Muhammad Qasim and his ‘divine’ dreams invade Malaysian Twitter users’ timeline
KUALA LUMPUR, June 21 — Malaysian Twitter users have expressed their annoyance at tweets mentioning one Muhammad Qasim and his dreams, with supporters usually tweeting in reply to popular users and tweets.
Those polled by Malay Mail said they would usually block those users and report them to Twitter, and said they were concerned about the motives behind the seemingly random tweets which they feared may be insidious in nature.
“Who is paying for them and why? There are many accounts tweeting about this. You know your tweet has gone viral when you get one of those dream tweets,” Twitter user and economist Nadia Jalil told Malay Mail.
“It looks like a bot that is designed to spam. I have reported his tweets,” said another user called @Nashman.
“Perhaps it’s deliberately made to target Malaysians based on our sentiment towards Palestinians,” he added.
Malay Mail has since got in contact with supporters of Qasim, and those who are part of a network to spread the messages from his purported dreams of Allah and Prophet Muhammad.
From the biography provided by his supporters, Qasim is a 45-year-old man from Lahore, Pakistan who claimed to have received hundreds of these dreams since his teenage years,
He has been viewed by his followers as the messianic figure Mahdi, who Muslims believe would come before doomsday to lead the faithful.
His dreams range from local Pakistani politics and on its prime minister Imran Khan, to a supposed third world war that include the invasion of India by Pakistan and their eventual reunification, and even on the Covid-19 pandemic.
Among his dreams that have been interpreted by his followers, Malaysia and Indonesia will join as allies to Pakistan after the latter’s victory — which would then spill over into an attack on Middle Eastern countries to liberate the Arab countries from being controlled by the United States, Israel, Russia, and other allies of the superpowers.
According to an Indonesia-based pro-Qasim group called Gerakan Akhir Zaman (Gaza) or “Movement of the End Times”, most of Qasim’s supporters come from the republic itself, followed by Malaysia and Bangladesh.
Gaza is led by a Muslim preacher called Diki Candra, who has previously attended Islamic events in Malaysia to spread the messages of Qasim to local religious scholars.
A representative of the group in Malaysia, who only wished to be known as Ibnu Ahmad, said there are followers all across the country.
“Generally, when I talk about the end times, almost all would accept it. Not many would reject it,” he told Malay Mail.
“But when I talk about Qasim, there are a few who felt it’s hard to accept this, merely because of his appearance.”
This group has formed a network in the last year comprising of WhatsApp groups to spread Qasim’s messages, and with allies on Twitter whom they said take “almost like a second job” to evangelise on the social media platform.
Related Articles FT mufti calls for an end to ‘Allah’ polemic, says resolution should focus on definition, right use of word Sabah church SIB terminates bid at Federal Court for reasons behind government’s 1986 ‘Allah’ ban in Christian publications IGP urges for calm over ‘Allah’ ruling
