KUALA LUMPUR, June 25 ― The Selangor Islamic Religious Council (Mais) said today it will continue seizing bibles containing the word “Allah” and arrest those who distribute them, despite Putrajaya's latest assurance that the ban on the word only applies to Catholic weekly Herald.

“This process will go on and we will also make arrests,” Mais chairman Datuk Mohamad Adzib Mohd Isa said in a speech at the Tabung Haji Complex today, according to The Malaysian Insider.

Mohamad Adzib also said the state's religious authorities have the right to destroy the 300 holy books confiscated from the Bible Society of Malaysia (BSM) earlier this year, but said the matter would be left to the state's prosecutors to decide.

The news portal also reported the Mais chief as saying that although the council accepts the Attorney-General's (AG) decision not to prosecute BSM for its possession of the bibles, it disagrees with the reason given.

The Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais) had seized 321 bibles Malay and Iban language bibles that contained the word “Allah” during a surprise raid on BSM's premise in Petaling Jaya on January 2.

Last week, AG Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail said that no charges will be brought against the society, pointing out that the books were not “controlled items” and it was not a national security issue.

However, disagreeing with Abdul Gani, Mais insisted that there are grounds to “prosecute” BSM under the Selangor Non-Islamic Religions (Control of Propagation Among Muslims) Enactment 1988.

Mais also said that it will apply to the court to dispose the bibles.

Complicating the impasse further, the Federal Court had on Monday decided by a 4-to-3 majority to deny the Catholic Church the right to appeal a lower court decision preventing it from using the word “Allah” in its weekly Herald.

Responding on Tuesday, a government official said that Malaysian Christians are still free to call their God “Allah” in churches, reiterating the Najib administration’s commitment to its 10-point solution from 2011.

The official stressed that the Federal Court’s decision only upheld a ban on the Catholic Church from publishing the word in the Herald weekly.

Last year, the Court of Appeal ruled that “Allah” was not integral to the Christian faith and that the home minister was justified in banning the Herald from using the Arabic word on grounds of national security and public order.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s administration issued the 10-point solution shortly before the Sarawak state election in 2011 to end a ministry’s blockade of shipments of Christian holy scriptures in the Malay language containing the word “Allah.”

Christians make up about 10 per cent of the Malaysian population of 30 million.

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