KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 13 — Selangor’s Islamic enforcers were right to engage in a “jihad” (holy struggle) by seizing Malay- and Iban-language bibles to defend Islam as the religion of the federation, Terengganu Mufti Dr Zulkifly Muda has said.

Malay daily Utusan Malaysia reported today the senior cleric commended the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais) for its recent raid on the Bible Society of Malaysia (BSM) to stem what Zulkifly sees as an attempt by Christians to convert Malaysia’s largest racial group.

“Jais was right to take such actions as we are afraid that there are attempts to propagate Christianity to the Malays in this country,” Zulkifly was quoted as saying.

“Based on 2009 statistics, only 9.2 per cent of Malaysians were Christians and there were no Malays involved with Christianity at that time. So now, who else can they proselytise to?” he added.

Malays make up over 60 per cent of Malaysia’s 28 million people and are constitutionally classified to also be Muslim.

In contrast, Christians make up just below 10 per cent of the population, or about 2.6 million. 

Almost two-thirds of them are Bumiputera and are largely based in Sabah and Sarawak, where they routinely use Bahasa Malaysia and indigenous languages in their religious practices, including describing God as “Allah” in their prayers and holy book.

On January 2, Jais seized over 300 copies of Malay- and Iban-language bibles ― which refer to God as “Allah” and “Allah Taala” respectively ― from the BSM’s Petaling Jaya office under the Selangor Non-Islamic Religions (Control of Propagation Among Muslims) Enactment 1988.

The state law, which was passed by the then Barisan Nasional (BN) state government, places a blanket ban on non-Muslims in Selangor from using 35 Arabic words and phrases in their faith, including “Allah”, “Nabi” (prophet), “Injil” (gospel) and “Insya’Allah” (God willing).

Similar legislation has been enacted in nine other states in Malaysia, except in Penang, Sabah, Sarawak and the Federal Territories.

BSM general secretary Rev Dr Simon Wong told The Malay Mail Online yesterday that the society currently has a depository in Sabah that can be used to import Malay holy scriptures from Indonesia and to distribute them directly to Bumiputera Christians in East Malaysia, instead of going through its current office in Selangor.

He also said that the BSM might set up another depository in Sarawak and shift operations to Kuala Lumpur in order to move beyond the reach of Selangor’s religious authorities.

Zulkifly was quoted as saying that efforts to propagate Christianity to Muslims may be linked to the human rights coalition, the Coalition of Malaysian NGOs in the Universal Periodic Review Process (Comango), that he accused of trying to make other religions in the country equal to Islam.

Comango was outlawed by the Home Ministry last Wednesday on grounds of promoting un-Islamic sexual rights, like the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) minorities.