Polygamy Inc: how Global Ikhwan is becoming a lifestyle choice for many devout Muslims

With its controversial views on marriage and links to a banned religious sect, Global Ikhwan is proving divisive in Malaysia. Marta Kasztelan looks at a conglomerate that is less a company and more a lifestyle choice for its 4,000 ‘members’.

Sliding through his smartphone photo gallery, Lokman Hakim proudly shows off his 27 children – 15 from his first wife, eight from the second, one from the third and three from his fourth. The 47-year-old Malay considers himself fortunate because so many women agreed to enter into a polygamous union with him. While such an arrangement is legal in Malaysia, it is largely frowned upon in the moderate Muslim country.

“That’s life. It’s just something you have to go through,” explains Lokman, as he pockets his phone.

A more worrying issue, he says, is the stigma attached to his current occupation: he is the chief executive of Global Ikhwan, a Malaysian company with links to banned Islamic sect Al-Arqam.

Founded in the 1960s by Ashaari Mohammad, who had 40 children with his four wives – the maximum number allowed under Malaysian law – Al-Arqam owned a number of businesses and had strict rules regarding Islamic dress code and behaviour.

“It started with one family, then friends [joined] and it eventually lead to intermarriages,” Lokman explains.

Al-Arqam was banned by the Malaysian religious authorities in 1994, and five members were arrested and detained under the Internal Security Act. The teachings of Ashaari were considered deviant by the authorities because they allegedly alluded to supernatural powers and promoted unorthodox views about communicating with the Prophet.

After the ban, Ashaari set up what Lokman describes as an “Islamic business”, called Rufaqa, which became Syarikat Global Ikhwan and then, in May 2013, just Global Ikhwan.

“A good Muslim is not simply a person who stays in the mosque or is fasting. A good Muslim is the person who benefits other people,” Lokman explains.

Walking around the lively facilities one cannot help but notice the profusion of colourful headscarfs.

“One quarter of the employees are men,” says the chief executive. “The rest are women. Islam allows men to marry more than one woman, with the aim of having a bigger Islamic society that can work together and do good things.

Here we encourage women to work, because they have to contribute to the society.”

All of Lokman’s wives, who are, in one way or another, linked to the original Al-Arqam sect, work or have worked for the company.

“You see, we are trying really hard to remain a religious business,” says Lokman. The only means of truly achieving this, he says, is the intermarriage of company employees, who today number 4,000 and often refer to the firm as a “movement” and to themselves as “members”. They come from countries where the business operates: Saudi Arabia – where most of its profits reportedly come from – Egypt, Indonesia, Dubai, Turkey, Jordan, Thailand, Singapore, Australia, Germany and Britain, to name a few.