In a rural village in Kelantan, more than 3,000 men in white skullcaps and headscarved women sit in an open field listening intently to a small man with a white goatee warning about the "fires of hell".

Speaking in a grandfatherly tone from the pulpit, Nik Aziz Nik Mat recites verses from the Quran as he reminds the Muslim crowd to fear Allah and follow the true Islamic path so they can enter heaven because "hell is the most terrifying place."

Nik Aziz, 73, is the revered spiritual leader of opposition Islamic party PAS, which is the main challenger to the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition in elections due on March 21.

He is hailed as a saint in northeast Kelantan where he has been chief minister since PAS won control of the state in 1990, but is reviled by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's government as a fanatic. His son has been detained on suspicion of terrorism.

PAS, which also rules neighbouring Terengganu state, wants to turn this rapidly-developing multiracial nation into a theocratic state complete with syariah laws including amputation and stoning to death.

Supporters will be rewarded

The turbanned Nik Aziz, in an interview with AFP , tenaciously defended his controverial claim that only those who back PAS's quest to make syariah laws supreme in the country will receive their reward in heaven while others will go to hell.

"This world is just a bridge to the afterlife. Only those who rally behind Islam and its divine laws will be rewarded with a place in heaven," he said.

"PAS supporters in Kelantan will definitely be rewarded because as a result of our rule, we have banned gambling, karaoke joints and other vices. People who didn't choose PAS meant they like gambling and condone adultery and rape. They will not go to heaven."

The heaven-for-votes promise has drawn the ire of Abdullah's Umno ahead of the elections, which are being closely watched for signs of growing Islamic fundamentalism.

Umno, the linchpin of the multiracial ruling coalition, also professes Islam and competes with PAS for votes of the Malays who make-up some 60 percent of Malaysia's 25 million population, but PAS says Umno is too secular.

Nik Aziz urged Malaysians to focus on eternal salvation and reject Umno's bait of money.

"Umno has a lot of money. They buy people like buying dried fish. This is not democracy but corruption."

Puppet

Umno and the BN had failed to provide good governance, with crime and corruption on the rise, and the only way to remedy this was to impose syariah laws, he said.

Non-Muslims had nothing to fear from PAS, which had "no record of killing", and warnings of Islamic militancy were simply a ruse by Umno to secure support from the minority Chinese and Indian communities, he said.

Umno was an "American puppet" mimicking Washington's way of frightening the world by detaining alleged terror suspects without trial to stem growing Islamic influence, he charged.

Nik Adli, the third of Nik Aziz's 10 children, is among 16 alleged militants held without trial since 2001. The group embarked on a hunger strike March 1 to press the government to charge them in court or set them free.

The PAS religious leader, popularly known as "Tok Guru," spent 10 years studying Islam in universities in Pakistan, Egypt and India before entering politics in 1967. The eldest of 18 children, he speaks Urdu, Arabic, English and the Malay languages.

Aides say this will be the last election for Nik Aziz, whose pious lifestyle has become a tourist attraction. Visitors are often taken to his simple wooden house painted in PAS's official green, and dwarfed by a mosque and a religious school he built next door.

He refuses to stay in his official residence and a portion of his salary is donated to the poor.

Nik Aziz has issued a series of religious decrees in the past 14 years, from banning unisex hairdressing salons, massage parlours and public singing and dancing to discouraging Muslim women from wearing lipstick and giving priority to less attractive women for state jobs. - AFP