KUALA LUMPUR, June 24 — It was a battle six years in the making, but one that fizzled out within a few hours in the Federal Court.

In hushed tones, save for the rings of a few wayward mobile phones left unmuted by their owners, the country’s apex court delivered a razor-thin majority decision not to allow the Catholic Church leave to challenge a lower court’s decision to bar it from using the word “Allah”.

The dissenting judges — Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Tan Sri Richard Malanjum and Federal Court judges Datuk Zainun Ali and Tan Sri Jeffrey Tan Kok Wah — were each given their turn to speak, but it was all moot as Chief Justice Tun Arifin Zakaria had already declared that four of the seven-man bench were against the church’s application.

And just like that, the Herald, the Catholic Church’s weekly publication at the centre of the “Allah” storm, can no longer pursue its bid to use the Arabic word for God in its Malay language section.

Here are the three things we learned about the matter.

1. A lifeline that really isn’t

Lawyers representing the Catholic Church argue that there may still be one legal avenue for them to pursue: Rule 137 of the Rules of the Federal Court 1995 that allows the apex court to review its own decision.

Convincing the Federal Court to agree to put its own judgement under the microscope, however, is — as the lawyers themselves admitted — easier said than done.

One matter that first needs to be addressed is whether there are sufficient judges to fill a minimum seven-member bench to review the decision. The short answer is yes.

But a more substantive issue is what they can review, even if the Church’s counsel manage the unlikely feat of pushing it through.

Back in 2010, the Federal Court struck out an application for a review by Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim in his so-called “Sodomy II” trial, ruling that while it could review its own judgment, it is confined only to procedural matters.

Tan Sri Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin, who is now Chief Justice of Malaya and was on the “Allah” appeal panel, along with Datuk Heliliah Mohd Yusof, ruled that a review does not extend to the merits of a case.

2. Hazy state of affairs

While it’s clear that the chances are slim for the case to go any further, what is unclear is how exactly the Federal Court’s decision to uphold the lower court’s judgment will pan out for the rest of the country.

Even before yesterday’s ruling, the courts had already adopted the October 2013 Court of Appeal decision that the use of the word “Allah” was not integral to the practice of the Christian faith, in striking out an appeal by the Sidang Injil Borneo (SIB) church earlier this year related to publications that contained the word.

This was done despite assurances by Putrajaya that whatever judgement by the courts on the issue would only be limited to the Herald.

Interestingly, Arifin, when rejecting the Catholic Church’s leave application yesterday, downgraded the appellate court’s opinion on the use of the word “Allah” by Christians as a “mere obiter”.

Obiter dicta are portions of a judgment that are made “by the way”, which are not binding as precedent. Future judges may refer to these for guidance but are not obligated to adhere to these in their own cases.

How this weighs in future cases, however, remains to be seen.

3. The East Malaysian dimension

Until the legal implications are made clear, the native Christians of Sabah and Sarawak — many of whom have relocated to the peninsula in search of better work prospects — remain in limbo.

Almost two-thirds of Christians here are Bumiputera and routinely use Bahasa Malaysia and indigenous languages in their religious practices, which include describing God as “Allah” in their prayers and holy book.

Putrajaya yesterday repeated its pledge under its 10-point solution, introduced in 2011, to allow Christians to freely call their God “Allah” in churches, but church leaders are less than convinced that the federal government’s policy has any substance.

A case in point would be the Selangor Islamic Religious Department’s (Jais) raid and confiscation of over 300 copies of Malay- and Iban-language bibles from the Bible Society of Malaysia’s (BSM) premises in early January.

Though this particular case did not involve enforcement on the part of the federal government, it raises concerns as to whether Christians are actually protected from arbitrary interpretations of the law by those not necessarily bound by Cabinet decisions.

Despite the air of finality surrounding the apex court’s ruling, there remains a fair bit of mopping up to do before the curtains are lowered on this episode of Malaysia’s affairs.