Nik Zawawi Salleh speaks during the 54th PAS Dewan Ulama Muktamar in Gombak, Selangor, today. – The Malaysian pic by Nazir Sufari, June 3, 2015.
Newly converted Chinese Christians are to be blamed for the anti-hudud movement in society which is preventing PAS from implementing its Islamist agenda, said a leader from the party’s ulama wing.
Nik Zawawi Salleh, who is the wing’s deputy, said that a wave of Christian conversions among the Chinese increased opposition to the party’s Kelantan Shariah Criminal Code.
This opposition towards hudud, said Nik Zawawi, is not just from those in the DAP, but also from Chinese Christian leaders in Barisan Nasional component parties, MCA and Gerakan.
Nik Zawawi said, unlike Buddhism, Christianity is a missionary faith and had a history of conflict with Islam. But Buddhism did not.
“This wave has been going on for the past 10 years,” said Nik Zawawi in his winding up speech during the ulama wing’s assembly in Gombak today.
“In the past, Buddhists have not opposed our aim of implementing Shariah law in Kelantan,” Nik Zawawi said.
But he claimed that this changed in the past 10 years as more Chinese leaders in DAP, MCA and Gerakan started converting to Christianity.
“When they become Christians, they are worried about Islamic principles being implemented in Malaysia. So they attack us so that Islamic principles cannot be implemented in Malaysia.
“They are different from Buddhists who have not attacked us,” said Nik Zawawi.
He added that the party’s syura council, a committee of its most senior scholars, is due to meet and decide over how the party is supposed to deal with this phenomenon.
PAS faces stiff opposition from its Pakatan Rakyat partners DAP and PKR, and all non-Muslim parties in the BN to its aim of enforcing the Kelantan Shariah Criminal code.
Civil society groups such as the Bar Council and the G25 have also opposed the code and PAS’s efforts to amend federal laws to allow Kelantan to enforce it.
These parties have opposed hudud ever since the Kelantan PAS government passed the enactment in 1993.
Umno, the country’s largest party of Muslims, had also opposed the Kelantan enactment when former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed was in charge.
