The 19-page essay by the lecturers from the human sciences department of the university in Perak is not only filled with grammar and spelling errors, even the name of one of the writers, Muhammad Atiullah Othman, is wrongly spelt as Muhammad Atiullah Ohtman.
Atiullah, a PAS member, has in the past defended the Islamist party’s conservative leaders. The other two writers of the paper, titled “Political Islam in Islamism and Post-Islamism: A Study on Islamic Renaissance Front (IRF)”, are Zuraini Jamil and Siti Noranizahafizah Boyman.
Among others, the paper claims that IRF with its liberal arguments is calling for a shift from Islamism to “post-Islamism” with “liberalist” and “secularist” values, words frequently repeated by Muslim bureaucrats in Malaysia against their critics.
“IRF was intentionally to mislead secularism and liberalism in post-Islamism by making a paradigm shift to develop understanding secularism and liberalism. Therefore, IRF activities in promoting liberalism, secularism and West values are well known by religious authorities such as JAKIM,” runs a concluding line in the paper. FMT has not edited the sentence.
When contacted, Farouk, who teaches medicine at Monash University Malaysia, said he welcomed critiques to his views but questioned the paper’s academic quality as well as the credibility of the online journal which published it.
“I have no issues about people criticising my thought, but it must be done in a dignified manner. Now the issue is the paper is replete with grammatical errors and poor syntax or relationship between the words and phrases,” he told FMT.
Farouk, who has often spoken out against Muslim bureaucrats and religious authorities, said he would make an official complaint to the university’s management.
He also asked why the authors had not interviewed him for his views.
“Why can’t they interview me? I am still alive! And they received a research grant,” he added.
Some other lines from the paper sighted by FMT run as follows: “While the idea of post-Islamism is boosted several inquiries, Islamic Renaissance Front (IRF) took advantage in gauging Islamism political thought with critics on Islamism principles and additionally recommends post-Islamism approach.”
Another extract from the research paper reads: “While the discussion about Islamism and post-Islamism is still in critical discussion amongst scholars, Muslims researchers such as Husnul Amin, Ihsan Yilmaz and Ahmad Farouk Musa has submitted a proposal for post-Islamism with more secular and more liberal.”
‘Fake journal’
Farouk questioned the journal which published the paper, the International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, and warned that it could be among hundreds of fake academic journals.
The journal is published by Human Resource Management Academic Research Society (HRMars), which on its website says it wants to promote academics “and their valuable contributions by providing them an electronic platform where they can publish their researches and contributions in order to have the larger readership”.
But a list of “questionable scholarly publishers” compiled by US-based librarian Jeffrey Beall also includes HRMars.
“Avoid submitting your manuscript to these publishers,” says a warning at the beginning of the list.
Farouk also pointed out several factual errors in the paper critising him, including the name of a former intern at IRF, Ahmad Muziru Idham, who was wrongly listed as “Ahmad Muziru Murugan”.
“To me, it is a disgrace to the university to have an academic of this standard who received a research grant but produced such an abysmal research paper,” he said.