god – SeaDemon Says

June 23, 2014June 23, 2014

The Case For God – Part 4

The apex court of Malaysia, the Federal Court, has ruled in favour of the Appellate Court to deny the Christian Herald Weekly the use of “Allah” in its articles instead of “God” or “Lord”. Four out of the seven bench members voted to uphold the ruling by the Appellate Court while three dissented. While many jumped saying that it was an unfair decision, I did not see one person noting that one of the dissenting members is a Malay and a Muslim.

The ruling brings to a closure a divisive episode that began in 2006 that led to several unnecessary reactive incidents in early 2010 due to a High Court decision in favour of the Christian Herald Weekly. While BigDog argues that the apex court’s ruling upholds Articles 3(1) and 11(4) of the Federal Constitution, many think that it is their right to use Allah in reference to God.

Let me quote what was said as part of the judgment delivered:

‘The usage of the word Allah is not an integral part of the faith in Christianity. The usage of the word will cause confusion in the community.’

Many including outsiders such as Francis X Clooney SJ in his article entitled “Is Allah Not Our God? – America Magazine (Catholic) tried to argue for the Catholics in Malaysia without understanding the history behind this ruling and how Articles 3(1) and 11(4) of the Federal Constitution came about.

Perhaps, I may need to point out to Mr Clooney as well as uninformed Malaysians that while in the Peninsular Malaysia the use of Allah and several other words are regulated by various laws, they are not regulated for use in the Sidang Injil Borneo’s Bibles for the people of Sabah and Sarawak. Even in Indonesia some Christians use “Allah” – and this is all due to historical reasons.

In my blog post entitled The Case For God, I wrote about the history of the usage of “Allah” in Christian literatures:

Let us remember one thing. Malaya (Peninsula Malaysia) was never colonised as a whole by the British, save for Penang, Malacca, and Singapore, while Sabah and Sarawak came under direct British colonial rule. Penang was acquired through a deal to lease the island made between the British East India Company and the Sultan of Kedah; Malacca was acquired from the Dutch through the Treaty of Bencoolen; and Singapore was included in the Treaty of Bencoolen by making the severely weakened Dutch to not object to the British occupation of Singapore. The people of these three places, together with Sabah and Sarawak, became British subjects.
Through treaties with the Sultans on the Peninsula, the British helped administer the State of the respective Sultans, while the Sultans remained as the supreme head of these sovereign states. The administration of Islam came under the purview of the respective Sultans as the protectors of the state’s religion.

So, why does Indonesia have Bibles that use the word Allah to describe God?
Unlike Malaya, Indonesia was a nation of conquered people. Hello! Remember the Dutch? When Douglas MacArthur met Emperor Hirohito, he purposely stood next to the Emperor to show the Japanese people that the Emperor was not a demi-God. Victors get to do as they please, and this is probably the same case as the Ladang Rakyat issue in Kelantan. The Dutch conquered parts of Indonesia beginning in 1595, and as part of its attempt to call the Malay diaspora in Indonesia to Christianity, the Book of Matthew was translated into the Indonesian language in 1629; and where the Dutch set foot, other religions were formally prohibited although Chinese temples as well as mosques remained in existence.

Missionaries, too, made headway in Sabah and Sarawak, converting the populace to Christianity. Sir Stamford Raffles recommended to Rev. Thomas Raffles (Buitenzorg, 10th February 1815, Mss. Eur. F.202/6) that Borneo be given vigorous campaigns by the missionaries as “the island is inhabited by a race scarcely emerged from Barbarism.”

This does not mean that the Malays were free from attempts to proselytize them. In fact, Raffles, in a letter to his cousin in 1815 mentioned how “Religion and laws are so united” in Muslim dominated areas that the introduction of Christian beliefs will bring about “much mischief, much bitterness of heart and contention”.

Raffles contended that Christianity must be packaged in a new form and be conveyed to the Muslim majority through a gradual approach. The “pagans”, on the other hand, required no stratagems. His methods include the establishment of missionary schools where the Malays are taught to read and write in their own language. Then he set up printers to publish books in Malay. Missionaries were largely responsible for this effort with the help of local agents, and the most famous of these agents was a chap called Abdullah Abdul Kadir who is better known as Munshi (Teacher) Abdullah. He and other Munshis taught Christian missionaries the Malay language. His role went beyond that and became the first Muslim in South East Asia to translate the Bible into the Malay language, that he became the target of his contemporaries who called him Abdullah Paderi (Pastor Abdullah) among other things.

