a Malaysian Islamic party and long-time opponent of the government, died late Thursday of prostate cancer aged 84.
His son Nik Mohamad Abduh announced the death in a posting on Facebook. Nik Aziz died at his family home in Malaysia’s northeastern Kelantan state, according to the Berita Harian newspaper.
Known to his followers as Tok Guru or “the Teacher,” the wiry, bearded Nik Aziz was revered in Kelantan, where he served as chief minister for more than two decades until 2013. His Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, known as PAS in Malay, advocates the creation of an Islamic state in Malaysia.
“Nik Aziz was the face of political Islam” in Malaysia, said Ibrahim Suffian, a political analyst at the Merdeka Center for Opinion Research in Kuala Lumpur. “While he had a very conservative outlook, he was humble and that endeared him to those in Kelantan and beyond. He embraced Malaysia’s multiculturalism and diversity and helped to form the opposition bloc,” Ibrahim said.
Nik Aziz’s death is the second blow this week to Malaysia’s political opposition. On Tuesday, Feb. 10, the country’s top court upheld opposition coalition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s conviction for sodomy and jailed him for five years.
The United Malays National Organisation of Prime Minister Najib Razak has governed the country with coalition partners since independence from the U.K. in 1957.
Nik Aziz’s passing comes before PAS party elections due in June. Party members may be inclined to see current PAS President Hadi Awang become the next spiritual leader, with his own role taken up by someone from a new generation of leaders, said Ibrahim.
Born on Pulau Melaka, Kelantan in 1931, Nik Aziz studied in local schools and madrasahs before heading to Darul Uloom Deoband university in India’s Uttar Pradesh state in 1952, according to his website. He also studied the Koran in Lahore, Pakistan, and received a Bachelor of Arts in Arabic studies and Master of Arts in Islamic law from Al-Azhar University in Egypt.
The father of 10 joined PAS in 1967 and served as a member of the federal parliament for 19 years. He became a state legislator in 1986 and was appointed chief minister of Kelantan in 1990 after the party wrested control from the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition.
PAS introduced Islamic principles and banned nightclubs and snooker parlors after winning control of Kelantan. Often dressed in a white turban and robe, Nik Aziz made headlines by accusing women of causing social ills by wearing skimpy clothes and makeup and calling Muslim smokers cows with no brains.
Yet Nik Aziz also was one of the few Muslim politicians in the country who said in 2013 that Malay-speaking Christians could use Allah to refer to God at a time when the government banned a Catholic newspaper from printing the word. He reversed his stance a year later under pressure from his party.
Nik Aziz stepped down as Kelantan’s chief minister in 2013.
PAS still governs the state, which is its biggest base of support. More than 90 percent of the state’s 1.7 million people are Malays. It is the poorest state in the nation by nominal gross domestic product per person, according to a report by the Khazanah Research Institute.
Nik Aziz’s son, Nik Adli, was among nine men detained under Malaysia’s Internal Security Act in 2001, suspected of being involved with an Islamic group that was allegedly plotting to overthrow the government. Nik Adli was released in 2006.
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