KUALA LUMPUR, April 20 — After claims of Ustaz Ayub Abdul Rahman’s alleged past service in the German priesthood were debunked, organisers of a Sabah convention that was to feature the Islamic scholar have completely removed his name from its lineup of events.
According to fresh promotional materials of the “Mahrajan Ilmu Al-Quran Sabah 2016” posted on Facebook this afternoon, Ayub, who was initially slated to speak in at least two events, will no longer take the stage during the convention.
The materials posted by Institut Pengajian al-Quran (IPaQ), a co-organiser of the event that kicked off today, instead showed the list of the convention’s other speakers for a series of talks to be held several locations during the two-day programme.
Controversy first arose when Facebook users spotted an April 12 poster on the Sabah Islamic Religious Affairs Department’s (Jheains) page that described Ayub as a former priest at the Church of St Augustine of Canterbury at “Frankfurter” in Germany and the 2005 recipient of the Maal Hijrah Personality award for Sarawak in the category of new Muslim converts.
Users suggested that his credentials were made up, and this was later confirmed by the Episcopal church in Wiesbaden, Germany, who told Malay Mail Online that Ayub had never served as a priest nor held any official functions there.
IPaQ yesterday posted on its Facebook page a slightly different version of the poster, which omitted Ayub’s alleged former position as a priest.
This morning, however, it removed this poster from Facebook.
Calls to the number listed on IPaQ’s Facebook account went unanswered, while a number listed on what is believed to be its website was not in service.
Malay Mail Online has yet to receive an email response from IPaQ.
The three individuals listed on IPaQ’s Facebook account as the persons in charge of registration and handling queries have not picked up or responded to text messages from Malay Mail Online.
After making calls to all the other co-organisers listed in IPaQ’s Facebook post, Malay Mail Online was directed to ask Jheains, which in turn said IPaQ was the main organiser responsible for bringing in the speakers.
The co-organisers of the convention are the Federal Territories Islamic Religious Council (Maiwp), Jheains, the Sabah Islamic Religious Council (Muis) and the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia’s (Jakim) Sabah branch.
IPaQ’s Facebook page describes itself as a non-governmental organisation and a foundation based at Petaling Jaya’s Masjid Tun Abdul Aziz, also stating that it conducts programmes covering the appreciation and application of knowledge from the al-Quran.
