A Malaysian woman’s campaign for Christians’ right to use the word “Allah” for “God” has succeeded after almost 13 years of court hearings and delays.

Jill Ireland Lawrence Bill has been campaigning for the right to use the word ever since immigration officials at a Kuala Lumpur airport seized eight Christian CDs from her in May 2008 because the CDs used the word “Allah” in a Christian context.

After a seven-year legal battle, Ireland was given back the CDs in 2015, but she maintained that the court had failed to address her constitutional right as a Christian to use the word.

In October 2017, her lawyer, Lim Heng Seng, noted that 60% of Malaysia’s Christians speak the Bahasa Malaysia (‘language of Malaysia‘), which uses “Allah” for “God”.

He said Christians were never consulted when in 1986 the country banned Christians from using the word, and that the government’s blanket ban was unconstitutional and discriminatory. After years of delays, including several this year due to Covid-19, the Court of Appeals judge Nor Bee ruled in Ireland’s favour that the 1986 directive by the Home Ministry to prohibit Christians from using four ‘prohibited’ words, including ‘Allah’, was not a blanket ban.

The judge also ruled that the use of the words by Christians would not disrupt public order and so can be used by the community for teaching purposes – as they have been in East Malaysia (Sabah and Sarawak) and some parts of Peninsular (West) Malaysia for more than 400 years - saying: “The directive on the prohibition that it would result in a threat in public order is not supported. In fact, the directive is deemed irrational and perverse”. 

(World Watch Monitor)

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