The arrival of a Canadian man in the Maldives claiming to be a messenger of Allah was “a false alarm”, said Police Sub-Inspector Ahmed Shiyam.
”According to information we have received we have been unable to confirm that it is true,” Shiyam said.
Press Secretary for the President Mohamed Zuhair said the President’s Office was also informed of the man’s arrival.
”The Islamic Ministry requested police investigate the matter,” he said earlier today.
Local media reported that Hussein Iqbal, a Pakistani national who lives in Canada and claims to be a messenger of God, arrived in the Maldives on the invitation of Maldivians who follow him. A group was reportedly scheduled to leave for Sri Lanka on a pilgrimage.
Ibrahim Fauzy, President of local religious NGO the Islamic Foundation of the Maldives (IFM), told Minivan News that there were “hundreds” of Maldivians who followed Iqbal.
”I met last night with some of his followers in Male’,” Fauzy told Minivan News. “I learned that his call first reached the Maldives seven years ago and since then people have been joining him.”
Fauzy said that he also understood that Iqbal preached against the Sunnah and Hadith and encouraged his followers to believe solely in the Quran.
”Their original call comes from a person called Khaleefa Rashad who dismissed the Hadith and Sunnah,” Fauzy said.
He said Iqbal and his followers used verse 30 and 31 of the Surah Mudhassir to support their argument and try to convince others they were right.
”They use a mathematical formula and subtract some numbers from 19, and claim that the Prophet Mohamed (PBUH) was the last Prophet but not last messenger,” he said.
Verse 30 of the Surah Mudhassir reads ”over it are nineteen” and 31 reads ”And We have set none but angels as Guardians of the Fire; and We have fixed their number only as a trial for Unbelievers, in order that the People of the Book may arrive at certainty, and the Believers may increase in Faith, and that no doubts may be left for the People of the Book and the Believers, and that those in whose hearts is a disease and the Unbelievers may say, “What symbol doth Allah intend by this ?” Thus doth Allah leave to stray whom He pleaseth, and guide whom He pleaseth: and none can know the forces of thy Lord, except He and this is no other than a warning to mankind.”
Fauzy said that those following Iqbal were only praying three times a day. He also said that one of Iqbal’s followers had a divorce case pending in the Family Court, contesting that his wife was a disbeliever, “which raises many complicated legal issues.”
Khalifa Rashad was an Egyptian-born, US-educated biochemist who claimed that the Archangel Gabriel had “most assertively” told him that chapter 36, verse 3, of the Quran referred specifically to him. He was stabbed to death in 1990 at an Islamic school in Arizona and his body drenched in xylol, a flammable printing solvent.
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