I was at a church service last Sunday, and was particularly bemused by a point made by the speaker on the pulpit. The speaker, a professional, organising some training courses in Central Asian countries, was recollecting that when he first visited Turkmenistan, the immigration officials at the airport were at first very bureaucratic and rude to him. However, when they found out that he was actually a Malaysian national, they began to put up some friendly smiles and uttered a few words in English, 'Welcome, we like Malaysia.'

For that, the speaker was thankful to former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who had worked hard to forge closer ties with Muslim countries the world over. For my usual criticism of and sarcasm about the former PM, I must however admit I had a similar experience when visiting Turkey and Kazakhstan a few years back, and maybe I should indeed credit him for having secured for me enjoyable stays in these two Turkic countries.

And some in Malaysia may suspect the speaker of conducting some sort of proselytising activities in Central Asia. Indeed, he is. But I personally see no wrong in this. After all, there are similar initiatives going on to convert non-Muslims in Malaysia to Islam, and we don't seem to be very much perturbed by it, at least not those non-Umno members of the government, some of whom have even defended in vigour the status of Malaysia as a 'secular Islamic state'.

There was also a feature on a Chinese family converted to Islam in the Ugama section of Utusan Malaysia on May 21, which prompted me to wonder what would happen if some journalists of an English daily were so naVve to believe in 'secularly Islamic Malaysia' and did an interview with an ex-Muslim converted to a different faith?

Powerful factor

Like it or loathe it, religion will always be a powerful factor not only in domestic politics, but in diplomacy too. And I am always intrigued to find out what are the criteria for a nation with a sizeable Muslim population to join the Organisation of the Islamic Conference?

Last weekend, Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar again responded positively to Russia's interest in joining the OIC as an observer. This, in fact, is not new. When President Vladimir Putin came to Malaysia for the OIC Summit in October last year, he already made plain the intention of bringing his country closer to the Muslim world.

Malaysia, as chairperson of the OIC, is no doubt anxious to show its diplomatic acumen. If Russia successfully becomes a member of the OIC during Malaysia's chairmanship, it would be a boost to our Malaysia Boleh project (is it still on?).

And there is every reason for Russia to join the club. After all, there are more than 20 million Muslims living in the Russian Federation, scattered across Dagestan, Tartarstan and the war torn Chechnya. In other words, the total number of Russian Muslims is nearly the size of Malaysia's population.

Moreover, President Putin in an interview last year stressed that Russian Muslims "perceive Russia as the only motherland that they have, and we must do all we can for them to feel a part of the Muslim world". Quite clearly, one way of making the Muslims feel at home with the largely Eastern Orthodox Russia would be for Moscow to join the OIC, the largest Muslim organisation.

Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, military conflicts and secessionist struggles have come to dominate Moscow's relations with its Muslim countrymen. Having let Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, the five central Asian Muslim republics, go independent, the Russians have been fighting hard to keep the rest of the Muslim populations together, especially Chechnya. Just recently, the Chechen president Akhmad Kadirov, who was favoured by Moscow, was killed in a bomb blast.

In addition to Muslim separatism, Moscow is also confronted with the hard reality that Russian Muslims are increasingly looking to a conservative, radical type of Islam of the Middle East in order to fill up the spiritual vacuum left by communism. Wahhabism, a stringent and legalistic brand of Islam, has been flourishing in Central Asia since the early 1990s. With secessionist wars and crackdowns going on, little wonder Chechnya is now a hotbed for Wahhabist movement as well.

President Putin is well aware of the benefits that he can gain by joining the OIC. That way, he can bring the Muslim issue at home right to the big family of the Muslim nations for understanding, hoping to defuse the accusation from the international community that Moscow is persecuting its Muslim population.

After all, there are a number of 'modern and progressive' Muslim states in the OIC that stand as shining examples, such as Turkey and Malaysia, for Russian Muslims to understand that 'radicalism' is not necessarily a better choice. I suppose Putin will eschew the word 'fundamentalism', for the simple fact that Mahathir, when prime minister, mentioned at least on two occasions that Malaysia 'is a fundamental Islamic state'.

Interestingly, the Russian Supreme Court in a decision last year ruled that Muslim women in the country should be permitted to wear headscarves in passport photos. Now, compare this to the ridiculous headscarf ban by the French authorities in recent months.

I, for one, would be more than happy to see Russia as a member of the OIC. However, there are also other countries distraught by Muslim separatist movements, such as Thailand, the Philippines and China.

So, the question for Syed Hamid Albar is: can you bring them all under the umbrella of the OIC?