KLANG, Jan 5 — Threatened with police action, a Muslim group shifted its protest against Rev Father Lawrence Andrew today to the carpark of the nearby Stadium Sultan Sulaiman here to rail against the Catholic priest they branded “seditious” for insisting Christians can call their God “Allah”.
The rally organised by the Klang Muslim Solidarity Secretariat, a group affiliated with Selangor Umno, however, was planned to be staged outside the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes.
At the rally, which drew just 50 people, Mohd Khairi Hussin, who is the president of the sectretariat, read aloud from a memorandum he had initially intended to hand over to the Catholic priest after the protest.
“It must be remembered that the Sultan’s decree was based on Section 9, the First Schedule, of the Selangor Non-Islamic Religions (Control of Propagation Among Muslims) Enactment 1988, which was enacted on July 7, 1988, and that this is part of the laws in Selangor,” he said.
“Allah is a special name of God for Muslims and it is not a translation of the word ‘God’ into Malay,” he added.
The Selangor Sultan decreed last year that non-Muslims in the state are to refrain from referring to God as “Allah”.
Outside the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes, some 20 Muslims and non-Christians chose to stand in solidarity with the minority religious community while the 900-strong Catholic congregation celebrated Mass.
They came as early as 8am, bearing flowers.
Social activist Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir was also present and told reporters that the Arabic word for God belonged to everyone.
The 86-year-old church was packed, resulting in the congregation spilling onto makeshift pews outdoors.
Parish priest Father Michael Chua called upon the congregation to pray for his colleague, Andrew, noting that the parish priest of the St Anne’s Church at Port Klang was the target of attacks.
“Let us continue to pray for Father Lawrence. It seems like in the gospel, one man has to die. Father Lawrence seems to take the blame for everything,” said Chua.
Newly-appointed Selangor Islamic Religious Department’s (Jais) director Ahmad Zaharin Mohd Saad said recently that letters will be sent to all churches in Selangor, asking them to comply with the state ban on non-Muslims from using 35 Arabic words and phrases, including “Allah”, which are listed under the Selangor Non-Islamic Religions (Control of Propagation Among Muslims) Enactment 1988.
But Lawrence has responded by criticising the Jais plan to compel churches in the state to stop using the Arabic word for God, and said the Catholic Church would not abide by such a directive.
Jais, however, seized more than 300 copies of Malay and Iban-language bibles from the Bible Society of Malaysia (BSM) on Thursday in a surprise raid.
Mohd Khairi reminded Lawrence today of the Court of Appeal ruling in October that had upheld the Home Ministry’s ban on the Catholic weekly, Herald, from describing God as “Allah”, and that had deemed the Arabic word as not being integral to the Christian faith.
“I note from a quick research on the history of the language of the Bible, it is clear that the word ‘Allah’ does not appear even once as the name of God or even of a man in the Hebrew Scripture. The name ‘Allah’ does not appear even once in either the Old or New Testaments. There is no such word at all in the Greek New Testaments,” said the Kapar Umno religious bureau chief, quoting the court ruling.
The Federal Court is set to hear arguments from both sides on February 24 before deciding on whether it will hear an appeal by the Catholic Church.
Mohd Khairi said today that Lawrence’s failure to apologise for his remark had caused him to spark Malay and Muslim anger in their defence of Islam and the royalty.
