Appeal’s decision to resolve the dispute, failing which the Federal Court’s. Or perhaps it was not appropriate to resolve this dispute through the Court. Would alternative dispute resolution mechanism be more suitable to resolve this dispute?