JAIS targets ex-Perlis mufti for unauthorised lecture

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 2 — Ex-Perlis mufti Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin could face an Islamic court for ostensibly lecturing without a permit after he was briefly held at a religious lecture in Ampang last night but the maverick is claiming blatant persecution.

He has been ordered to turn up for further questioning at the Gombak district Islamic Affairs Department at 9am today after he was earlier freed at 1.10am on police bail.

He told reporters later the Selangor Islamic Affairs Department (JAIS) claimed he was giving lectures without a permit.

"I take this as selective persecution as they have always targeted me. This is a planned arrest as I am sure there are other religious lectures or gatherings like this elsewhere in Selangor," said Asri, who recently returned from post-graduate studies in Britain.

Some 35 JAIS enforcement officials and 25 policemen detained him at the lecture in a businessman's house in the posh Taman Sri Ukay area at about 9.30pm. More than 300 people including PKR Ampang MP Zuraida Kamaruddin and Hulu Klang assemblyman Saari Sungib were at the lecture that began at 8pm.

"The JAIS action doesn't make sense not because I want them to respect me but they should know that I am the former Perlis mufti," he added.

A mufti is the highest-ranking religious official appointed to advise a state Ruler on Islamic laws, which is under royal purview. A mufti has wide powers that even the Selangor palace recently ticked off its religious executive councillor Datuk Dr Hasan Ali for interfering in the execution of Islamic laws.

But Asri, who is being courted by PAS to join the Islamist party, questioned the need for a permit for those lecturing in Selangor.

"I want to explain that even when I was the Perlis mufti, JAIS said that all muftis can lecture in Selangor except me.

"So imagine if they ask me why I didn't apply for authorisation. They had already stopped me from speaking when I was holding the mufti post," he added.

Always a controversial figure while even a mufti, Asri had recently slammed critics against his appointment as head of national Islamic missionary movement YADIM sponsored by the federal government.

He had also courted bad publicity in the past for allegedly following the puritanical Wahabbi Islam practised in Saudi Arabia.

"They didn't arrest me for being a Wahabbi, just for not having a permit to lecture," Asri clarified. Most Malaysian Muslims follow the Shafie school of jurisprudence, one of the four recognised schools in Sunni Islam.

Ampang district police chief ACP Abdul Jalil Hassan told Bernama that police only helped in the raid and he had no knowledge it was related to the ex-Perlis mufti. (TMI)