ASEAN ministers meet to mull Islamic sect ban

ASEAN ministers meet to mull Islamic sect ban

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Four Southeast Asian nations were to adopt a joint strategy during ministerial talks yesterday aimed at outlawing a powerful Islamic messianic sect which has triggered security concerns in the region, officials said.

"We expect a common line of action to face the religious and social threat posed by the Al-Arqam movement," Hamid Othman, a senior official in Malaysian Premier Mahathir Mohamad's office said from the northern island resort of Langkawi.

Hamid spoke as the ministers in charge of Islamic affairs of Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Indonesia began their one-day meeting in Langkawi.

Senior Islamic government officials of Thailand and the Philippines were also taking part in the meeting, an annual affair under the auspices of the six-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

"The Islamic authorities in Indonesia, Brunei and Singapore have already agreed that Al-Arqam is deviationist. We are now hoping the three will follow Malaysia's footsteps to thwart the group's growth in their respective countries," Hamid said.

Al-Arqam, which began as a study group among Moslem scholars in Kuala Lumpur in 1968, has blossomed into a powerful and wealthy missionary group with branches in 15 countries under its elusive self-styled leader Ashaari Muhammad.

The movement -- believed to have 100,000 followers and sympathizers in Malaysia alone and several thousand overseas -- came under close scrutiny only recently, after Kuala Lumpur accused it of training a suicide squad to defend its controversial beliefs. Al-Arqam and Thailand, where Malaysia says the squad was partially trained, have denied the charges.

The Malaysian Islamic clergy has charged that the teachings, propagated by 57-year-old Ashaari, smack of mysticism and deviate from Islamic scriptures.

The state-run Islamic center says it has video evidence of Ashaari claiming to have had dialogs with the Prophet Mohammed, a claim which Ashaari himself does not deny.

"If such an allegation is in fact true, I am not disgraced by it, because this is part of Islam," Ashaari told AFP in a recent interview in Thailand's northern Chiang Mai city.

"Fatwa"

Malaysia's powerful council of Islamic elders was preparing to issue a "fatwa" (religious ruling) banning Al-Arqam tomorrow and Hamid said he expected similar pronouncements in Indonesia, Brunei and Singapore after the Langkawi meeting.

Ashaari is a persona-non-grata in Singapore, Indonesia and Brunei while Thailand, under pressure from Kuala Lumpur, reportedly ordered him out last week after providing him sanctuary for the last six years.

Malaysian police chief Rahim Noor said Ashaari had fled to Jordan.

Al-Arqam officials in Kuala Lumpur said they failed to understand why Southeast Asian governments were clamping down their movement as there was no proof to back claims that they were a security threat.

"Ours is only a religious struggle and we will let God judge us for our doings. Going by our sacred struggle, victory is a promised one," Al-Arqam's senior liaison officer Mohamed Rodhi Daud said.

Ashaari said: "Even if ASEAN governments clamped the activities of Al-Arqam, they are doing it solely to maintain close ties with Malaysia. We totally understand their predicament."