Copyrighting deities
According to BosNewsLife (via), Malaysian authorities are threatening not to renew the publishing license of a Catholic weekly newspaper if it continues to use the word “Allah” in its Malay language section.
The Herald, the organ of Malaysia’s Catholic Church, has translated the word God as “Allah” but it is erroneous because Allah refers to the Muslim god, said Che Din Yusoff, a senior official at the Internal Security Ministry’s publications control department, in remarks monitored by BosNewsLife Friday, December 21. “Christians cannot use the word Allah. It is only applicable to Muslims. Allah is only for the Muslim god.
The Malay language Bible uses Allah for God and Tuhan for Lord. This is the convention that the Herald in their Malay language section. Che Din Yusoff, however, insists that, since Christians don’t say Allah when speaking English, they shouldn’t be allowed to use the word in Malay either.
The use of ‘Allah’ outside of Islam has previously attracted the attention of the religiously over-sensitive. Four years ago, an Iban language version of the Bible was reportedly banned because it translated the word ‘God’ as Allah Taala, which is a bit like the Islamic ‘Allah’.
Friday 28 Dec 2007 | Paul | Malaysia
