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Malaysian PM vows to keep defending name of Allah

Commitment reiterated in new year's message
Malaysian PM vows to keep defending name of Allah

Picture: Wikimedia Commons

Published: November 06, 2013 05:16 AM GMT
Updated: November 05, 2013 05:34 PM GMT

Datuk Seri Najib Razak assured Muslims today that his government would continue to defend the name of “Allah” and uphold the position of Islam, even as it embraced the concept of moderation.

The prime minister, in his message for today’s Maal Hijrah celebration, noted that even as Malaysia upholds the Federal Constitution and the position of Islam as the country’s official religion, it also holds strong to the concept of “Wasatiyyah” or moderation.

He reminded Muslims here that the underlying message of the Maal Hijrah celebration, or the Islamic new year, is to command Muslims to embrace changes and move forward.

“It will produce Muslims who are always creative and innovative, who stay relevant in the current times and challenge the mainstream,” he said in the message posted on his blog www.1malaysia.com.my

“To appreciate the broader meaning of migration, we still uphold our religion and defend the name of Allah for the sake of religion, race and our beloved country."

Malaysians have been embroiled in a major tug-of-war battle over the word “Allah”, the Arabic translation to “God” that many Muslim groups here insist belongs exclusively to those of the Islamic faith.

But Christians and other non-Muslim religious followers here have argued otherwise, a position that Malaysia’s Muslim-majority government disagreed with, and which later led to a dispute that led saw Catholic weekly The Herald hauled to court in 2009 for a long drawn out legal battle over the word.

Full Story: In Muslim New Year message, Najib pledges to defend ‘Allah’ 

Source:Herald Malaysia

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