A section of the crowd praying outside the Court of Appeal in Putrajaya on August 22, 2013 while waiting for the hearing of the Catholic Church’s appeal on the ‘Allah’ case. — Picture by Choo Choy May

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 9 — The Najib administration must speak up for all Malaysians of different creeds and stop the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (JAKIM) from acting as the government’s voice, the country’s largest church group said today.

The Christian Federation of Malaysia (CFM) — which is the umbrella body for Catholics, Protestants and Evangelicals — noted the federal Islamic authority had stepped beyond its bounds with its “blatant scaremongering” and provocative calls for Muslims to defend a court bid by the churches for the right to also call their god, “Allah”.

“The repeated accusations that the use of the word ‘Allah’ is a device that is part of a Christian conspiracy to convert Muslims has never been substantiated. Such irresponsible accusations must stop.

“This is blatant scaremongering and provoking of religious tensions,” CFM said in a strongly-worded statement today, on the eve of the “Allah” row’s return to court after a tension-filled five-year wait.

t highlighted a recent television programme broadcast nationwide, which it claimed had shown untrue and unsubstantiated accusations about so-called Christian plots to convert Muslims, and last Friday’s official sermon, written by JAKIM that called Muslims to rise up in a “holy struggle” to defend Islam against Christians over the “Allah” word.

The church body denounced such actions as “incendiary” and said Malaysians were alarmed at the lack of action or statement from the government to rein in the Islamic body.

It said it feared that unless the government broke its silence, JAKIM’s calls and action might ultimately trigger emotional reactions leading to public disorder.

“The CFM vigorously calls upon the Malaysian Government, which represents ALL Malaysians, to ensure, uphold and protect freedom of religion in Malaysia.

“Let not JAKIM be the only voice purporting to speak on behalf of the Government of Malaysia that has said that it represents Malaysians of different faiths and ethnicities,” said CFM, which represents over 90 per cent of churches and some 2.6 million Christians nationwide.

Malaysian population statistics.

It also asked Muslims in Malaysia to reflect, understand and appreciate the context of how, when and why Christians use the word “Allah”, in a reminder that the latter group had been doing so for centuries elsewhere around the world, including in the Middle East from where both religions originated.

“This use has carried on for centuries through our shared history without any problem, and we have lived in relative peace and harmony for many years whilst this use has been on-going.

“In dealing with the issue of the use of the word ‘Allah’ for God, as indeed with other inter-religious issues, there is a need for the truth, i.e. facts and evidence, to be looked at, instead of an appeal to purely emotional rhetoric or use of base insults, or talk of plots and alleged conversions,” CFM added.

The Home Ministry’s appeal against a 2009 High Court ruling allowing the local Catholic Church to publish the word “ Allah” for the Christian god in the Bahasa Malaysia section of its paper will be heard in the Court of Appeal tomorrow.

The case, which has been simmering for decades, has cast a spotlight on the fragile religious and racial ties within multicultural Malaysia, in particular the country of 28 million’s Muslim majority and its non-Muslim groups.

The “Allah” row erupted in 2008 when the Home Ministry threatened to revoke the Herald’s newspaper permit for its reference to God as “Allah”, prompting the Catholic Church to sue the government for violating its constitutional rights.

Christians subsequently argued that the word predates Islam and that their right to use “Allah” in a non-Muslim context was affirmed by the government’s own 10-point solution issued in 2011.

The 2009 High Court decision upholding the Catholic Church’s constitutional right to use the word “Allah” had shocked many Muslims that consider the word to only refer to the Islamic God.

It also led to Malaysia’s worst religious strife, with houses of worship throughout the country coming under attack.

Muslims are Malaysia’s largest religious group with 15.7 million people, followed by Buddhists at 5.5 million. Christians are the third largest at 2.6 million, according to statistics from the 2010 consensus.