It is interesting to note, however, that Raffles never once attempted to convert Malays in the Federated and Unfederated Malay States where the Sultans rule and guard the interest of the religion of Islam. This is because it would be foolhardy to anger the Sultans whom the British had a treaty with, by undermining the sanctity of Islam by converting their subjects. In the case of Raffles, he only focused his efforts on those who are British subjects.
Here we see the subtle tactics of the Christian missionaries during Raffles’s times, and the Malay lackeys who colluded with them. We can see the similarities in events of nowadays. But the above is also why we have Allah in the Bibles of Indonesia and Sabah and Sarawak, but not in Peninsula Malaysia.

And the above continues to be protected and respected in Sabah and Sarawak by the 10-point agreement which also includes the immigration right to refuse entry to any undesirable persons that the Opposition has said is a violation of their rights.

What does the above history have to do with modern-day Malaysia where history should or suggested be forgotten?

In my later post entitled The Case For God – Part 3 I wrote about the attempts to proselytise Muslims which is in contravention of the Federal Constitution:

As mentioned in the previous installment, too, I find the argument that Allah is the common denominator for God in this region a joke. The common denominator in the Indo-Malay speaking world would be Tuhan instead of Allah. However, Allah is the term that is inside the Quran for as long as time can remember. I cannot say the same for the Bible as it no longer reflects the Old Testament. Anyhow, you cannot find the name Allah inside the Old Testament. Just a Hebrew name that does not even resemble both the Arabic and Roman spelling of Allah. Even so, Elohim as called by the Jews, refers to The God that has no Son, nor an equivalent called the Holy Spirit. Mind you, even the Jews are totally against the concept of deifying a human being. I am sure my wife’s Iban relatives who are Christian would understand the term “Tuhan” without any problem since Bahasa Malaysia is derived from the Malay language, and the term for God in Malay is Tuhan.

We have seen the subtle tactics of missionaries of those days in the first installment and how their modus operandi is now refined by present-day missionaries. This blogger had had the opportunity to meet up with Muslims proselytized during the month of Ramadhan of 2012 and was told of the very fine and subtle methods used to proselytize Muslims in Malaysia. Back in the late 19th and early 20th century, the Malay people were not only bombarded with the Malay Bible, but also Christian publications in Malay such as Buletin Ariffin, Cermin Mata, Sahabat and Warta Melayu. Little has changed, but made only better. Recently, Johor’s Department of Islamic Affairs, together with the Home Ministry, confiscated 250 Christian literature in the Malay language. Imagine these books having titles such as Kaabah, Mengenal Rasul and Wahyu Illahi. With the state of Johor having around 58 percent Muslims, 2 percent Christians, and 40 percent other religions, who were these Malay literature targeting? Ibans? Christians? Chinese? Read more about the attempt to proselytize Muslims in BigDog’s post.

So, what about the use of Allah by Christians in Indonesia, Egypt etc.?
Tell me how good has that been for Indonesia and Egypt? How well do the Muslims and Christians get along in those countries? The very reason we do not have beheading of Christians in Kelantan or lynching of Muslims in Sarawak is because we do not step on each others toes.

I also wrote the following:

So is “Allah” an integral part of Christianity? I argued on this when the Appellate Court decided against the High Court ruling:

