Malaysia, the bastion of “moderate” Islam.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia’s top court ruled Monday that non-Muslims cannot use the word “Allah” to refer to God, delivering the final word on a contentious debate that has reinforced complaints that religious minorities are treated unfairly in the Muslim-majority country.

In a 4-3 judgment, the Federal Court rejected a challenge by the Roman Catholic Church and upheld a government ban on the use of the word. Most Christians in Malaysia worship in English, Tamil or various Chinese dialects, and refer to God in those languages but some Malay-speaking people on Borneo island have no other word for God but “Allah,” a Malay word derived from Arabic.

The church had argued that the ban failed to consider the rights of all minorities in the largely Muslim nation. The lengthy court cases, which began in 2009, had also raised the fundamental question whether freedom of religion guaranteed by the constitution is real.

“We are disappointed. The four judges who denied us the right to appeal did not touch on fundamental basic rights of minorities,” said Rev. Lawrence Andrew, editor of The Herald, the newspaper at the center of the controversy.