KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 10 — Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has moved in recent weeks to minimise the fallout from accusations that he is selling out Islam to win the support of non-Muslims.
The de facto leader of Pakatan Rakyat (PR) has been meeting local Islamic activists and scholars to explain his position in an apparent acknowledgement of his PKR party's fall in popularity among conservative Malay-Muslim voters.
The opposition leader has in the past week addressed two meetings of former leaders of the Islamic Youth Movement (Abim) to deny allegations that he has been placing Islam on an equal footing with other religions.
Anwar (picture) was a founding leader of the influential movement and was elected its second president in the 1970s prior to joining Umno but he was recently accused of promoting religious pluralism by a group of former Abim leaders who say that it would allow Muslims to leave the religion.
Two Sundays ago, he had met about 100 former Abim leaders in a three-hour meeting to explain his lecture at the London School of Economics last March entitled “Religion and pluralism in a divided world.”
Critics of Anwar claimed that the lecture proved that the former deputy prime minister supports religious pluralism in Malaysia where Islam is enshrined as the official religion.
“He explained the controversy surrounding the religious pluralism issue and offered his explanation on his lecture so it is no longer misunderstood,” said a former Abim president, Dr Muhammad Nur Manuty, who was at the gathering.
“He explained the context of his lecture in London, which was directed to the international community to adhere strictly to the religious teachings, in order to address common issues and problems faced by humanity,” said the PKR information chief who claimed that the meeting went smoothly.
But another former Abim president, Dr Yusri Mohammad, said the meeting was far from cordial.
“What I can say is Anwar’s Twitter message was not accurate. I can say that the meeting was quite heated,” Yusri told The Malaysian Insider.
Soon after the Sunday night meeting, Anwar posted a message on microblogging site Twitter, saying that the “meeting of old Abim friends” went well.
“His Twitter messages were not truthful accounts of what transpired at the meeting,” said Yusri.
He, however, refused to provide details of the discussion.
“I cannot reveal the content, but I can say that Anwar was not telling the truth when he gave the impression that there was no disagreement and blamed the media for the controversy,” he said.
Yusri has been very critical of Anwar’s stand on Islam and at a forum organised by Muslim group Muafakat last month, he had accused Anwar of promoting religious pluralism through his think-tank, the Institute for Policy Research (IKD).
The forum, which was also supported by several government Islamic agencies, claimed that religious pluralism promotes religious equality and supports freedom to convert out of Islam.
Yusri also alleged that IKD, headed by Anwar’s former press secretary Khalid Jaafar, and its sister organization, the Middle Eastern Graduates Centre, have been publishing “dangerous” books that promote religious equality.
Last Tuesday night, Anwar also delivered a lecture on Islam and democracy at an Islamic college founded by his successor in Abim, Dr Siddiq Fadzil.
Through his lecture he reminisced about his past association with the once influential organisation and how they were ahead of other Islamic movements.
“I may be biased on this matter, but I believe Abim’s contribution in shaping a new way of Islamic revivalism, in terms of rights and foreign issues, was different from other Islamic organisations,” said Anwar.
“We had dialogues with churches in Kuala Lumpur and in Cameron Highlands. We had joint training with people of other faiths in Port Dickson because we have the confidence and were not afraid of interacting with others,” he added.
Anwar also reminded the crowd of 300 people not to be dragged into the discussion on Malay supremacy, calling it a racist concept adopted by “the other side.”
“We have debated against this since the 1970s. In campuses we fought against racism, there is nothing new in it,” said Anwar.
“The difference is under a very oppressive system, we allow a segment of the community to accept one group as the only defender of the Malays. This is not right.
“We cannot defend our Islamic credentials by adopting the approach of our friends from the other side who use racism when addressing Malay issues and inciting racial hatred,” he added.
The lecture was organised by Wadah, an Islamic NGO made up of former Abim leaders, who plan to hold similar lectures nationwide.
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