Malaysia and Allah

Were it not so serious, the hardening of the arteries of Malaysia's ulema is a case of advanced backwardness. They judged scandalous bordering on the blasphemous the use of 'Allah' by the Malaysian Catholic press. 'Allah', ruled they, is and can only be used by Muslims. Christian, they further pontificated that the Catholics only had the right to use 'Tuan' for the name of God, not Allah. So ruled the Muslim pooh bahs of religion. This ruling has earned the sclerotic Muslim theologians much ridicule, and the foreign press has had a small picnic in making fun of them.
The Malaysian ulema are a backward lot. They take the tree for the forest, so benighted that they are in reading the letter of the religious law so small betraying a monumental short sightedness. Let's face it, Arabic is not readily at their command, or even it were, they are ignorant as cabbages when it comes to linguistics let alone history. Had they an inkling of the truth, they would have grasped the fact that in Arabic 'Allah' is the name of God, and it is used by Jews, Christians, Druze, Muslims, Bahai, and any number of other religious sects. But as 18Brumaire says, they don't. They may know the 'fatiah', but to them it is a rote formula learnt at the madrassa without deeper meaning. It reminds 18Brumaire of the Arabic texts used well into the mid 20 Century describing humans. As an example, the medieval notion that the heart was located in the stomach was taught in spite of the advances of medicine. This is but an example of the distance in time and mentality that prevailed or prevails still between today's world and the universe of the carved in stone of medieval Arabic knowledge. To save the dark, shadowed minds from themselves and to put a slightly brighter and more modern face of Islam, the Malaysian government had to step in and over rule the almighty and sacrosaint upholders of Islam. Kuala Lumpur reversed the ulemas' judgment and thus sanctionned the use of 'Allah' by non Muslims in the Bahasa Melayiu press! Nonetheless the glaring backwardness of Malaysia's religious authorities is a troublesome sign that more harmful ignorance awaits non Muslims in Malaysia which is becoming more and more intolerant of others in a modern secular like state, tilting more and more towards theocracy and greater disciminations against non Muslims and oppression of Muslims in dress, behaviour, freedom of expression, and the like. The current state of political breakdown in Malaysia may very well hasten such a disasterous trend.