KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 27): Almost like an acquittal but minus a court trial, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak was relieved of wrongdoing in the RM2.6 billion donation affair.

Umno leaders have offered many stories about the mysterious money, with the most specific among them given by Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, when he said it was a gift from the Saudis to the Malaysian government to fight terrorism and uphold Sunni teachings.

That statement gives the impression that the money was to fight the militant Isis ideology, as well as to help local Islamic bureacrats’ efforts to counter Shia teachings.

But a BBC report today quoted a well-placed Saudi source saying that the money was to counter the influence of the Islamist group Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) of Egypt in Malaysia.

This looks set to jolt the fragile courtship between Umno and PAS. This is chiefly because the party, since the fall of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt in 2011, has openly rallied behind the Egyptian Islamists represented by the Ikhwan, to the point of adoration of their leaders, who now languish in jail after the table was turned over by the Egyptian military in mid-2013.

PAS leaders had wasted no time to openly support the incoming Ikhwan leadership. They viewed it a godsend for Islamic political movements in the Sunni world, such as PAS.

Why? Because here was a Sunni-led "revolution" using terminology and historical experience more familiar to the Muslims of Malaysia.

After all, with the official stance on Shia Islam, PAS’s Shia-tinged image was a bane in getting support from the Malay-Muslim population, who largely look up to official Islamic bureaucrats for guidance despite pockets of resistance from the outnumbered liberal Muslims.

For years, PAS, like many Islamic movements around the world, have sympathised and supported the 1979 Iranian revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini, who caught the imagination of Muslims worldwide in defeating a regime armed to the teeth and fully backed by the US.

This was despite an intense Saudi propaganda to stop the spread of Khomeini's revolutionary ideas across the Persian Gulf.

Billions of petro-dollars were poured in countries with sizeable Muslim communities, in the form of donations to construct mosques and Islamic schools, leading to more younger Muslims subscribing to Saudi Wahhabi scholars and what they call Salafist Islam.

The Egyptian uprising took place at a time when Syria was set to fall apart amid a proxy war represented by Iran and Saudi Arabia, both interpreting the opposition against Assad in sectarian terms.

In a Muslim world dominated by the Sunnis, the Sunni propaganda gained the upper hand, and Islamic movements around the world, including Malaysia, rallied around the disparate and relatively unknown anti-Assad groups.

Back home, government ulama and Islamic bureaucrats found the Syrian conflict handy in their fight to contain “deviant Islamic teachings”. Mosques were given official Friday sermon texts to preach about so-called Shia pogroms in Syria under Assad, and this fuelled the “Sunnah wal Jamaah” sentiments among Malay Muslims to solidly support the anti-Assad forces.

It was also during this time that many took things a step further, joining the armed conflict to help their Sunni brethren.

Sensing this local sympathy for the “oppressed Sunni Muslims” of Syria, Umno’s general assembly in 2012 made Shia-bashing a primary theme.

So strong were these Sunni sentiments that despite senior PAS leaders being branded by Umno as Shias, PAS’s right-wing leaders stayed silent. Indeed, three years later, they dumped the same vilified PAS leaders at the party’s Muktamar.

And then came the confirmation that Najib received RM2.6 billion. And what better way to neutralise PAS, fresh from purging Shia and liberal leaders, than to declare that the money was for Malaysia’s efforts to uphold Sunni Islam?

It was a statement tailor-made to get Malay-Muslim sympathy, and PAS leaders took to it like ants to sugar.

At the end of the tabling of Budget 2016, PAS MPs walked out of the Parliament empty-handed, while other opposition MPs carried anti-Najib placards.

PAS also refused to join the public anger, as was seen in their response during the Bersih 4 rally to press for Najib’s resignation amid news of the donation.

Now, it seems the money was not for fighting the evil Shias after all.

On the contrary, and to PAS’s horror, it was to fight the influence of the Ikhwan, on whom PAS leaders have latched on in their admiration for the only Sunni “revolution” in recent history.

So if PAS was indeed sleeping with the enemy and stabbed in the back and all that, will their MPs now walk out of Parliament carrying anti-Najib placards?

Indeed, will they now walk out of their impending marriage with Umno in their quest for the ever-elusive Malay-Muslim unity?