Malaysia’s ‘Allah’ verdict & the rising far right.....can we invoke the 'Fair use' claim?

Malaysia’s ‘Allah’ verdict and the rising far right.....can we invoke the 'Fair use' claim? (RT).

Malays, the country’s dominant ethnic group, are constitutionally ascribed as Muslims from birth, and their language borrows many terms from Arabic, including ‘Allah’. Malaysia, along with neighboring Brunei, are among the only countries in the world to regulate the use of the word ‘Allah’ and other terms deemed to be exclusive to Islam among its non-Muslim citizens.

A court ruling in 2007 prohibited a Catholic newspaper, the Herald, from using ‘Allah’ to describe the Christian god in the local Malay-language edition of its newspaper. In its attempts to appeal the judgment, the Church has argued that Christians in the Muslim-majority nation have used ‘Allah’ in Malay-language bibles and daily prayers for centuries.

Although the prohibition of the term only applied to the Herald newspaper, religious authorities in the state of Selangor took the unprecedented step of raiding the offices of the Bible Society of Malaysia in January, confiscating 321 Malay-language bibles on the basis that public disorder would ensue unless ‘Allah’ remains exclusive to Islam. The Selangor Islamic Religious Council refuses to return the bibles, in defiance of the country’s attorney general.

When a lower court ruled in favor of the Church to reverse the government ban in 2009, widespread anger ensued that saw arson attacks and vandalism at churches, temples, and other places of worship. The Court of Appeals reversed the lower court’s decision in 2013, which prompted the Catholic Church to bring their case to the Federal Court, which rejected their challenge in a 4-3 judgment last week.

This controversy spawned by this issue has proven capable of enflaming communal tensions, and stoking activism and fiery protests from far-right Malay groups who view the term ‘Allah’ as an exclusive religious symbol, that despite the term’s pre-Abrahamic origins, is rooted in the Koran. The brand of Islam practiced by Malays – who make up some 64 percent of the population – is deeply interwoven with the community’s sense of ethnic identity, and an understanding of their perspective is crucial to grasping the issue.

As Muslims, Malays use the term ‘Allah’ to refer to their god, which is perceived within a strict monotheistic orientation. Malays are determined to defend their monopoly over the term ‘Allah’ as understood in a monotheistic Islamic sense because they believe the word cannot correspond with the Christian notion of god due to the Christian belief in the Trinity.

The term ‘Allah’ predates both Islam and Christianity, and Arab Christians throughout the Middle East – and Christian communities elsewhere, such as in Indonesia – have historically used the term to refer to the Christian god without generating friction between Christian and Muslim communities. Hmmm.....How can one religion claim the name of God? It's again a case of 'give us what we want our we destroy the joint' Read the full story here.