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abujagirl
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A Malaysian court has ruled that non-Muslims cannot use the word Allah to refer to God, overturning a 2009 lower court ruling.
The 2009 ruling came after the government said that a Catholic newspaper, The Herald, could not use the word in its Malay-language edition to describe the Christian God.
The newspaper sued, and a court ruled in their favor in December 2009. The government then launched an appeal.
According to Reuters, the unanimous decision by three Muslim judges in Malaysia's appeals court overturned a 2009 ruling by a lower court that allowed the Malay-language version of the newspaper, The Herald, to use the word Allah - as many Christians in Malaysia say has been the case for centuries.
"The usage of the word Allah is not an integral part of the faith in Christianity," chief judge Mohamed Apandi Ali said in the ruling. "The usage of the word will cause confusion in the community".
About 200 Muslims outside the court in the administrative capital Putrajaya, greeted the decision with shouts of "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest).
"As a Muslim, defending the usage of the term Allah qualifies as jihad. It is my duty to defend it," said Jefrizal Ahmad Jaafar, 39. Jihad is Islamic holy war or struggle.
The newspaper's supporters have argued that Malay-language Bibles have used Allah to refer to the Christian God since before Malaysia was formed as a federal state in 1963.
"Allah is a term in the Middle East and in Indonesia it is a term both for Christians and Muslims. You cannot say that in all of the sudden it is not an integral part. Malay language is a language that has many borrowed words, Allah also is a borrowed word"
Some Muslim groups have said that the Christian use of the word Allah could be used to encourage Muslims to convert to Christianity.
"Allah is not a Malay word. If they [non-Muslims] say they want to use a Malay word they should use Tuhan instead of Allah," Zainul Rijal Abu Bakar, a lawyer representing the government, told the BBC.
Christians in Indonesia and much of the Arab world continue to use the word without opposition from Islamic authorities. Churches in the Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak have said they will continue to use the word regardless of the ruling.
