DHAKA: Malaysian Islamic authorities on Thursday seized hundreds of Bibles from a Christian group and detained two of their officers, one of them said, amid tensions over the use of ‘Allah’.

A court in October barred a Malaysian Catholic newspaper from using ‘Allah’ to refer to the Christian God in its Malay-language edition, a verdict welcomed by Muslim conservatives, but which sparked concern among Christians, a minority in the multi-faith country.

After the verdict, prime minister Najib Razak, walking a tightrope between pleasing his conservative Muslim ethnic Malay base without alienating the country’s non-Muslim minorities, assured Christians their practice would not be threatened.

But Islamic officials from central Selangor state, just next to the capital Kuala Lumpur, on Thursday seized 16 boxes containing more than 300 Bibles from the Bible Society of Malaysia, the society’s president Lee Min Choon said, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 1641 HRS, JAN 02, 2014
Edited by Robab Rosan, Current Affairs Editor