Religious issues, including the current azan controversy , should not be blown out of proportion by parties involved, the Regent of Pahang, Tengku Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah said.

He said in the case of the azan call, Muslims in the country - even when under British rule - had not been banned or discouraged from practising it and this had continued until present times.

According to Bernama, the Regent said he hoped that debates on issues which touched on Islamic practices would be stopped as they could cause racial divisions within the nation.

"Islam has already been enshrined in the Constitution as the official religion while other religions can be freely practised in the country," he said when officiating at the groundbreaking ceremony for a new mosque at Kampung Desa Bakti in Mukim Mentakab, Temerloh on Thursday.

The Regent was referring to the current controversy triggered off by an article in the Bar Council's official periodical - Infoline - in which the azan, the Muslim call to prayer, was described as 'noise pollution.'

The description has prompted Shah Alam Umno and Kimma, the Malaysian Indian-Muslim political party, to lodge police reports. The former has also demanded a formal apology from the Bar Council.

Utilise mosques call

In his address, the Pahang Regent also said that Muslims in this nation should be thankful to God for the peaceful lives they could lead and for a government which developed and built amenities for the rakyat.

Tengku Abdullah also hoped that the new mosque, which would cost RM780,000, would be beneficial to the residents in the area.

"Muslims, in particular the adolescent ones, should make use of the mosque as a source of Islamic education which in turn will help arrest the problem of moral decay."

He also cautioned against the use of mosques as a venue to spread narrow political ideologies.