Jemaah Islamiah leaders are Wahabi sect followers, says villager
Alleged top leaders of the Jemaah Islamiah (JI), Indonesian clerics Abu Bakar Bashir and Riduan Isamuddin alias Hambali, who used to stay in Malaysia for several years, are said to be the followers of the Islamic sect, Wahabi.
This could explain why their decade-long presence in Sungai Manggis, Banting, a one-and-half-hour drive from Kuala Lumpur, was not known to most of the locals.
(Wahabi is the puritanical Saudi Islamic sect founded by Muhammad ibn-Abd-al-Wahab, which regards all other sects as heretical. It had spread throughout the Arabian peninsula by the early 20th century and still remains the official ideology of the Saudi Arabian kingdom.)
According to retired mosque official Mohd Yusof Palil, their presence in Sungai Manggis were hardly known to the locals, except to their few followers and some 'outsiders', as they hardly mixed around.
"All their religious activities were carried out at the rented house-cum-surau and not at the mosque here," said Mohd Yusof, a former committee member with the Ar-Rahman mosque in the village.
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