The saga of the Bahasa Bible never seems to end. For more than two decades its import has generated unnecessary controversy. It is imperative that a clear policy is formulated immediately and implemented in a fair and just manner.
It is wrong to view the Bahasa Bible as a security issue. As a nation which has an outstanding record of upholding freedom of worship as a fundamental liberty, Christians should have easy access to their scripture. Since Bahasa Malaysia is the language of common usage for a lot of Christians in Sabah and Sarawak and is also the medium through which a substantial number of young Christians in Peninsular Malaysia today understand written literature, it should not surprise anyone that the Bahasa Bible has become an important part of the lives of the 9 percent Christian minority in the country.
Seen from this perspective the stamping and serializing of Bahasa Bibles which might be interpreted— rightly or wrongly— as a security measure has caused considerable unhappiness among a huge segment of the Christian community in Sarawak. Unless resolved quickly, it could well become the Opposition’s silver bullet to target the ruling Barisan Nasional in the coming state election. Political repercussions aside, justice demands that the Ministry of Home Affairs takes into account the feelings of the Christian community.
For many Muslims on the Peninsula, it is not so much the dissemination of Bibles in Bahasa which makes them uneasy. Rather, it is the use of the concept ‘Allah’ in a Christian scripture, a concept which they regard as exclusive to Islam. While it is true that it is Islam that has endowed meaning to the concept since the advent of the Qur’an, Muslims in other parts of the world have not taken exception to the term appearing in the scriptures of other religions. Arab Muslims have always been aware that their Christian compatriots utter the word ‘Allah’ when they read the Bible just as Muslims in the Indian Sub-Continent know that the term appears many times in the Guru Granth Sahib of the Sikhs. Indeed, the Qur’an does not prohibit anyone from using the term which is why illustrious Islamic scholars have always emphasized that it is because Allah is all-inclusive and all-embracing that Allah is described as the “Lord of the Universes.”
This inclusive understanding of Allah is beginning to gain some ground in Malaysia. In the midst of the present controversy over the Bahasa Bible, ulama from both the BN and the Pakatan have pointed out that it is not wrong for non-Muslims to use the term within the confines of their religion— as long as it is not misused in the public arena.
Manipulating and distorting the term in order to win converts to one’s religion would be an example of misuse. Muslims are in a sense protected from such nefarious activities by the Federal and various State Constitutions. Article 11(4) of the Federal Constitution for instance prohibits the propagation of other religious doctrines among Muslims.
This is why it is important that the government and the ulama allay Muslim fears about threats to their religious identity from the use of certain terms and the Bahasa Bible. Muslims would do well to remember that even at the height of Western colonial rule stretching from Morocco to Malaysia when Muslims were much more vulnerable, very, very few of them renounced their faith and became Christians. Even today, in occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, Christian evangelization among Muslims has failed miserably. By and large, Muslims in most parts of the world remain attached to their religion.
Muslims in Malaysia should have more faith in themselves.
Chairman,
Board of Trustees,
Yayasan 1Malaysia.
Petaling Jaya.
22 March 2011.