When the Turks charged at the British lines during the Battle of Gallipoli, they cried “Allahu Akbar.” The British soldiers retorted, “Come and get your Allah here!”
If the same British soldiers are here now, they would be utmost disappointed that the Christians in Malaysia now want to accept Allah – the name of the God they believed to be false – as the special noun to replace the word “god”.
Why am I still on this issue? Some lawyers now say whatever decree the Agong issues, is not binding for non-Malays and non-Muslims.
Fine. The Malay Rulers may not have intrinsic powers left apart from dissolving or withholding a cabinet or state assembly, appoint a Prime Minister or a Menteri Besar, and protect the religion of Islam and Malay customs. I shall not dwell too deeply into this but my friend SatD has written a very good piece on this in his blog Pure Shiite.
What is most important is that when the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (JAIS) confiscated those Bibles containing the special noun “Allah”, they were acting on the provisions of Section 9 of the Selangor Shariah Criminal Enactment which prohibits the use of 25 or so Islamic words and nouns in non-Muslim publications. You will be committing a crime merely by having one in your house or car, let alone propagate one to a Muslim (or more).
What does the Shariah enactment have to do with non-Muslims, you may ask. Everything! It is NOT an Islamic law, it is a State law! Actually, it is a State Criminal Law! And a state criminal law applies to all be they Muslims or otherwise. And it is a STRICT LIABILITY law! Like I said, you have one, you break the law!
You constitutional law sexperts may also argue that the law is unconstitutional. It may be so. But it is the state law until and until a Constitutional court decides otherwise.
Oh, cry foul all you want and claim that the Apellate Court judges were all Malays. This is the part that I do not understand. All these challenges to the decision of the Apellate Court may be a norm to some of you common criminals and petty lawbreakers; the judges may not even hazard to act against them but the person who should be taking action, the Attorney-General, should. It is in contempt of a court ruling. What does that tell me, a layman? The A-G is simply useless for allowing lawlessness become a norm.
When Muslims cry foul to the Christians saying that “Allah” is an integral part of Islam, it is because the concept of trinity is an antithesis of the “Oneness” of Allah. The special noun refers to The God, One and Only God. Not a God that needs a trike to be able to “stand.”
The Christians lashed back saying that the Muslims should not tell them what is integral and what is not to them, saying that Allah is integral to the Christians. Else why quarrel over the special noun?
The word “integral” means something that if not present, does not complete something. Like tyres to cars.
Let me ask them this: if “Allah” is integral to the Christian faith, does this mean that the Popes, for 2,000 years, all the way from St Peter Petrus, have gotten it all wrong?
Maybe those adamant to use the special noun “Allah” can now shout to the Pope to come get his “Allah” here.

January 28, 2013January 28, 2013

Oh, My Goat!

“UMNO can offer projects but if you support PAS, you support Islam and the reward is a place in heaven.”

That was what the State Assemblyman for Ga’al from the Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party (PAS), Dr Nik Mazian Mohamed was quoted to have said aday or two ago, as pointed out by a journo on The Star on 27th January 2013. He also added:

“And if we (PAS) win, we are offering people 20% oil royalties.”

Such is the mandate that God has given PAS that they could offer not only God’s heaven, but also twenty percent oil royalties. Talk about the wonders of having God on your side, and power to deliver riches.

However you believe it or not, there are people gullible enough to think that PAS, a party that the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) had never join, can offer such things. To the simple mind, if you carry the name “Islam” on your party’s official name, then that has to be an Islamic thing therefore should be supported without question. Even if the person making the religious decree has had a case of being found in a hotel room with another man’s wife!

The words uttered by these people are, to these simple minds, inscribed in stone. If you were to question them, you would go straight to hell! Or worse still, be brand an UMNO-lackey, which to PAS, is worse than being “Hudud-over-my-dead-body” Karpal Singh, a DAP supremo. No matter how ridiculously illogical (redundancy intended) the words maybe, or how unIslamic the nature, is as if God had spoken through these ragheads and there is no other manner but to obey.

How can mere mortals promise you paradise, or hell’s wrath? Twenty percent oil royalty…a big maybe. But of course they would have to kowtow to the very people who are known to be involved in the attempts to proselytise Muslims in Malaysia, and are so dead against Malaysia being known as an Islamic country, let alone enforce the sharia law!

Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) himself was quoted to have said:

By Allah, though I am the Apostle of Allah, yet I do not know what Allah will do to me.” Sahih Bukhari Volume 5, Book 58, Number 266

And this supports Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala mentioned in the Quran:

“Say, [O, Muhammad], “I do not tell you that I have the depositories [containing the provision] of Allah or that I know the unseen, nor do I tell you that I am an angel. I only follow what is revealed to me.” Say, “Is the blind equivalent to the seeing? Then will you not give thought?”- al-An’am 6:50

Of course, being Malays, a shortcut to God is far better than understanding the content of the Quran. Why bother when you have bearded ragheads to do all the thinking for you? This is the reason myopic Malays who believe in dogmas when Islam is free of it fail to know the warning God has given them:

“Some of them even twist their tongues to simulate the scripture, to make you think that it is from the scripture when it is not from the scripture, and claim it is from God, when it is not from God. They invent lies and Tribute them to God, knowingly.” – Ali Imraan 3:78

Which brings me to another supposed God-fearing politician, albeit without the beard and rag. This one is a woman, married to a Ram. Hannah, as the name is given, is a Hebrew word that means “Gracious” but is far from that.

When a well-known journo asked on Twitter on the 27th January 2013 if he should give a vote to the Opposition in the state of Selangor (Barisan Nasional), my wife replied a resounding “Yes.” When asked from the former her reason for saying so, well, the screen capture below says it all:

As you can see in the thread, a handle called NEO V.H (@nonvitaltooth) posted a screen capture of Hannah’s very swift response to my wife’s post which I have in turn screen-captured:

So, Hannah has accused my wife of lying. Well, here is a screen capture of the said Residents Association letter:

Please read paragraph 4 in the above image and let us see who has been lying to her constituents, shall we?

Perhaps, God-fearing Hannah Yeoh has problems reading the Bible as PAS-supporting Malays have with the Quran.

Perhaps, I could refresh this God-fearing state assemblyman for my constituency that “Satan is the father of lies” (John 8:44); that God hates a lying tongue (Proverbs 6:17); and that all liars will have their part in the lake of fire (Revelation 21:8).

Had Hannah Yeoh took time to listen and seek the truth instead of being a swift-tongue and lying to her voters, I would be very GRACIOUS towards her. No, the name Hannah does not go well with me, thank you.

But of course, the Bible has something for those who are swift-tongued too! Proverbs 18:13 clearly said:

“He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.”

And of course, John 1:19 has warned us to be swift to hear, and slow to speak.

I guess Hannah and the ragheaded goats do not fear God at all!

Oh, my Goat!

January 3, 2013January 3, 2013

The Case for God – Part 3

In the previous installment I discussed the concept of Trinity to explain how it undermines the divinity of God according to Christianity, thus making the application of the name Allah for a such God an overkill and not appropriate for the actual meaning of Allah.

As mentioned in the previous installment, too, I find the argument that Allah is the common denominator for God in this region a joke. The common denominator in the Indo-Malay speaking world would be Tuhan instead of Allah. However, Allah is the term that is inside the Quran for as long as time can remember. I cannot say the same for the Bible as it no longer reflects the Old Testament. Anyhow, you cannot find the name Allah inside the Old Testament. Just a Hebrew name that does not even resemble both the Arabic and Roman spelling of Allah. Even so, Elohim as called by the Jews, refers to The God that has no Son, nor an equivalent called the Holy Spirit. Mind you, even the Jews are totally against the concept of deifying a human being. I am sure my wife’s Iban relatives who are Christian would understand the term “Tuhan” without any problem since Bahasa Malaysia is derived from the Malay language, and the term for God in Malay is Tuhan.

We have seen the subtle tactics of missionaries of those days in the first installment and how their modus operandi is now refined by present-day missionaries. This blogger had had the opportunity to meet up with Muslims proselytized during the month of Ramadhan of 2012 and was told of the very fine and subtle methods used to proselytize Muslims in Malaysia. Back in the late 19th and early 20th century, the Malay people were not only bombarded with the Malay Bible, but also Christian publications in Malay such as Buletin Ariffin, Cermin Mata, Sahabat and Warta Melayu. Little has changed, but made only better. Recently, Johor’s Department of Islamic Affairs, together with the Home Ministry, confiscated 250 Christian literature in the Malay language. Imagine these books having titles such as Kaabah, Mengenal Rasul and Wahyu Illahi. With the state of Johor having around 58 percent Muslims, 2 percent Christians, and 40 percent other religions, who were these Malay literature targeting? Ibans? Christians? Chinese? Read more about the attempt to proselytize Muslims in BigDog’s post.

