Founder of banned Malaysian Islamic sect dies, leaving behind 3 wives, 38 kids, 200 grandkids

Banned Malaysian sect leader with 38 kids dies

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The founder of a banned Islamic sect has died in Malaysia, leaving behind three wives, 38 children and about 200 grandchildren, his daughter-in-law said Friday.

Ashaari Muhammad died Thursday of a lung infection in a hospital in northern Perak state, his daughter-in-law Rohaya Mohamad said. He was 73.

Ashaari, who used to head an Islamic sect that was deemed heretical and banned in 1994, shot into the limelight again last year when his fourth wife founded a “Polygamy Club” to promote the practice in Malaysia.

Malaysian Muslims, who make up two-thirds of the country’s 28 million people, are allowed to have up to four wives though polygamy is not widespread. Non-Muslims can only have one spouse.

Ashaari himself has 38 children and about 200 grandchildren from five marriages. His oldest child is 48 years old, while the youngest is aged 13, Rohaya said.

Ashaari was admitted to a hospital Monday. About 400 direct family members and hundreds of others attended his funeral in his hometown in southern Negeri Sembilan state Thursday, Rohaya said.

“Life has to go on,” Rohaya said, adding the family supported itself through various business ventures.

The “Polygamy Club” has also branched out into neighboring Muslim-majority Indonesia, where it has dozens of members, and even Thailand, where 10 Muslims have joined it, Rohaya said. In Malaysia, it has about 1,000 members.

The club bills polygamy as a healthy way of life, helping single mothers, reformed prostitutes and women who feel they are past the marrying age find spouses.

Hatijah Aam, the club’s founder and Ashaari’s fourth wife, has said the club aims “to change the way people perceive polygamy, so that it will be seen as something beautiful instead of something disgusting.”

Some women and Muslim rights group have slammed the practice, saying it is not good for women.

Ashaari also attracted controversy in the 1990s when the government banned his Al-Arqam sect, a popular religious group he had founded three decades earlier, because it projected Ashaari as an absolver of sinners. Ashaari was briefly detained in 1994.

Malaysia, which is often hailed as a moderate Muslim nation, is wary of groups that preach Islam not sanctioned by the government because of fears they could cause unrest.