KUANTAN, June 22 — The Kelantan Islamic Religious and Malay Customs Council (Maik) is only performing its job as a government agency in proselytising the religion to the Orang Asli within the state, PAS Youth deputy chief Ahmad Fadhli Shaari said today.
Ahmad Fadhli, who is also the director of the Kelantan youth and sports secretariat, said Maik is responsible for anything to do with Islam in the state, adding that it only made sense for its officers to preach to the Orang Asli with the aim of converting them to the religion.
“All government agencies have their respective portfolios and focuses, so to bring the Orang Asli to Islam is part of Maik's,” he told reporters at the 65th PAS annual congress here
He pointed out that the Federal Constitution permits proseltysation of Islam to both Muslims and non-Muslims.
“So I do not see any issue with what Maik is doing,” Ahmad Fadhil said in response to criticism that the PAS-led state religious council is preying on financially vulnerable Orang Asli in its interior to increase the number of Muslims in the state.
Maik deputy chairman Nik Mohd Azlan Abd Hadi was reported by Utusan Malaysia yesterday saying the council has 100 preachers and is aiming to convert some 11,000 Orang Asli who have yet to embrace Islam within the next 30 years.
Nik Mohd Azlan was also quoted saying the state council is working with the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia to that end.
The news report was met with fierce criticism by lawyer and human rights activist Siti Kasim, who said such efforts were superficial at best and did not address the issues of health and welfare the Orang Asli face on a daily basis.
Political scientist Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid also piped up, telling news portal Free Malaysia Today that the Kelantan government would do better to focus on prioritising the restoration of the Orang Asli customary land rights rather than converting them.
The Orang Asli are aborigines in peninsular Malaysia who have customarily practised animism though some have converted to Islam and Christianity over the years through various aid programmes offered by missionaries.
Islam in Malaysia is regulated by the state under their respective state Rulers.
