The 'ALLAH' Issue, Will there be a resolution any time soon?

'Palace of Justice'
Putrajaya, Malaysia
(from Google Images)

The Court has decided and now the court of public opinion is in full swing.  While some agree that it is about 'preventing confusion' and 'preserving harmony' many others are asking, "what happened to freedom of religion?"  I have shared my opinion earlier here, here and here.

In Islamic writings in English, 'Allah' is often rendered as 'God'.  However, some scholars maintain that the word should not be translated as 'Allah' is unique, while God can be general or specific (god/God), male or female (god/goddess), singular or plural (god/gods).  Moreover 'God' has different connotations to different people based on that individual's conception of God.

The Sikhs use 'Allah' to describe God as do the Qadianis. (In Malaysia, as in Pakistan and other Muslim countries, the Qadianis are not considered Muslims.) Those of the Baha'i Faith probably also do the same.  (The founder's name is Baha'u'llah.)

Now let us look at the Christian use of the word.

In the English Bible, there is not only the word 'God', but there are also 'god', 'gods' and 'goddess'.  God may be translated as Allah, but how do you translate the other three?

In the AlKitab [the Indonesian Bible] God is Allah [upper case first letter for both]. (e.g.: Genesis 1:1 / Kejadian 1:1), god is allah [lower case first letter for both] (e.g.: 1 John 4:8 /1 Yohanes 4:8) gods is also allah [the 's' plural form to be understood from the context] (e.g.: Deuteronomy 32:17 / Ulangan 32:17 ... demons that were no gods, to gods they had never know, to new gods...  ...roh-roh jahat yang bukan Allah, kepada allah yang tidak mereka kenal, allah baru...), but goddess is dewi [here a Malay word is used instead of an Arabic one] (e.g.: 1 Kings 11:5 / 1 Raja-Raja 11:5).

Interestingly though 'Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites' in 1 Kings 11:5 is 'dewa kejijikan' while further down in 1 Kings 11:33 'Milcom the god of the children of Ammon' is 'allah'.

In Malay, God [upper case 'G'] is Tuhan, while god, gods and goddess can be rendered as dewa, dewa-dewa and dewi respectively. Even in Arabic, god [lower case 'g'] is i'lah not Allah.

So if the Church insists on using Allah to include god and gods (as used in AlKitab), it could be seen as act of provocation (i.e. purposely using words out of context with possible intent to offend/insult) and not about freedom of religion.