The ‘Keepers of the Keys to the Eternal Kingdom”  have never agreed on who holds the right key to fit the door of eternity, and throughout  millennia  of religious and spiritual belief we’ve come to accept and acknowledge that this is the way it’s always going to be. Nonetheless, the capacity for religions to fight among themselves, and disagree and argue about their particular claim to the Deity in the face of immense human suffering leaves me bewildered. For example, in terms of invoking the Name of God for a cause, there’s nothing more chilling today than hearing fighters in Syria scream ‘Allah Akbar” as they send missiles, bullets, grenades and chemical weapons into local neighbourhood killing innocent men, women and children in the name of religious orthodoxy.
It is an unfolding tragedy for humanity that different people of different faith and spiritual beliefs are never going to agree on many things and will never give ground on their respective claims to having private access to the Deity’s direct line in ‘Heaven’. Notwithstanding Prince Charles’s proclamation that when he ascends the throne of the United Kingdom he will be the defender of all faiths, such sentiments are just not shared by other commonwealth nations. He ought to take heed of this now and note that levels of disagreement have reached the heights of the absurd, as a Malaysian court rules that non-Muslims cannot use the word Allah to refer to their Deity.
Surely the concept of a universal Deity is bigger than all of the world’s religions combined? Furthermore whatever forms the Deity takes at any given time in history we can be quite sure IT isn’t too concerned about an argument based on nationalistic – religiosity and  linguistic reductionism about who can or cannot use the word Allah.  History throws up a plethora of terms for the Deity. For example the English noun God is used across cultures and countries to name the Deity and as far as I know no-one throughout the recent millennial of the Abrahamic religions has claimed copyright to it-at least not up until now.
The absurdity of this law is in its attempt to make a legal ruling based upon a meta-physical belief in a supreme being, without the physical evidence to support such an assertion in the first place. It is illogical. However if we are to accept this reductio ad absurdum then there’s very little to worry about because the great Deity literally has hundreds of names available for the non Muslim citizens of Malaysia and the world to choose from.

Firstly there are the 101 names of God:

(Wikipedia, 2013)

And, if that isn’t enough there are over 950 other names ascribed to the Deity too, so non-Muslims in Malaysia take your pick! But perhaps it is worthwhile to remember that it isn’t so much about the name, but more about those who claim adherence to any particular faith and how they practice it. To make a legal ruling on who can and cannot use Allah, God or Deity or any other name for that matter isn’t about religious faith or spirituality it’s about adhering to an inflexible ideology which just doesn’t understand that even the concept of a God is “beyond full comprehension by humans; has an endless number of virtues; takes on innumerable forms, but is formless; and can be called by an infinite number of names thus “Your Names are so many, and Your Forms are endless. No one can tell how many Glorious Virtues You have” Allah. (Wikipedia, 2013)

Wikipedia. (2013, August 19). Names of God. Retrieved from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/101_Names_of_God