Churches bombed over Christian use of Allah

THREE churches in Malaysia were firebombed yesterday, as Muslims vowed to prevent Christians from using the word Allah, escalating religious tensions in the multiracial country.

Many Malay Muslims, who make up 60 per cent of the population, are incensed by a recent High Court decision to overturn a ban on Roman Catholics using "Allah" as a translation for God in the Malay-language edition of their main newspaper, the Herald.

The government claims Allah, an Arabic word that predates Islam, is exclusive to the faith and by extension to Malays.

It refuses to make an exception, even though the Herald's Malay edition is read only by Christian indigenous tribes in the remote states of Sabah and Sarawak.

At Friday prayers at two main mosques in central Kuala Lumpur, young worshippers carried banners and gave fiery speeches, vowing to defend Islam.

"We will not allow the word Allah to be inscribed in your churches," one shouted into a loudspeaker at the Kampung Bahru mosque.

About 50 other people carried posters reading, "Heresy arises from words wrongly used" and, "Allah is only for us".

"Islam is above all. Every citizen must respect that," said Ahmad Johari, who attended prayers at the National Mosque. "I hope the court will understand the feeling of the majority Muslims of Malaysia. We can fight to the death over this issue."

Malaysia is often held up as a model for other Islamic countries because of its economic development, progressive society and generally peaceful coexistence between the Malay majority and the ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities, most of whom are Christians, Buddhists or Hindus.

The Allah controversy, however, has the potential to shatter that carefully nurtured harmony and scare away sorely-needed foreign investment as the country struggles to emerge from the global financial crisis.

Prime minister Najib Razak condemned the attacks on the churches by unidentified assailants, who struck before dawn in suburbs of Kuala Lumpur.

He said the government would "take whatever steps it can to prevent such acts."

Home minister Hishammuddin Hussein said: "We don't want this to spread out into something else... I am not only assuring the minorities, I am assuring all Malaysians that they are safe," he told reporters.

In the first attack, the ground-level office of the three-story Metro Tabernacle Church was destroyed in a blaze set off by a firebomb thrown by attackers on motorcycles soon after midnight, police said.

The worship areas on the upper two floors were undamaged and there were no injuries.

Two other churches were attacked hours later. One sustained minor damage, while the other was not damaged.

Many Malaysian Muslims say the use of Allah by others would mislead people, tempting them to convert to Christianity.