PAS has dismissed a call from government-friendly ulamas to reverse its ‘Amanat Hadi’ (Hadi’s Address) which Umno claims has condemned its members as apostates.

NONE Vice-president Mahfuz Omar described the call as the “moans of hungry ghosts asking to be fed”.

At a press conference in Kuala Lumpur today, Mahfuz was asked to respond to the Islamic scholars’ statement featured on the front page of Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia today.

“ Biaq pi kat dia, dia nak kata apa pun, la ni banyak hantu-hantu. Hantu-hantu ni, bila tak dapat bertih, pulut kuning semua ni, dia mengamuk la (Let them say whatever they want. Nowadays there are a lot of ghosts around. Ghosts, when they are not fed with rice pops or yellow glutinous rice, they will run amok),” he said.

“ Dia tak da bertih dia jadi macam AR Tompel (Without rice pops, they become like AR Tompel).”

He was referring to veteran actor Tompel who once acted in a Malay film as a witch doctor, who pretends to be possessed in order to fleece unwary victims.

Mahfuz then sang the infamous song sung by Tompel’s character in the movie: ‘Pulut kuning sudah sampai, tolong kira selai-selai, wang pengeras sudah sampai tolong kira selai-selai.’

(The yellow glutinous rice is here, please count it one by one, the token payment is here, please count it one by one.)

NONE “That is my answer,” he said, to the ulamas’ call as well as to a separate query on allegations that PAS may have turned away from Islam since some of its leaders are said to be Syiah followers.

In his 1981 address to PAS members, Abdul Hadi Awang - then Terengganu PAS commissioner and now party president - had issued a proclamation that came to be dubbed ‘Amanat Hadi’.

It claimed that Umno members had deviated from Islam by perpetuating the laws of the “infidel British”.

"We will become infidels if we say politics and religion are separate," Hadi had said.

The address has been a rallying call for PAS in its rivalry with Umno, although some have said that it may have been too harsh an indictment.