Abdul Hadi Awang

Abdul Hadi bin Awang (; born 20 October 1947) is a Malaysian politician and religious teacher serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Marang from 1990 to 2004 and again since 2008. A president of Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), he served as the 11th Menteri Besar of Terengganu from 1999 to 2004. Hadi previously was the 8th opposition leader from 2002 to 2004 and was formerly a vice-president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars.

Born in Terengganu, Hadi received his education in neighbourhood schools before furthering his studies at the Islamic University of Madinah between 1969 and 1973, and later at Al-Azhar University. Upon his return to Malaysia, he joined Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia in 1977, where he quickly became its Terengganu state chief. A year later, Hadi joined PAS and contested the Marang state constituency in the 1978 general election. He rose quickly through the ranks. He became the deputy president of PAS in 1989 when Fadzil Noor was elected to the party presidency. He remained as the deputy until 2002, when Fadzil died of a heart attack, resulting in Hadi succeeding him as the president of PAS and has been the longest-serving president in the party's history.

Hadi's 1981 sermon known as the Amanat Hadi, and remarks he made about Christian missionaries in 2016, have both drawn criticism; the latter led two private citizens to file a suit against him under the Sedition Act in 2020.

Early life, family and education Hadi was born on 20 October 1947 in Kampung Rusila, Marang, Terengganu.

He studied at the Islamic University of Madinah between 1969 and 1973, graduating in Islamic shariah, and then took a master's degree at Al-Azhar University in Cairo between 1974 and 1976.

Early career Hadi's father died in 1976, and Hadi succeeded him as khatib at the Rusila mosque, delivering the Friday sermon. His Friday lectures at the mosque drew large congregations. Hadi contested the Marang state constituency at the 1978 general election and lost by 64 votes to Tengku Zahid Tengku Musa of Barisan Nasional. He won the Marang state seat in 1982. At the 1986 general election he lost the Marang parliamentary seat while holding his state constituency, and he won and held both seats at the 1990, 1995 and 1999 general elections.

Fadzil Noor died in June 2002 and Hadi took over as acting president that month. He was confirmed in the post at the party muktamar the following year, and has led PAS since 2002. He was Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2004, succeeding Fadzil Noor.

2004 general election At the general election of 21 March 2004 the Barisan Nasional took 198 of the 219 parliamentary seats and recaptured Terengganu, ending Hadi's term as Menteri Besar. Hadi lost his own seat to an UMNO candidate, and PAS was displaced by the Democratic Action Party as the largest opposition party, though its share of the popular vote rose slightly, to 15.8 per cent from 15 per cent in 1999. Writing for the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Yang Razali Kassim attributed the outcome to Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's Islam Hadhari platform winning back Malay voters who had left the Barisan Nasional in 1999.

Consolidation of the party presidency The PAS constitution vests final authority in the Syura Ulama Council, a seventeen-member appointed body of religious scholars headed by the party's spiritual leader, with the central committee acting as the body that implements its decisions. Hadi had sought a partnership with UMNO from 2008, a course Nik Aziz opposed. The two parties formalised the Muafakat Nasional pact on 14 September 2019. PAS joined Bersatu in Perikatan Nasional in 2020; Khairuddin Razali, a former member of the Syura Ulama Council, said the council had never discussed that alliance. Khairuddin was removed from the central committee and the council in January 2022.

2018 general election At the 2018 general election the PAS popular vote rose from 1.6 million in 2013 to more than two million, while its parliamentary representation fell from 21 seats to 18. The party held Kelantan, taking nine of the state's fourteen parliamentary seats and 37 of its 45 state seats, won Terengganu from the Barisan Nasional and 15 of 36 state seats in Kedah, but its presence in Selangor, Perak and Johor was substantially reduced.

2022 general election At the 2022 general election Hadi retained Marang with 73,115 votes and a majority of 41,729. PAS contested 64 parliamentary seats and won 43, its best result and double the number it won in 1999. At the 2023 state elections PAS won 105 of the 127 seats it contested.

