Imams warn against ‘deviationist' Muslims
By Azlan Othman

Imams yesterday urged Muslims to be cautious against those who wear a 'Muslim mask' and try to influence the public with deviationist teachings that could destabilise the country's peace and harmony.

"Muslims are now threatened by all sorts of threats, be it in beliefs, values or thought.

"Among the threats are criminals, terrorists, drug addiction, disintegration, dilution of social and moral values and more dangerously, the existence of deviationist teachings that affect Muslims.

"Deviationist teachings are 'poison' to security and could destabilise the country's peace and harmony creating havoc, foes and even spill blood (fighting) among Muslims," Imams warned in a sermon.

The latest form of such teachings to hit Brunei is the banned Al-Arqam activity in which the Internal Security Department in September last year detained six locals for their involvements in reviving the group, which had been banned since 1991.

Investigations revealed that the followers of the group carried-out these activities with the help of former teachers from abroad.

To ensure that our belief is correct and in accordance to the teachings of 'Ahli Sunnah Wal Jemaah, and to ensure that we are not diverted to such wrong teachings, we should know what deviationist activity is all about.

Deviationism is any teaching or practice introduced by Muslims or non-Muslims, which pretend to be based on Islamic teachings but in reality, are against the true Islamic teachings (not based on Quran and Sunnah) and against 'Ahli Sunnah Wal Jemaah'.

Brunei is no exemption to such influences and there are small sections of the community found to be influenced by such deviationist teachings due to their lack of knowledge of religion and its teachings.

Among deviationists that penetrated into the country and banned were 'Bahai' belief, 'Qadiani', 'Al-Arqam', path or 'Tarikat Abd. Razak', 'Silat Lintau' teaching, 'Al-Maunah' movement and so on.

Brunei first detected deviationist activities way back in 1961 when the Bahai faith instructed people to believe in one religion, which is a combination of all the religions in the world.

Such activities are generally carried out in secret. Those who are ignorant of the true teachings of Islam would follow these deviationists if they cannot see what is right from wrong. There are also Muslims who are being influenced 'to ignore' the true teachings for the promise of extraordinary rewards.

Among the criterias included believed are that there are other Holy books besides Quran, believes in other prayer directions other than the Ka'abah, questioning the truth of Quran and Hadith, claiming another person than the Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h) as the last prophet, 'Imam Mahdi' and so on, possessing extraordinary strength such as marrying more than four wives, testifying him or his teacher as a member of heaven who could clean oneself from sin.

Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin