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ontroversy over a verse in the Quran used against incumbent Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama has not ended yet as the gubernatorial election enters its campaign period this week.

Recently, netizens have suspected that someone or a group of people had doctored the Indonesian interpretation of the Al Maidah 51 verse to favor Ahok, a Christian of Chinese descent.

The allegation went viral on social media after a Facebook user, Seuramoe Mekkah, posted a photo
showing a copy of the Indonesian translation of the verse. The post had a caption that read: “Move quickly. A new translated version of Al Maidah 51 is now circulating. ‘Leaders’ has been changed to ‘close friends’.”

The Quran in the picture was published by PT Iqro Indonesia Global. The company has reported the owner of the Facebook account to the Yogyakarta Police in Central Java for libel.

The Arabic word in question, which the Facebook account owner and some netizens claimed had been changed, is awliya, which has various meanings depending on its context.

The Religious Affairs Ministry had clarified that “close friends” is the current translation of the word auliya in the verse. The ministry said the translation had not been changed since 2002.

“It is not true that there was editing in the translation of the Quran recently. The claim that the editing was done under the order of the Religious Affairs Ministry is also not true,” Muchlis M. Hanafi, the head of the Quran interpretation unit at the ministry, wrote in a clarification received by The Jakarta Post recently.

He said the word auliyah was mentioned 42 times in the Quran and the meaning differed depending on the context. For example, in one verse it was translated as “leaders” or “protectors” while elsewhere it was translated to “close friends”.

Muchlis acknowledged that it was quite normal for some Islamic scholars to have disagreements over the interpretation of a verse as its meaning could be deep. He further said the translated version of the Quran “is not the Quran” but rather “the interpretation of the meaning of the Quran”.

Earlier, Ahok became the subject of criticism after he mentioned the verse to criticize politicians who often used it to attack him and to influence Muslims against voting for non-Muslim candidates.

His statement appeared in a video that went viral on social media resulting in some Islamic groups, who accused Ahok of criticizing the Quran rather than politicians, to report him to the police for blasphemy. They also took to the streets to press the police to arrest him.

Ahok’s statement in the video, released ahead of the Jakarta gubernatorial election in which Ahok is one of the candidates, increased religious sentiments that led to some netizens posting sectarian comments on social media that discouraged Muslims from voting for a non-Muslim.

Ahok eventually apologized, saying he did not intend to insult the Quran and Islam but rather he was criticizing the politicians who used the verse to attack him. Despite his apology, Islamic groups have still urged the police to arrest him.

The National Police are investigating the case and on Monday, investigators summoned the governor discuss his statement in the video. Previously, the police also extracted information from a number of witnesses including linguists and Islamic scholars from both the ministry and the Indonesian Ulema Council.