Syariah Criminal Offences (Hudud and Qisas) Enactment On 8 July 2002 the Terengganu State Legislative Assembly passed a bill introducing hudud criminal penalties, including amputation for theft, death by stoning for adultery and sodomy, death for apostasy, and whipping for the consumption of alcohol. The bill required four male Muslim witnesses to prove a rape, and a complainant who could not meet that standard could be charged with slander. The UMNO members walked out of the chamber as the vote was taken. In 2017 Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain designated the union a terrorist organisation. Hadi attributed the listing to diplomatic disputes between states in the region and said he had not been prevented from performing the umrah.

Palestine In January 2023 the Hamas political bureau chairman Ismail Haniyeh publicly thanked Hadi for his work on the Palestinian cause, during a visit to the Hamas office in Doha by PAS and PASRelief delegations led by Hadi's eldest son, Muhammad Khalil Abdul Hadi. After the explosion at a Gaza City hospital in October 2023, Hadi blamed "Israel's Zionist regime" and said that "the world's leaders and people must rise in the spirit of jihad to defend Palestine".

Controversies and issues Amanat Hadi The Amanat Hadi is an address Hadi delivered in Kuala Terengganu in 1981, in which he described UMNO as an enemy that had to be opposed. An excerpt of the address circulated among PAS members in which, according to Malay Mail, he called UMNO and Barisan Nasional supporters infidels and called for a jihad against them.

On 19 November 1985 a police force of 576 attempted to arrest the PAS figure Ibrahim Mahmood at his home in Kampung Memali, Baling. Fourteen villagers and four police officers died. Mahathir Mohamad linked the Amanat Hadi to the incident. The PAS central committee member Kamaruzaman Mohamad rejected that account, attributing the deaths to the conduct of the security forces and calling for a royal commission of inquiry.

In December 2020 two Sabahans, Maklin Masiau and Lawrence Jomiji Kinsil, filed a suit in the High Court in Kuala Lumpur asking the court to find that Hadi had breached Section 3 of the Sedition Act through those remarks. They said they had brought the action because the public prosecutor had not charged him in the four years since publication. Hadi applied to have the summons struck out.

Remarks on non-Muslims In an opinion piece published on 7 June 2023, Hadi wrote that non-Muslims should be grateful for the citizenship they had been granted in Malaysia and should not challenge the position of Islam or threaten Malay-Muslim leadership. He added that non-Muslims had been given posts in the Cabinet and the government in matters unconnected to religion.

Remarks about Joe Biden On 30 January 2021 the former deputy foreign minister Marzuki Yahya criticised Hadi for saying that a new president in the White House was meaningless for the Islamic world because Joe Biden would continue Zionist-influenced policies, and that the only difference between Biden and Donald Trump was Biden's softer approach. Marzuki said the remarks could be read as an attempt to disrupt relations between Malaysia and the United States.

Writings By 2018, according to the PAS newspaper Harakah Daily, Hadi had published 108 works, grouped into nine categories: PAS policy speeches (16), Islamic creed (13), movement education (4), Quranic exegesis (14), fiqh of the prophetic biography (5), Islamic politics (23), Islamic jurisprudence (6), collected sermons, speeches and papers (15), and miscellaneous works (12). His best-known work is Fiqh al-Harakah dari Sirah Nabawiyah, first published in 1987 by Dewan Pustaka Fajar in Kuala Lumpur, which derives principles for Islamic political movements from the life of Muhammad. Hadi was admitted to hospital on 1 July 2023 for treatment. On 2 July the deputy Menteri Besar of Kelantan and PAS vice-president Mohd Amar Abdullah said Hadi had been moved out of the cardiac care unit to a regular ward after his condition improved. He underwent a further medical procedure on 17 June 2025 which was reported as successful, with visits restricted during his recovery. He was 77 at the time and had been receiving dialysis.

Election results

Selected bibliography

International recognition Abdul Hadi Awang has been listed as one of the world's 500 most influential Muslims by The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre based in Amman, Jordan. He was given this recognition in the category of Preachers & Spiritual Guides The Muslim 500: The World's 500 Most Influential Muslims 2016 edition.

Honours Honours of Malaysia