Prof sees bad omen in Riyadh-Putrajaya ties

PETALING JAYA: A political analyst has voiced concern over the strengthening of ties between Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, saying it may have grave long-term effects on the way ordinary Malays perceive their religion.

Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid, a professor at Universiti Sains Malaysia, said he feared that Prime Minister Najib Razak’s increasing closeness with the Saudi regime might encourage the spread of Salafi ideas in Malaysia.

“Najib has been cozying up to Saudi Arabia despite increasing evidence that the Saudi-born Salafism is precisely the very rigid school of Islamic thought that is fuelling extremism all over the world,” Fauzi told FMT.

“Many people have already pointed out that the religious practices of most Malays have been going towards a more rigid direction and Malays do this sometimes not consciously but because this is the Islam that has been portrayed to them and supported by government-backed scholars.”

He said Najib, instead of acting like a statesman, appeared to be behaving like a politician trying to gain popularity among Muslims.

“I don’t know whether it has to do with 1MDB or other factors, but he has in fact put Umno in a corner by siding with a country that propagates a very rigid school of thought which I don’t think even he embraces,” he added.

Last July, Najib announced that the government had decided to earmark 16 hectares of land in Putrajaya to build the King Salman Centre for International Peace because the Saudi monarch had chosen to site it in Malaysia.

One of the objectives of the institution is to fight the threat of terrorism.

Several quarters, including controversial Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (Jakim) officer Zamihan Mat Zin, criticised the idea of asking the Saudi government to help fight terrorism in Southeast Asia.

Zamihan said it was “unrealistic” and Islamic Renaissance Front director Ahmad Farouk Musa said it made “little sense”.

Recently, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies added to their “terror list” an international organisation of Muslim scholars whose leaders include PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang.

This came soon after Hadi criticised the Saudi regime for “forging intimate ties” with Israel and the United States.

Fauzi said Hadi also appeared to be speaking like a politician, choosing a stance that would ensure his party would not lose supporters.

“Hadi used to be a Salafi, as proven by the Amanat Haji Hadi,” he said. “But this was Hadi in the 80s. He has matured and now realises that PAS itself is a congregation of many thoughts and views and he knows he cannot maintain a particular rigid way of interpreting Islam if he is going to get support from the wide spectrum that makes up PAS supporters.”

He said these supporters included Shia Muslims.

“Among PAS supporters, you have traditionalists, you have Salafis, and you even have modernists. Hadi, as PAS president, is expected to judiciously maintain unity within the party and that includes not eliminating groups or orientations in the party which are not in line with his own Islamic leaning.” -FMT