Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 16 (IANS): Leave Marx or dialectical materialism, a leader of Kerala's ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) on Sunday seemed to have adopted an Islamic worldview.

In a public programme at Kozhikode, senior leader and former MP and minister T.K. Hamza said: " Covid-19 is a Satan sent by Allah. This is to correct us and without correcting the world this Satan will not retreat."

He also said that people, especially Muslims, must introspect whether they have diverted from the life envisaged by the Holy Quran.

Addressing a meeting of the Wakf Board action council, the former minister said: "The whole world belongs to Allah and he has given us the opportunity to look after his property. Everyone must work wholeheartedly for protecting his property."

The statement of Hamza, who has been Chairman of the Wakf Board, seems to indicate how the CPI-M is now trying to woo the Muslim community in the state.

The Samastha Kerala Jamiat-ul-Ulema, a powerful body of Muslim scholars, which was ideologically inclined towards the Muslim League, has recently opposed the party conducting agitations at mosques in the state against the appointments in Wakf boards through the Public Service Commission.

The CPI-M has been trying to somehow woo the Muslim community and the statement of the senior leader of the CPI-M is seen in this context.

Talking to IANS, social activist and journalist Roy Mathew said: "CPI-M has now become a party of political opportunism. In 2006, when CPI-M legislators, M.M. Monayi and Isha Potti had taken oath as legislators in the name of God, then Secretary of CPI-M, Pinarayi Vijayan, who is the present Chief Minister, had done a scathing attack on the duo and had publicly censured the two leaders."

"In 2021, Veena George, a minister in Vijayan's cabinet, took oath in the name of God and the CPI-M leadership did not say a word against it."