Allah row: Pakistani cleric blames Umno

K Pragalath

 | February 3, 2014

Pakistani Muslim cleric Younus AlGohar ups the ante on his criticism on the Appeals Court judgment over the Allah row.

VIDEO INSIDE

PETALING JAYA: Pakistani Muslim cleric Younus AlGohar has implied that the Allah row between Muslims and Christians is caused by Umno to shore up support from the majority Muslim community.

“There are elections in Malaysia. There is a political party raising issues to unite Muslims to support them. And the party comes from the government,” said Younus in Urdu.

He said this in a video recording entitled “Restricting Allah to Islam is Shirk (syirik)” by AIRa TV two days ago in reference to the Malaysian Appeals Court decision in the case involving a Christian weekly publication, The Herald.

In mid-October last year, three judges – Federal Court judge Mohamed Apandi Ali and Appeals Court judges Mohd Zawawi Salleh and Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahim – were unanimous in their decision that Allah’s name can only be used by Muslims and barred the Malay edition of The Herald from using ‘Allah’ to refer to God.

The three judges found that the word Allah was not an integral part of the Malaysian Christian’s faith.

Zawawi said that usage of the word Allah would only serve to confuse the Christians as well as the Muslims due to the Trinity concept practiced in Christianity.

The judge had also said that Christian Bibles in the Indonesian, Middle Eastern and Malay languages had erred by using Allah when referring to God.

An appeal has been filed against this judgment. The case is scheduled to be heard at the Federal Court on March 5.

In November 2013, Selangor Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah decreed that Allah cannot be used by non-Muslims in the state.

Various other states have now also begun enforcing enactments to bar non-Muslims from using ‘Allah’ as well as a list of other Arabic words deemed as Islamic.

Early last month, more than 300 Al-Kitab and Bup Kudus (Malay and Iban language bibles) were seized by the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais).

Two weeks ago, Kedah Sultan Abdul Halim Muadzam Shah who is the current Agong also backed the Appeals Court judgment.

Ignorant ruling

Younus said that the Appeals Court judgment deifed the Quranic verse, “La ilaha illallah” which means “there is no God but God”.

“Malaysian Muslims are asking Christians to call upon their God with their own name for God but according to Islam, there is no illah other than Allah.

“When there is no illah other than Allah, everybody should call him Allah,” he explained.

In his criticism against the judgment, he said that the Appeals Court ruling was ignorant and “unIslamic”.

“There are Qurans in Saudi Arabia, India and Pakistan. Aren’t there Qurans in Malaysia? Allah says there is no God but Allah.

“Who are you to interpret otherwise? This is unIslamic and insulting to Islam,” said Younos AlGohar.

He had previously criticised the court ruling in another video message.