The government has moved to draw all Muslims into the mainstream education system as it fights off an election challenge by fundamentalists accused of creating hotbeds of militancy in some religious schools.

Malaysia is holding around 90 Islamic extremists, many of them allegedly members of the Al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah (JI) terrorist group accused of responsibility for the Bali blast in Indonesia in October 2002 which killed more than 200 people.

A number of the alleged militants, who are all detained without trial under the Internal Security Act (ISA), have been linked to religious schools, including the son of the opposition Islamic party PAS spiritual leader Nik Aziz Nik Mat.

The region's top terror suspect Hambali, believed to be a key JI figure and now under US custody after his arrest in Thailand last August, once ran a religious school in a remote village in Malaysia's southern Johor state which was later shut down by the authorities.

Last year, Malaysia's government stopped state subsidies for some 2,500 private religious schools across the country because they were accused of sowing hatred against the establishment and of being ideological centres for PAS. More than 125,000 Muslim children study in such schools.

Quranic studies

Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak has said the government acted against the religious schools as part of a strategy to check what "could well become a time-bomb that will soon explode."

In an apparent attempt to woo parents away from such schools, the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition said in its election manifesto that Arabic and Quranic studies would be introduced as compulsory subjects for Muslims in government primary schools.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who unveiled the coalition's manifesto for March 21 elections, vowed at the same time to fight Islamic extremism and terrorism.

But PAS says religious schools in Malaysia do not subscribe to violence and the government's real fear is that they breed supporters for the party which rules two of Malaysia's 13 states and has made major inroads in the northern Malay heartland in 1999 polls.

PAS aims to capture another state in the elections and is a key threat to Abdullah's Umno, which heads the coalition.

Some 60 percent of Malaysia's 25 million people are Muslims, and Islam is the official religion.

Not regulated

Analysts say the key concern is that religious schools, which range from modern establishments following the national syllabus to thousands of simple prayer houses known as "pondok", are not well-regulated.

"Religious education has a special place in the psyche of rural Malays and there are genuine schools but the government has to tighten its checks," said Abdul Razak Baginda, director of the Malaysian Strategic Research Centre.

The epicentre of the Islamic movement is perhaps in Kota Baru, the sleepy capital of PAS-ruled northeastern Kelantan state and one of the most traditional Muslim cities in the region.

Kelantan has produced many religious scholars and is renowned as the "Corridor of Mecca" because many students from Southeast Asia flocked there to study Arabic and the Quran before continuing their studies in Mecca or Madinah.

The state has some 100 private religious schools, with an estimated 40,000 pupils including some from Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia and Brunei.

Nik Omar, another son of PAS leader Nik Aziz and principal of the popular Darul Anuar school which has some 1,000 students, said religious schools focused on academic achievement as much as Islamic studies and produced some of the country's top students.

The Barisan Nasional coalition wants to "curb the truth because many students support PAS and its Islamic struggle," he charged.

"We craft our students according to Islam but we don't teach them to be terrorists." - AFP