KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s moderate premier came to power as the man who could halt its march toward Islamic conservatism, but three years later his countrymen wonder if he has unwittingly hastened the process instead.

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has taken a lead in trying to put a more moderate, modern face on Islam, using his influence as both an Islamic scholar and chairman of the Muslim world’s largest grouping, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.

But at home, things are not all going to plan.

This month, a government official in northern Terengganu state caused an outcry and received a prime ministerial rebuke when he revealed a proposal to hire public ‘spies’ to snoop on unmarried Muslim couples and help enforce Islamic law.

In Malaysia, where it is already routine for religious police to use informants, the idea might ordinarily have failed to cause controversy — except that it came from an official charged with implementing the premier’s own brand of moderate Islam.

Known as ‘Islam Hadhari’, or ‘contemporary Islam’, Abdullah’s vision was meant to promote tolerance and understanding, but even his supporters concede it is vulnerable to being subverted by conservatives in the religious hierarchy that implements it.

“This was always the danger inherent in Islam Hadhari,”

Abdullah’s son-in-law, politician Khairy Jamaluddin, wrote in a regular newspaper column in the New Sunday Times at the weekend.

Conservatives are accused of using the broad principles of Islam Hadhari as a Trojan horse for their own agendas.

“They see that the government machinery is behind Islam Hadhari and one way of promoting their views is to... squeeze them into the framework of Islam Hadhari,” a government source said.

The opposition Democratic Action Party, backed mainly by non-Muslim ethnic Chinese, says Abdullah has lost some control over Islam Hadhari to conservatives, an alarming prospect for non-Muslims who make up almost half of Malaysia’s population.

“With Islam Hadhari, I think he has let the floodgates open,” party leader Lim Guan Eng told Reuters.

Recently, the self-declared ‘Islamist city’ of Kota Baru threatened to fine non-Muslim women for wearing revealing clothes.

The hotel industry is under pressure too. An industry executive said Islamic officials had asked some five-star hotels to stop serving liquor to non-Muslims in the presence of Muslims and not to serve drinks to Muslims in glasses that had ever been used for alcohol.

“People are interpreting things their own way. We are writing to the tourism minister asking for clarifications,” said the official.

For non-Muslims and many outspoken moderate Muslims, the tide of Islamic conservatism that began in the 1980s is so strong that well-intentioned plans such as Islam Hadhari are bound to be swept off course and captured by prevailing social currents.

Those currents have changed Malaysia from a country whose first premier was a whisky drinker and where women generally did not wear headscarves into a nation where religious officials carry out police-style raids on nightclubs and hotel rooms.

The government admits Islam Hadhari has been twisted at times, but is sure most Muslims support its message of religious moderation. “I don’t think it’s necessarily a given that conservative interpretations are going to swamp the discourse on Islam here,” a government source said.

But Malaysia’s neighbours and sometimes foreign investors worry that this will happen, fearing a scenario where the main ruling party, UMNO, is so tuned to conservative Muslim votes that it effectively becomes an Islamist organisation.

The government believes it has learnt from the experience of former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad, who appealed to the Muslim vote near the end of his reign by polishing his Islamic credentials, describing Malaysia in 2001 as an ‘Islamic state’.

It was a tactic designed to counter the opposition threat from fundamentalist Islamist party PAS, which had taken Muslim votes from UMNO. But, the government source said, this had only strengthened religious conservatives and would not be repeated.

“(Abdullah) Badawi has brought in Islam Hadhari thinking he can bring in a more moderate view but he is fighting against the tide, going against a very dominating force,” said Bilveer Singh, political scientist at the National University of Singapore.—Reuters