Malaysian police say they have arrested eight people over the firebombing of a church earlier this month.

马来西亚警方逮捕八名嫌疑犯，他们涉嫌本月早些时候用燃烧弹攻击一座教堂。

A government minister says the church attacks are the work of extremists

No-one was injured in the incident, but it was the first in a series of attacks that have highlighted religious and political divisions.

The attacks followed a 31 December court ruling allowing non-Muslims to use the word "Allah" for God, which the government is appealing against.

Some politicians have insisted on exclusive独占的，唯一的 rights for Malay Muslims.

Word divisions

Bakri Zinin, the federal police chief of criminal investigations¹, said that the eight suspects had been detained overnight in connection to the 8 January attack on Kuala Lumpur's Metro² Tabernacle Church.

Tensions flared³ after Malaysia's High Court ruled that a Roman Catholic newspaper, the Herald⁴, was permitted to use the word Allah安拉，真主 to describe God in its Malay language editions.

Some Muslim groups have argued that Christians⁵ using a word so closely associated with Islam could be a ploy⁶策略，活动 to win converts皈依者，改变宗教信仰者.

Other Muslim groups, such as the Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS) have said there is no bar to Christians and Jews using the word Allah.

Malays, who are required to be Muslim in Malaysia, make up a majority of the country's population alongside substantial Chinese and Indian minorities.

The Malaysian constitution gives primacy首位，大主教的职位 to Islam but allows the free practise of other faiths.

Under the slogan "One Malaysia", the government has made racial harmony a central policy. Its commitment to that policy is now being severely⁷ tested.

The "Allah" ban is unusual in the Muslim world. The Arabic word is commonly used by Christians to describe God in such countries as Egypt, Syria and even nearby Indonesia, which is the world's world's largest Muslim nation.