A former president of the Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement (Abim) founded by jailed opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, admitted that the once influential group had close links with the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), a Saudi-based group which alongside the Muslim World League (MWL) have been recently linked to extremist ideologies behind such militant groups as Al Qaeda, Taliban and Islamic State (IS).
But the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001 forced Abim to end its ties with WAMY, said Muhammad Nur Manuty.
“We had minimised our relationship with them after they became weak from the attacks,” said Nur, who led Abim until 1997, just a year before Anwar’s dramatic sacking from the government that sparked Malaysia’s worst political crisis in recent history.
Anwar, a firebrand student leader in the seventies, had once led Abim when it wielded influence among the youths, mobilising thousands of university students in large-scale anti-government protests.
That was until he was roped in by newly installed prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to join the ruling Umno in 1981, quickly rising to become Mahathir’s deputy, before the two fell out in 1998.
Following Anwar’s entry into the government, Abim had largely remained apolitical, and concentrated on educational and socio-religious activities, including building Islamic schools and welfare centres.
‘We benefitted previously’
Nur, an academic trained in Islamic and comparative studies from the renowned Temple University in the US, said WAMY largely consisted of Muslim intellectuals at that time.
But some two decades ago, Abim decided not to be “caught in the Saudi and Middle East political agenda”.
“We want to keep links with those that will benefit us,” he told FMT.
The Dewan Negara senator however stopped short of saying whether Abim had received monetary help from its association with the group.
He said the relationship “benefitted us previously” in the field of Islamic scholarship.
It was recently reported that MWL was among parties involved in the establishment of the King Salman Centre for International Peace (KSCIP), a Saudi “counter terrorism” outfit to be hosted by the Malaysian government.
Prime Minister Najib Razak recently announced that the government had allocated 16ha of land for KSCIP in Putrajaya, but little else is known about the centre.
A report by a British think tank had named MWL and WAMY of promoting extremism and hate.
The report, “Foreign Funded Extremism in the U.K.”, released early this month by Henry Jackson Society, said WAMY “has had a long history of involvement with the promotion of violent Islamist extremism and the distribution of hateful literature” in Britain.
“Equally, MWL has had officials and member organisations linked to both Al-Qaeda and the Taliban,” it added.
MWL has for years acted as Riyadh’s chief mouthpiece in the Muslim world, helped by Saudi petro-dollars which enabled it to construct large-scale Islamic centres in major cities in Europe, Asia and Africa.
Claims ‘inaccurate’
After Saudi Arabia and several Arab countries announced an all-out embargo against Qatar, MWL swiftly announced it was cutting all ties with prominent Islamic scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
Riyadh said the Qatar-based cleric, a recipient of the Malaysian government’s Maal Hijrah Award for contributions to Islam, had links to terrorism, a now-familiar accusation by the Saudis against those who sympathise with the Muslim Brotherhood movement.
Meanwhile, Abim’s current president Mohamad Raimi Abd Rahim refused to comment on allegations of MWL’s links to extremism.
“Most of the contentions were based on intelligence sources which must be further clarified,” he told FMT.
Referring to US claims of the presence of dangerous weapons in Iraq in 2003, which later proved wrong, Raimy said it showed such reports could be “inaccurate, if not political”.
“Since Muslim World League is not in the list of banned organisations, we would assume that the organisation has been verified by the security apparatus as not being linked to terrorism. It is beyond our resources to suggest otherwise,” Raimy added.
Raimy said Abim currently raised funds through its 50,000 members as well as from zakat contributions.
“We have not received any funding from any Saudi organisation,” he said.
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