KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 5 — A bi-partisan group by Umno and PAS “liberals” to combat racism are stooges of a purported Western agenda to deceive Muslims into abandoning their religious identity, Islamist group Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (Isma) alleged today.

Accusing Umno’s Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah and PAS MP Datuk Mujahid Yusof Rawa of selling out Islam for scant worldly pleasures, Isma president Abdullah Zaik Abd Rahman insisted there was nothing racist about fighting for the interests of Malays and Islam.

“They are only dressing up their liberal agenda with glittery slogans to mislead the community,” Abdullah Zaik said on the IsmaWeb portal.

He accused the two attempting to dilute the identity of Malays and Islam and replace it with one bereft of “personality and loyalty”.

The two from rival political parties reached across partisan lines last week to launch a movement to address what they considered worsening racism in multiracial Malaysia.

Mujahid is set to lead the yet-unnamed group, with Saifuddin, who also heads the Global Movement of Moderates, to be his deputy.

Today, Abdullah Zaik also claimed that the two were looking to “escape” their political parties, which he said did not accept their liberal ideas and agendas.

Despite attacking the group, he insisted that it would not be a rival to Isma, but instead alleged that they were seeking to influence the Muslim group’s programme with Western liberal ideas.

“Isma’s struggle is based on Islam. In Islamic principles, we love our own race more than we love ourselves,” Abdullah Zaik added.

The Isma president did not elaborate on what it considered to be the liberal Western agenda, or how combating racism was categorised as such.

He also neglected to state what worldly pleasures the two are accused of receiving to adopt this purported agenda.

The new group by Mujahid and Saifuddin follows another Isma target, Negara-Ku, which is a coalition of 60 non-governmental groups touted as a “people’s movement to reclaim the country” formed two months ago.

Isma and other groups like it have attacked Negara-Ku by claiming it, among others, challenges the rights of Muslims and Malays.

Mujahid and Saifuddin are also members of Putrajaya’s National Unity Consultative Council tasked with drawing up harmony laws to replace the Sedition Act, of which Isma is also critical for allegedly undermining Malay-Muslim interests.

Isma and Mujahid previously clashed after the PAS lawmaker accused the former of being “more racist” that Malay rights group Perkasa.