So, what about the use of Allah by Christians in Indonesia, Egypt etc.?

Tell me how good has that been for Indonesia and Egypt? How well do the Muslims and Christians get along in those countries? The very reason we do not have beheading of Christians in Kelantan or lynching of Muslims in Sarawak is because we do not step on each others toes.

But I guess, for the purpose of gaining support and diverting the attention of voters from issues currently plaguing the DAP so close tot the next general elections, Lim Guan Eng raised the “use of Allah in Bible” issue again. And the Muslims in the Pakatan Rakyat chose to keep quiet about it except for the MP for Parit Buntar, Mujahid Yusof Rawa who questioned Guan Eng’s motive. I suppose for most PR Muslims, it is okay for Muslims to be proselytize as long as they get to wrestle power from the present government. To cloud the vision of their supporters from their internal issues of corruption, cronyism and nepotism, they decided to rally the support of the mostly Chinese Christians by raising the Allah issue again, knowing very well it would somehow hurt the relationship between UMNO and the Christians within the Barisan Nasional. I hope no fool would fall for this treachery.

What is the purpose of using the name Allah in Bibles, having a Malay Bible, and Christian publications in Malay if not to proselytize the Muslims? With all due respect to my Christian friends, why hasn’t the Vatican been using Allah or Elohim? Why do they stick to the name they know? And what is the most familiar term for God here in Malaysia if not Tuhan?

Like I mentioned in the first instalment. I am called John, and wherever I go, I will still be called John. No one in Germany would call me Johann, no Arab would call me Yahya, no one in Sweden would call me Jan or Jon. So, if your common denominator is Tuhan, call as it is. Not adopt from some other language. Or else, I would question why aren’t you calling God “Deus.” Please don’t fall for the politics of hate propagated by those who are irresponsible.

We have been living together, respecting each other for more than five decades peacefully except for one dark moment in 1969. Let us not let the political ambition of some to destroy the peace and prosperity that we have maintained for so long.

May I remind the Christians, in particular the Catholics about what is mentioned in the Catholic Encyclopedia about Allah:

Let it be noted that although Allah is an Arabic term, it is used by all Moslems, whatever be their language, as the name of God

If you still cannot see that, then there will soon be trouble in this peaceful nation. So, who is not respecting who?

January 2, 2013

The Case for God – Part 2

In the previous installment we see the difference in how Christianity was spread throughout the Indo-Malay world. In this installment, we discuss the concept of Trinity and why some Christians now continue to reject it.

Allah The One God

Since Allah is the common denominator to refer to God in the Arabic-speaking world, why is it then a problem for Malay Muslims to accept its use in the Malaysian Bibles?

First of all, the common denominator for God in the Indo-Malay speaking world is Tuhan, not Allah. Like mentioned in paragraphs above, the general Christian world believes in the Trinity where God is the Father, God is the Son, and God is the Holy Spirit. Muslims have a problem here thinking that this is all about polytheism, but really in technical terms it is not. But neither is it monotheism as the Jews and Muslims hold on to. In the Trinity concept, while God is all those three persons, the Father is NOT the Son or the Holy Spirit; the Son is NOT the Father or the Holy Spirit; neither the Holy Spirit is the other two. It is the concept of one deity in three persons.

The problem with Muslim scholars in Malaysia is that their studies are so focused on Islam that they fail at comparative religious studies and often make opinions based on what they think is being practiced in other religions. How many other Muslims read the Bible to know that after the publishing of the King James Bible in 1611, there have been other versions including the “new version”, the “children version”, and the “American version” (I’ll call them KJV in short)? How many know of the various changes made to God’s words in the Bible that appears in the KJV of today?

Mind you, the KJV was translated and printed by Thomas Nelson Publishers. In 1969, the publishers was purchased by Sam Moore, who started by selling Bibles door-to-door to finance his pursuit of a medical degree. He vowed to make Thomas Nelson the leading publisher of Bibles again. In 1976, he initiated the creation of the new Bible translation calling it the New King James Version (NKJV) that propelled Thomas Nelson back to the number one spot.

