Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi has delayed the setting up of an inter-faith commission which threatened to divide moderate and orthodox Muslims.
Moderate Muslims initiated the plan for a commission backed by leaders of Malaysia's main religions and openly supported by the government. But it ran into fierce opposition from prominent opposition leaders, government ministers and Umno members.
They argued it was an attempt to convert Muslims and threatened to demonstrate if Mr Abdullah did not intervene.
'Is this a Christian scheme to turn Muslims into apostates?' asked one United Malays National Organisation (Umno) youth leader.
Mr Abdullah called an end to debate on the commission on Sunday saying it was meaningless to follow through with the divisive plan. 'It [the commission] might open the floodgates to all sorts of [religious] demands and drag the country into an unhealthy situation,' he said.
The commission was to promote co-operation between religious groups, resolve long-simmering disputes between religions, and champion the secular rights of Muslims against arbitrary prosecution under sharia laws.
Orthodox Muslims said those aims would undermine Islam's status as the official state religion and would encourage Muslims to renounce Islam. After years of quiet debate, moderate religious leaders saw the commission as the answer to resolve a worrying accumulation of bitter religious disputes.
