Word: malaysia
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...Christians claiming Allah?" asks businessman Rahim Ismail, 47, his face contorted in rage and disbelief. He shakes his head and raises his voice while waiting for a taxi along Jalan Tun Razak, a main thoroughfare in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's capital. "Everybody in the world knows Allah is the Muslim God and belongs to Muslims. I cannot understand why the Christians want to claim Allah as their God," Rahim says as passersby, mostly Muslims, gather around and nod in agreement...
...reason for their anger is a recent judgment by Malaysia's high court that the word Allah is not exclusive to Muslims. Judge Lau Bee Lan ruled that others, including Catholics who had been prohibited by the Home Ministry from using the word in their publications since 2007, can now use the term. She also rescinded the prohibition order that forbade the Malay-language edition of the Catholic monthly the Herald to use Allah to denote the Christian God. After widespread protests, however, the judge granted a stay order on Jan. 7, the same day the government appealed...
...Because of Malaysia's ethnic makeup, religion is a sensitive issue, and any religious controversy is seen as a potential spark for unrest. Some 60% of Malaysia's 28 million people are Malay Muslim, while the rest are mainly ethnic Chinese, Indians or members of indigenous tribes, practicing various faiths including Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and animism. Among Christians, the majority Catholics number about 650,000, or 3% of the population. Despite Malaysia's diverse national complexion, political Islam is a growing force, and the country operates under two sets of laws, one for Muslims, the other for everyone else...
...lawyers for the church argued that the word Allah predated Islam and was commonly used by Copts, Jews and Christians to denote God in many parts of the world. They argued that Allah is an Arabic word for God and has been used for decades by the church in Malaysia and Indonesia. And they said that the Herald uses the word Allah for God to meet the needs of its Malay-speaking worshippers on the island of Borneo. "Some people have got the idea that we are out to convert [Muslims]. That's not true," the lawyers said on behalf...
...leading advocate for those among Hong Kong's minorities who are poor and marginalized. Racism in the prosperous former British colony doesn't simmer into violence as it has in towns in northern England. Nor has it been institutionalized, as with laws that favor the ethnic majority in Malaysia. But while Hong Kong, a city whose 7 million population is more than 90% Chinese, garbs itself with a sleek cosmopolitanism, casual bigotry still shapes the daily experience of many of its nonwhite, non-Chinese residents. Local Chinese, Wong says, have a lack of understanding of minorities in their city, especially...