A small reality check for those who see it as a more reliable model than the Middle Eastern variety:
According to a series of government orders and rulings by Malaysia’s Islamic councils, the word for God in the Malay language – “Allah” – is reserved for Muslims. Malay-language bibles are banned everywhere except inside churches. State regulations ban a list of words, including Allah, in any non-Muslim context …
Christians, who make up 10 percent of the country’s population, say the Allah ban is one of many signs that a conservative Islamic movement is steering an increasingly intolerant government policy. In recent weeks, the religious authorities have banned Muslims from taking part in Halloween and scolded them for petting dogs, which the state Islamic authorities view as unclean …
Perhaps more than at any time in recent decades, Malaysia’s moderate voices are sounding an alarm. Zainah Anwar, the founder of Sisters in Islam, a women’s rights group, describes a “headlong descent into a puritanical, extremist, intolerant brand of Islam in this country.”
The insistence that only Muslims can use a certain word for God has no real basis in Islamic theology; like other aspects of modern fundamentalism, it’s made up. The question is: why are these issues of such increasing concern to so many? Modernity’s bewilderment, I’d argue. When you feel the world shifting in ways you do not quite understand and certainly cannot control, religion can be a rock, and you cling to its quotidian minutiae as ways to stabilize the psyche. Islam is not the only religion that experiences this; but its austerity and concentration in non-Western societies makes its response all the more emphatic and non-negotiable. What to do about this? Contain, don’t inflame. And wait.
The Dish 