KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 17 — As the court drags its feet in addressing the “Allah” controversy after more than a year, the Catholic Church has reprinted a rare 17th-century Malay-Latin dictionary in what seems to be a silent bid to speed up its case.
The “Dictionarium Malaico-Latin and Latino-Malaicum” was first published in 1631 by the Vatican Press in Rome. Church officials say it is historical proof that its missionaries had played a key role in the exchange of knowledge and culture between Europe and Southeast Asia some 400 years ago.
Reverend Lawrence Andrew, who had worked for the past 11 years to reprint the dictionary, told The Malaysian Insider it was crucial to counter the mistaken belief that the spread of Christianity through local languages in Malaysia was a recent 20th-century phenomenon.
“It’s to say it’s been here for a long time... 400 years,” said the editor of the Catholic Church’s local newspaper, The Herald Weekly.
The Herald had challenged the Home Ministry for the right to use the word “Allah” to describe God in the Christian context and had won in a landmark ruling at the High Court on New Year’s Eve in 2009. But the paper is unable to use it as the ministry managed to get a stay pending its appeal.
The Court of Appeal in Putrajaya has yet to fix a hearing date for the case. Veteran lawyers have said there is little the church can do speed up the process as there are no rules on a time limit; adding it was not unusual for a case to be called years after being filed.
Andrew had submitted a copy of the dictionary as historical evidence to back the church’s suit after the ministry tendered several essays by Islamic scholars from the influential Institute of Islamic Understanding here supporting its case.
The priest had got the Holy See’s approval to reprint the dictionary 12 years ago but was only able to do so recently due to a lack of resources.
“There was the cost and also the technology now has made it much easier to clean up the pages to make it fit for print. It was very tedious work as the copy on microfilm was not clear,” the priest explained.
The reprint of the dual-language dictionary is said to be an exact replica.
Andrew said the medieval spelling of the Malay words may prove hard to read and understand for the modern person, but he had decided against updating the spelling and typeset “so people cannot say we modified it”. More here
Well folks what can I say....
A year back I wrote a series of Articles on the Allah Issue.....macam buat Phd siut.....
I found out things as part of my fardu kifayah to share with my readers for all of you to think constructively on the issue....
Bukan senang siut...gua sampai tak tidur malam....
Should I let this one go......
Just accept Pakiam's angle on the issue?
Most of you would know me by now.....
Gua tak pernah telan bulat bulat anything that I read......
I have this constant urge to find out a wee bit more....
So here goes.......
First question....
What is Pakiam trying to prove?
