KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) _ Christian leaders in Malaysia have refused to stop using the word “Allah” for God despite attacks on nine churches in the Muslim-majority country since Friday.
Daniel Raut, a leader of the Borneo Evangelical Church — the largest Malay-speaking congregation in the country — says members of his congregation are frightened, but will pray for God’s protection.
He says their tribe has called God “Allah” since they first become Christians in the 1920s.
The attacks followed a Dec. 31 court ruling that overturned a government ban on the use of “Allah” by Catholics in the Malay-language edition of their newspaper. The ban and its reversal also apply to Malay-language Bibles, 10,000 copies of which were seized by authorities because they translated God as Allah.
The government has condemned the attacks as the work of extremists, but also has appealed the ruling.