Quoted from Malaysiakini

Gov’t backs down, Herald gets new permit
Soon Li Tsin | Dec 30, 07 8:24pm

In an about-turn, the Internal Security Ministry has allowed a Catholic weekly newspaper to continue to print without any condition, after earlier threatening to revoke its licence in a row over the word ‘Allah’. Augustine Julian, secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, said a new licence had been granted to the Herald, which would continue to use ‘Allah’ in referring to God in its Bahasa Malaysia section of the bulletin.

“The letter to allow the Herald to be printed was hand delivered by internal security officials on Sunday,” he said.

“They have allowed us to publish the weekly as usual. All four sections – in English, Malay, Tamil and Chinese – will be published. I suppose if they give us the printing permit we can continue to use the word Allah,” he added.

Julian said no reasons were given for the extension but suggested the government would not want to alienate Malaysia’s two million Christians ahead of general elections.

In a press statement, Herald editor Father Lawrence Andrew said that the letter from the Internal Security Ministry – which was hand delivered to the newspaper at about 10am today – “places no restriction whatsoever, and includes the permit for all languages, including the Bahasa Malaysia segment”.

He said that the newspaper received a letter two weeks ago from the Internal Security Ministry stating that the Herald could not publish its Bahasa Malaysia section from the date of the permit renewal in 2008.

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That’s the latest development reported in Malaysiakini portal regarding the Herald issue and the use of word Allah which stirs up few debates here and there in the blog sphere world for the past one week.

Now first thing first, a week ago Deputy Internal Security Minister Johari Baharum says only Muslims can use ‘Allah’ and Herald will not be permitted to renew their licence for 2008. Then suddenly after a week the licence will be granted to Herald without any conditions! Now what is this all about? I’m not a Muslim but from what I understand when it comes to religious affair of the Islam exclusively there is a body which issues a ‘fatwa’ or something like black and white stating that certain thing is allowed or prohibited. Am I right here?

Then what happens to Johari when he stated ‘Allah’ is exclusive to Muslims only and further threatens Herald not to grant them permit for their publications? Now my question is as a Christian in Malaysia, is the word ‘Allah’ really forbidden to me or not? Can any of the top guys from Majlis Fatwa in our country confirm me about this? I don’t really care now about the universal perception among those Abrahamic faith people. As per my understanding a ‘fatwa’ can be exclusively used in only one country without being generalised to all Muslims in the world. So in Malaysia is there a ‘fatwa’ by Majlis Fatwa saying that only Muslims have the ultimate copyright for the word ‘Allah’?

BTW, I would like to wish all of you a Happy and meaningful New Year 2008! Take care!

ciao!