Banda Aceh – Authorities in the strongly Muslim Indonesian province of Aceh have officially agreed to move towards the imposition of the Islamic Syariah law there, a local MP said Saturday.

Aceh House Speaker Muhammad Yus said that a regulation passed by the provincial parliament here on Thursday decreed that the province will adopt Syariah law and that preparatory work should begin.

Aceh, an oil and gas rich province on the northern tip of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, has seen mounting calls for independence, especially since 1998 at the end of three decades of iron-fist rule by former president Suharto.

The government has ruled out allowing Aceh to secede but has promised it greater autonomy, including in religious affairs. "With this provincial ruling, we will lay the foundations, promote the fundamentals and formulate the laws and and customary laws that are oriented to the demands of Islamic teachings," Yus said.

He said local authorities will work to gradually arrange all sectors of life in Aceh in line with the laws of Islam, but gave no details of the schedule. "Islam as a universal teaching, contains the essence and particular laws that will organise every dimension of the life of the people of Aceh," Yus said.

He called on all civic and religious leaders, as well as academics, to begin to jointly discuss and study Islam and come out with a set of laws for Aceh. "What is most urgent is to formulate legal arrangements to govern the society with all its sectors, fields and activities," Yus said.

The Aceh provincial parliament has also passed two other provincial decrees, one concerning education and the other regulating customary or tribal laws. The government of Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid has said that Jakarta will allow Aceh the freedom to have its own education and religious system, and will recognize its particular customary laws.