KUALA LUMPUR, June 25 — Islam’s role as the religion of the federation should not be challenged nor should it be used as political fodder, Yang di-Pertuan Agong Tuanku Abdul Halim Mua’dzam Shah warned today.

The King in his royal opening address of the 13th Parliament, said he and the government were duty-bound to ensure the sanctity of the religion is preserved.

The statement comes amid a longstanding tussle over “Allah” between Malaysia’s majority Muslims and minority Christians and Sikhs in a dispute that has triggered a religious firestorm and strained race relations.

“My government is adamant to uphold Islam based on the principles of syariah and continue to protect Islam as the country’s official religion.

“I therefore hope that no one would question the position of Islam and exploit it to serve the interest of any parties until it damages one’s faith,” the King (picture) said.

The “Allah” storm first erupted some five years ago when the Catholic Church sued the Home Ministry after it was barred from publishing the word in the Bahasa Malaysia section of its newspaper Herald.

The High Court ruled in 2009 that the Catholic Church had a right to use “Allah” as the word was not exclusive to Islam.

The landmark judgment, however, triggered attacks on several places of worship nationwide. The authorities had also seized imported shipments of the Malay-language Bible containing the word “Allah”.

Religious friction that arose forced the government to establish an inter-faith committee at the federal level to address religious disputes but the national panel appears to have fallen into a slump following the death of its first chairman, Datuk Ilani Isahak, from cancer in early 2011.

Since then, various groups, including partisan media, have raised the “Allah” issue in an attempt to score political points for their owners ahead of the hotly-contested 13th general election, and again in the aftermath.

In his royal address, however, Tuanku Abdul Halim appeared to back efforts to mend religious ties by calling on opposites to focus on common ground rather than their differences.

“I am also calling on the rakyat get rid of attitudes that would lead to division and look for a common point to nurture and strengthen ties,” he said.

The defence of Islam was a mainstay of the Barisan Nasional campaign in Election 2013, and was partly credited for the resurgent performance in the Malay heartland that saw Umno increase its hold on power even as its partners waned.

In the general election, Umno swept 88 federal seats of the 133 won by the coalition, entrenching it as the dominant bedrock of BN.

Hardline groups linked to the ruling Umno have also used the “Allah” issue to justify calls for a crackdown on the opposition for its open support of the right of non-Muslims to use the Arabic word over which Muslims here claim exclusivity.

Malaysia’s supreme law dictates that Malays — the country’s largest racial community at 60 per cent of the 28 million population — must also be Muslim. The Federal Constitution recognises this demography as possessing a “special position”.

In contrast, Christians make up just under 10 per cent of the country’s population.