Hence, the NKJV Bible is more a human dogma than a collection of divine words. Some versions has had the word “He” changed to “It” to accommodate a politically-correct gender-unbiased view. Personally, I would use “It” to refer either to things that are not alive, or to beings other than the human. The Quran, on the other hand, has never been changed, and the divinity of its content unquestioned.

The concept of Trinity was also alien to some Christians. It was during the First Council of Nicea in 325AD , the first ecumenical council of the Church that was convened by the Roman Emperor, Constantine I, that an attempt to get the Christian world to agree on the divinity of Jesus Christ. The main topic was to discuss the teachings of a Christian presbyter in Egypt called Arius, who focused on Godhead, which emphasized the Father’s divinity over the Son. He endorsed the following doctrine:

That the Son, or the Word (Logos) and the Father were not of the same essence (ousia);
That the Son was a created being (ktisma);
That the worlds were created through the Word, then he must have existed before all time;
However, the Word did not exist, before he was begotten by the Father.

For his belief, and for refusing to sign the Creed and accepting the divinity of Christ, Arius and two other Church leaders were banished, prompting others to sign. One must remember that Emperor Constantine I was never a baptized Christian until he was on his deathbed and the word ecumenical means world, in reference to the Roman Empire dominating what they saw was the world to them.

The Arian church lives on in some parts of the world, notably in the Eastern Christianity domain, the Oriental Orthodox. Due to the differences, the Church of Rome and the Orthodox Church were no longer in communion, although rivalry between the two have all but diminished since the Great Schism, but the latter still rejects the dogmatic definition published by the Pope, or by an ecumenical council, and also rejects the Council of Chalcedon.

The introduction of the Filioque by the Western Church into the Latin version of the Nicene Creed without holding a council or gaining consent from the Eastern Churches contributed greatly to this schism. The Filioque is a phrase that states the Holy Spirit as proceeding from “the Father and the Son”, while the Eastern Churches have always held on to the fact that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, and has the same status as the Son.

As such, God the Father in this concept does not qualify itself to be interpreted as Allah to be used in the Bible. God, as portrayed in the Trinity concept, does not stand, and cannot stand alone. The concept of God as a Supreme Being that exists even before time does not seem to hold true when it comes to the Christian interpretation of God, and although the Jews, Christians and Muslims are people of the book, only the Christians have created God as an image, whereas, especially in Islam, God is beyond human comprehension. Simply put, if you think that it is impossible to imagine God, even that imagination and thought come after His creation and is still nowhere near describing Allah. Both the Jews and the Muslims reject the hypostasis nature of God as projected by the Christians.

Therefore, in my humble opinion, and without prejudice to my Christian friends, God the Father should be Tuhan Bapak; God the Son should be Tuhan Anak; and God the Holy Spirit should be Tuhan Ruhul Kudus.

In my next installment, we will have a look at the common denominator and what has become of it, and what I think of this whole issue.

January 1, 2013

The Case for God

I am called John.

John F SeaDemon.

I may be called Yahya or Yahya Shaitan al-Bahri if I were in an Arab country somewhere, but I doubt John F Kennedy would have been called Yahya F Kennedy had he gone to Saudi Arabia or even Egypt. In fact, he would still be called Jack…or John. But for some Christians in Malaysia, especially in the Peninsula Malaysia, God is called Allah. Maybe it is time for me to address the Logos behind the Theos in this theological subject.

The Language behind Allah

There has been many attempts at explaining the origin of the name Allah, and the similarity the name has to the Jewish word, Elohim (Elochim). Allah is derived from two distinct Arabic words: Al (The), and Ilah (God), to describe the Supreme Being, the One God, and the word Allah, in Arabic takes a masculine form.

The Hebrew equivalent would be Eloah. However, Eloah is the female word for God. In order for the name to have a masculine form, the name Eloah is given a plural form, -im, making it masculine.

However, the Catholic Encyclopedia does not recognise Elohim as the Hebrew word for the God of Israel, but says that it could have been referred to an earlier polytheistic culture’s deity.

