SHIA Islam is a bigger threat than the Islamic State (IS) militant group to Sunni Muslims in the Asean region, said scholars in a conference in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

Malaysian scholar Dr Hafiz Basir told The Malaysian Insight that he considered Shia Islam to be more dangerous because it was supported by Iran and the Hezbollah, a major Lebanese party.

“IS is just a collection of independent cells with little financial backing. And all the countries are fighting IS,” the Selangor International Islamic University College lecturer said on the sidelines of the Khayr Ummah Conference 2017. 

“But no Muslim country is against the Shia. So to me, the Shia are a bigger threat.”

Senior Umno leader Mohd Puad Zarkashi at the conference said Shia Islam and IS were equally dangerous to the region.

“The Shia are a threat to the sanctity of the faith itself. Their teachings are contradictory to Sunni Islam, while IS is dangerous because they take up arms and kill people,” Puad who is director-general of the government’s Special Affairs Department (Jasa).

“So the effect is the same, they divide the Muslim community. That’s why this conference is important to bring Muslims in Asean together,” he said

The conference was sponsored by Jasa, local NGOs Ilmu and Al-Khaadem, UiTM, and Saudi Arabia’s Islamic Affairs Ministry.

Shia Muslims account for about 10% to 20% of the 1.8 billion Muslims worldwide.

At the conference, Prof Rahmat Mohamad said major terror attacks such as the bombings in Bali in 2002 and of the JW Marriot in Jakarta in 2009 were carried out by Sunni Muslim terrorists.

The recent two-month siege of Marawi city in the Philippines was also carried out by Sunni Muslim militants.

Meanwhile, Jordanian scholar Syaikh Abdullah al-Luhaidan claimed that Shia Muslims aimed to undermine Sunni Muslim countries the world over by utilising “soft power” and supporting home-grown militants.

“Shia followers want to destroy unity among the Sunnis. They claim they want to free Palestine, but it is all untrue,” he told a panel discussing “Extremist groups that disunite the Muslim community”.

“The Shia adopted ideology to deviate Muslims from the right way, hence they established cultural missions but in reality they’s just ways to spread the Shia ideology.”

Syaikh Abdullah accused Iran, where Shia Islam is the dominant sect,  of funding terror groups such as IS and al-Qaeda.

Global affairs experts say Iran is locked in battle with a Saudi-led bloc of Gulf nations for domination of the Middle East.

The civil wars in Syria and Yemen, political instability in Lebanon and the Qatar diplomatic crisis are symptoms of this growing tussle for regional dominance.

Two days ago, Saudi Arabia and its allies Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt declared a Qatari-based global association of prominent Muslim scholars a terrorist group.

The International Union of Muslim Scholars claims to be connected to 90,000 Muslim scholars worldwide and that it aims to bridge the divide between Sunnis and Shias. PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang is a vice-president in the organisation. – November 27, 2017.