Umno Youth wants the country's constitutional definition of Islam changed to Sunni Islam, a call that reflects the country's increasingly hostile attitude towards Shia Muslims.

The youth wing of the country's largest party of Muslims wants Umno lawmakers to introduce an amendment in the Dewan Rakyat to change the article in the Constitution regarding Islam as the federation's official religion.

The call was made in a motion tabled by the wing's deputy chief Khairul Azwan Harun at the party's annual general assembly at Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur today.

He said any amendment should define Sunni Islam as the official religion of the federation.

In his speech to support the motion, an Umno Youth grassroots leader from Terengganu said he hoped that any bill to amend the constitution for that purpose would be supported by Muslims in PAS and PKR.

The call is the latest attempt by sections of Malaysia's Sunni Muslim community to ban and suppress Shia Muslims and the Shia sect of Islam.

The National Fatwa Council has forbidden Shia teachings in Malaysia while the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia, in its Friday sermons, have warned against the Shia threat among Muslims.

Yet, as pointed out by critics, Umno's former president and Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had in 2005 signed an international declaration in Jordan that acknowledged the Shia as a sect that is part of the larger Muslim family. – December 4, 2013.