In Arabic, a female form of Allah would be Al-Lat. Interestingly, Al-Lat during pre-Islamic times refers to one of three goddesses (female) whose shrine and temple was built in the city of Taif in Saudi Arabia. She was a daughter of the Supreme God, Allah, along with her sisters Manat and al-Uzza. Here you can see that even polytheistic pre-Islamic Arabs had a Supreme God called Allah. Hence, if you ask me, an equivalent of Al-Lat in Hebrew would be Eloah, and not The One Supreme God. You can clearly see the difference between Elohim and Allah. While the former had to undergo a gender transformation, the Arabic word Allah is free of grammatical structure and corrupted meanings.

Of course, Christians in Malaysia argue that Allah is a common denominator for God for both Arab Christians and Muslims. We’ll come back to that in a while.

The Local History behind Allah

Let us remember one thing. Malaya (Peninsula Malaysia) was never colonised as a whole by the British, save for Penang, Malacca, and Singapore, while Sabah and Sarawak came under direct British colonial rule. Penang was acquired through a deal to lease the island made between the British East India Company and the Sultan of Kedah; Malacca was acquired from the Dutch through the Treaty of Bencoolen; and Singapore was included in the Treaty of Bencoolen by making the severely weakened Dutch to not object to the British occupation of Singapore. The people of these three places, together with Sabah and Sarawak, became British subjects.

Through treaties with the Sultans on the Peninsula, the British helped administer the State of the respective Sultans, while the Sultans remained as the supreme head of these sovereign states. The administration of Islam came under the purview of the respective Sultans as the protectors of the state’s religion.

So, why does Indonesia have Bibles that use the word Allah to describe God?

Unlike Malaya, Indonesia was a nation of conquered people. Hello! Remember the Dutch? When Douglas MacArthur met Emperor Hirohito, he purposely stood next to the Emperor to show the Japanese people that the Emperor was not a demi-God. Victors get to do as they please, and this is probably the same case as the Ladang Rakyat issue in Kelantan. The Dutch conquered parts of Indonesia beginning in 1595, and as part of its attempt to call the Malay diaspora in Indonesia to Christianity, the Book of Matthew was translated into the Indonesian language in 1629; and where the Dutch set foot, other religions were formally prohibited although Chinese temples as well as mosques remained in existence.

Missionaries, too, made headway in Sabah and Sarawak, converting the populace to Christianity. Sir Stamford Raffles recommended to Rev. Thomas Raffles (Buitenzorg, 10th February 1815, Mss. Eur. F.202/6) that Borneo be given vigorous campaigns by the missionaries as “the island is inhabited by a race scarcely emerged from Barbarism.”

This does not mean that the Malays were free from attempts to proselytize them. In fact, Raffles, in a letter to his cousin in 1815 mentioned how “Religion and laws are so united” in Muslim dominated areas that the introduction of Christian beliefs will bring about “much mischief, much bitterness of heart and contention”.

Raffles contended that Christianity must be packaged in a new form and be conveyed to the Muslim majority through a gradual approach. The “pagans”, on the other hand, required no stratagems. His methods include the establishment of missionary schools where the Malays are taught to read and write in their own language. Then he set up printers to publish books in Malay. Missionaries were largely responsible for this effort with the help of local agents, and the most famous of these agents was a chap called Abdullah Abdul Kadir who is better known as Munshi (Teacher) Abdullah. He and other Munshis taught Christian missionaries the Malay language. His role went beyond that and became the first Muslim in South East Asia to translate the Bible into the Malay language, that he became the target of his contemporaries who called him Abdullah Paderi (Pastor Abdullah) among other things.

It is interesting to note, however, that Raffles never once attempted to convert Malays in the Federated and Unfederated Malay States where the Sultans rule and guard the interest of the religion of Islam. This is because it would be foolhardy to anger the Sultans whom the British had a treaty with, by undermining the sanctity of Islam by converting their subjects. In the case of Raffles, he only focused his efforts on those who are British subjects.

Here we see the subtle tactics of the Christian missionaries during Raffles’s times, and the Malay lackeys who colluded with them. We can see the similarities in events of nowadays. But the above is also why we have Allah in the Bibles of Indonesia and Sabah and Sarawak, but not in Peninsula Malaysia.

In the next installment I will discuss on how the concept of Trinity came about and why it was opposed by some Christians, and about Allah as the common denominator for God in the Arab-speaking world.