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Abstract
Over the past three decades Malaysian society has undergone radical change and transformation. On one level this has been brought about by the country's rapid economic transformation, but equally significant has been the deepening Islamization of the country. From banking to law, from dress to education policy, almost no sector of Malaysian society has escaped the growing influence of Islam upon the socioeconomic and political make-up of the country. The prevalent explanation for this dynamic has been the political competition between the United Malay National Organization and the Islamic opposition party, Parti Islam Se-Malaysia, since the early 1980s. Such explanations, however, clearly marginalize the role of other societal factors and dynamics. Consequently, this article contends Islamization in Malaysia has created a series of processes that have produced results which are self-reinforcing. Ironically, the strategy for diverting the extremes of Islamic revival by co-option has actually produced a far more dynamic penetration of state and society by conservative Muslims who have become a powerful constituency supportive of the further religious coloration of government bureaucracies and programmes.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge and thank the Department of Politics of the University of Surrey for their financial support in making a research trip by Dr Abbott to Kuala Lumpur possible in September 2008. In addition, thanks go to two anonymous referees for their constructive suggestions, and to James Nye for his assistance in proofing and preparing the final article.
Notes
Today Malaysia is home to the world's largest Islamic bond market, worth over $47 billion, and accounts for about two-thirds of all Islamic bonds. In addition, 86% of stocks on the Malaysia Bursa are Shari'ah compliant (Sy Citation2007).
Article 121(a) states that civil courts have no jurisdiction on any matter within the jurisdiction of the Syariah courts. Critics argue that this creates tensions with Article 11 (freedom of religion) and that the Constitution is not explicit in the exact scope of the Jurisdiction of the Shari'ah Court (Fernando Citation2006, ILBS Citation2008).
These included interviews with Zainah Anwar, head of the Islamic Womens’ group Sisters in Islam; the President of ABIM Yusri Mohamad; Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad, PAS MP for Kuala Selangor; Khalid Jaafar, Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research and the blogger, lawyer and opposition activist Haris Ibrahim; as well as a number of other interviewees who wished to remain anonymous.
Founded by Ashaari Muhammad, Al-Arqam grew very rapidly between 1972 and 1978. Arqam's goal was to create an Islamic society as a precursor to an Islamic state. Because it was seen as anti-establishment it attracted many young and educated followers with its supporters including lecturers, highly placed civil servants, school teachers, doctors and nurses. The movement was eventually banned by the Malaysian government in 1994 and several of its prominent leaders detained under the ISA. When it was finally banned it was estimated that Al-Arqam had between 10,000 and 100,000 supporters.
Tabligh was a missionary movement that first originated in India. While it initially emerged in Malaysia among Indian Muslims it quickly spread to rural Malay villages. Like Al-Arqam it was revivalist seeking to revive and clarify the basic teachings of Islam in the Quran via a series of retreats. Seen as largely apolitical, Jomo and Cheek Citation(1988) claim that Tabligh had a limited impact.
The NEP was launched in 1970 with the aim of raising the Malay/bumiputra share of GDP from 3% to 30% by 1990.
Originally passed in 1960 the Act allows police to arrest any person suspected of acting in ‘any manner prejudicial to the security of Malaysia … or the economic life thereof and to detain them indefinitely without trial’.
The UUCA imposes severe restrictions on the formation of political organizations since it requires every club, organization, society or political party to secure a licence from the government, thereby providing a means to block or impede the formation of any organization considered undesirable.
In the 2008 elections PAS won 23 seats in parliament and 83 seats in the state assemblies. Besides Kelantan PAS was the largest party in Kedah (16 seats).
Nevertheless, the relationship between the AG's Chambers and the Cabinet is more complex. For example, following a spate of conversions to Islam (and R Subashini versus Saravanan in particular), in which the children of a non-Muslim spouse were also converted, the Cabinet unilaterally declared in April 2009 that in that in the event of any dispute, a child must be raised in the faith professed by both parents at the time of marriage. In other words conversion cannot be used to automatically get custody of children. The Cabinet subsequently ordered the AG's chambers to look into all relevant laws that needed to be amended to ensure this. This decision has subsequently been rejected by Islamic councils and Islamic NGOs (Soon Citation2007, Ting Citation2009).
The most recent of which has concerned the use of ‘Allah’ by non-Muslims to describe God. In 2007, the Home Ministry banned the use of the word by the Catholic newspaper the Herald, and in November 2009 confiscated 15,000 copies of Malay language in which the word for God is translated as ‘Allah’. The government claimed that the word Allah is Islamic and that the distribution of the bibles might convince Muslims that Christian groups were deliberately seeking to proselytize which could inflame ethnic and religious tensions. However on 31 December 2009 a ruling by the Kuala Lumpur High Court overruled the earlier ban, asserting constitutional guarantees regarding the freedom of religion. Since then there have been demonstrations and arson attacks on over 10 churches (Piggott Citation2009, Anwar Citation2010, Kuppusamy Citation2010).
Among the most famous of these is the case concerned Lina Joy (WLUML Citation2007). Born to Muslim parents, Lina converted to Christianity in 1990 and changed her name. While her name change was recognized on her identity card her change of religion was not since she did not have confirmation from the Shari'ah Court. Her campaign to have her religion changed on her identity card eventually went to the highest court in Malaysia and became a cause célèbre for human rights campaigners. On 30 May 2007 the court ruled against her appeal arguing that the Shari'ah Court alone has the power to deal with Islamic issues. In the original case (2005) the Judge argued that while Article 11(1) of the Federal Constitution provides for freedom of religion, the article must be understood in conjunction with Article 3(1) of the constitution which assigns a special position to Islam in the Federation. Thus because Lina was still a Muslim when she requested that her religion be changed on her identity card ‘by virtue of Article 160(2) of the Federal Constitution she cannot leave the Islamic Religion at all’ (Mohamed Adil Citation2007b, p. 115).
Bachrach and Barantz (Citation1963, p. 641) argue that a crucial, but oft overlooked, element of decision-making is ‘the conscious or unconscious decision to exclude certain issues from formal locations of decision and from relevant decision makers’. This they refer to as non-decisions. In the case of the Islamization process in Malaysia it is our contention that much of that process can be characterized as the result of non-decisions rather than an explicit ‘plan’.