The word "allah"

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I read with great interest, and a degree of concern regarding the Malaysian Court's ruling regarding the use of the world "Allah" by the Roman Catholic Church in Malaysia.  As I understand it the Court has ruled that the word "Allah" can only be used by Muslims.

The word "Allah" is the Arabic word for God and Muslims do not have a closed shop its use.  For instance Arabic Christians, Jews etc all use the word to refer to God.  Accordingly, I fail to see how the Malaysian judiciary has given the judgement it has.  It smacks more of the sort of finding that one might expect from a Muslim extremist state of organisation such as Al Queda.  Malaysia says that whilst it is an Islamic state the rights of all religions are respected.  Certainly the Court judgement, which has been publicized widely in the international media, does nothing to allay the fears of westerners considering joining the MM2H scheme, that Malaysia is not heading down the road towards a fundamentalist Islamic state.

I had intended to retire to Malaysia within the next few years.  However, I will now be keeping a watchful eye on developments in Malaysia, as after all there are alternative countries to spend my retirement years.  Those in power in Malaysia should be very wary of allowing the country to move down the road towards fundamentalism.  As an example look at Singapore, where I am at present, here Muslims have all the rights to their faith as in Malaysia, but then so do Christians, Hindus etc.

PaulM