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This elicited a chorus of condemnation, and Christian authorities immediately engaged with the government mainly through its umbrella body, the Christian Federation of Malaysia (CFM). This was in addition to an earlier confiscation of 30,000 Alkitab in Sarawak – the state with the biggest Christian population in the country. The issue created a storm, and before the dust had even settled, in March 2009, some 5,100 copies of the Alkitab imported by the Bible Society of Malaysia were confiscated upon arrival at Port Klang. The government applied for and was granted a stay of the decision pending an appeal to the Court of Appeal. On December 31, 2009, the High Court declared illegal, null and void the order from the Home Ministry. The Herald then decided to go to court on the issue. Sometime in late 2008, the Home Ministry threatened to stop issuing the Catholic weekly newspaper Herald its annual publication permit unless it complied with an order to stop using the word Allah in its publication.
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Not only does that attribute an enormous credit on the largely passive Christians, it simultaneously demeans the intelligence of Muslims and the impact Islam has had on this region since its advent here from the 12th century. What is astonishing is that some parties would actually believe that the 9.1 percent minority Christians could possibly have the kind of extraordinary influence and resources to convert the 60 percent majority Muslims who yield political power in a country that has constitutionally entrenched Islam as its official religion and fortified it with laws that expressly make it a criminal offence to proselytise to Muslims. Never mind that the rationale peddled to justify the ban was never substantiated with any statistical or other cogent evidence. Never mind that the ban clearly violated freedom of religion guaranteed in the federal constitution. The rationale for the ban apparently was that the term is used in the Qur’an for God, and so using it in Christian publications would confuse Muslims in the country. This was followed by a string of state enactments that basically gave the circular the force of law. This became a controversy when the home ministry in 1986 issued a circular banning use of this word by non-Muslims on grounds of national security. Thus, it is no surprise that recent developments concerning the Alkitab have left them distressed and disillusioned. Since the early 17th century, Malay has been the medium of worship, preaching, prayer and religious education in what is now East Malaysia.
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So we can say the Christian population in Malaysia is a largely Malay-speaking one. Of the more than two million Christians in Malaysia (approximately 9.1 percent of the population), 70 percent of them are in East Malaysia. A great majority of the people there speak their indigenous languages as well as Malay, Malaysia’s national language. This sense of appreciation is probably most intense in the territories of Sarawak and Sabah in East Malaysia. Millions of Malay-speaking people have been able to learn and experience the richness of the Christian faith in their lives because of the effort of Albert and many more after him. In 1612, the Gospel of Matthew was translated into Malay by a Dutch tradesman, Albert Cornelisz Ruyl. The controversies had much of their roots in startling interventions by the government of the day. While the holy book has been for hundreds of years the source of spiritual nourishment for many Malay-speaking Christian communities in Southeast Asia, it has never stirred the kind of controversies that have emerged in modern Malaysia in recent years. The Bible Society of Malaysia and the Protestants’ Theological Seminary of Malaysia are organizing an academic conference and public forum March 2-3 in Seremban and Petaling Jaya to mark the anniversary. This year marks the 400 th anniversary of the Alkitab, the Bible in the Malay language. Published: Ma03:30 AM GMT Updated: Ma03:32 AM GMT