PAS has ‘selective memory’, ex-MP says after Howard Lee’s apology

“PAS will conveniently forget that its top leaders not only allowed their non-Muslim supporters to cite Quranic verses, but also cheered them on”. Raja Bahrin said there are videos of several PAS ceramahs to back his claim.

(FMT) – A former PAS MP said an apology tendered by DAP MP Howard Lee over the use of a Quranic verse in a political video was proof the Islamic party suffers from “very selective memory”.

In the apology, Lee pointed out that PAS’s non-Muslim supporters’ wing and its coalition partner Gerakan had also previously quoted from the holy book.

Raja Kamarul Bahrin Shah said Lee’s comments showed that PAS “excelled at selective persecution” rather than religious correctness. He said PAS’s objections were all about gaining political mileage.

“PAS will conveniently forget that its top leaders not only allowed their non-Muslim supporters to cite Quranic verses, but also cheered them on,” the Terengganu Amanah chief told FMT. Amanah is a PAS splinter party.

“I guess when it suits PAS, everything is kosher, but when non-PAS supporters do it, all hell breaks loose. Why the double standard?” he said.

Raja Bahrin said PAS has strayed from being a puritanical Islamic party to a “power grabbing party which resorts to any means to gain power”.

He also called the party out for refusing to adopt an inclusive approach when dealing with non-Muslims.

Instead, he said, they chastise non-Muslims, especially non-PAS supporters, who try to familiarise themselves with the Quran as if the Quran was “exclusively theirs to quote”.

Raja Bahrin cited PAS’s Sanusi Nor’s “vulgar” attack on Lee using “un-Islamic words”, as reported by Malaysiakini, as a prime example of the party’s duplicity.

He said such attacks would turn non-Muslims away from Islamic teachings.

“This ‘toxic preaching’ by PAS gives Islam a bad image. Unlike Muslim figures who endear themselves to others by explaining and making Islam accessible, PAS today creates a hostile atmosphere such that the Quran is seen as a book exclusively for Muslims,” he said.

Lee, who is the Ipoh Timur MP, came under fire from PAS politicians recently for using a Quranic verse in an address to his supporters.

Umno secretary-general Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki defended Lee, who is being investigated for his comments, saying similar actions by DAP leaders in the past, when PAS and DAP were allies, had been approved by the Islamic party.