Challenging Malaysia's Conservative Islam

Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid

In a guest column on the New Mandala website, a Malaysian academic challenges the conservative interpretations of Islam in his country. In the critique he has penned, Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid, a UK-educated political scientist working at Universiti Sains Malaysia, accuses the government of being implicated in advancing, supporting and sustaining intolerant readings of Islam which he considers unsuitable for an ethnically and religiously plural country like Malaysia. Partly this can be attributed to the country's constitution, but in the remainder of the article, he singles out former Prime Minister Mahathir as the main culprit of government manipulation of Malaysia's majority religion.

Here are a few excerpts:

The Constitution was arguably a hybrid document, which was nothing peculiar in view of the new nation state’s eclectic sources of national history. Many analysts have put forward arguments that it had secular intent, but yet it seemed to elevate the religion of the majority of the population to a pedestal unreachable by other religions.

The expansion of the Islamic bureaucracy took place at a relentless pace under Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s Islamisation programme in the 1980s. [...] In contrast to his predecessors who had refrained from exploiting Islam as a political tool, whether out of their own ignorance or respect for constitutional niceties established by its secular-inclined drafters, Mahathir unabashedly championed Islam as the most effective way of outflanking his competitors 
 

Former Prime Minister Mohammad Mahathir

The state’s recent repression of unorthodox Islamic groups, as exemplified in renewed crackdowns on the Shiah and Global Ikhwan movements following the Thirteenth General Election, smacks of its inability to intellectually engage discontented elements within its majority Malay-Muslim population, who increasingly find the state’s handling of Islam to be inept and downright hypocritical

 Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid argues that this does not reflect the true state of affairs in Malaysia, where Islam is understood and practiced in a multiplicity of ways.

With its kaleidoscopic provenance as the backdrop, Islam as understood and practised by Malay-Muslims prior to the era of the nation state never bore monolithic traits. On the contrary, accommodation of mores from a variety of civilisational traditions prevailed, as strongly reflected in the assortment of religious practices deriving from various ethno-cultural traditions that eventually assumed the label of being part of Malay-Muslim heritage.

 In addition, it has also dire consequences for the intellectual vibrancy of a religion:

The government acts only on rogue Muslims in such a way that political benefit accrues to the state and its organic linkages. It is utterly unable to fathom that the Malay-Muslims have developed their Islamic horizons intellectually as a result of the shrinking of the ummah into a global village in the internet age, and so are open to the more sophisticated choices of models of Islam offered throughout the world. How could the state isolate the Islamic understanding of its Malay-Muslim population but at the same time urges them to embrace globalisation and modernisation?
The state continues to pursue an anti-pluralist approach to religion, but fails to appreciate that diversity of views and perspectives among the learned, even in theological matters, has been part and parcel of the glorious Islamic civilisation.

By equating unorthodoxy with deviancy, the Malaysian state is killing off intellectual creativity and innovativeness among its Muslim populace, over whom it prefers to exert an everlasting dominance. Ironically, this runs counter to the Islam Hadhari strand of civilisational interpretation of religion which the government once projected itself to be a proponent of [see also the post of 21 January 2012, ck]

To read the full article click here

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The dangers of being pluralist in Malaysia

Zulkifli Noordin

Religious pluralism is still potentially a very explosive issue in Malaysia. In recent days the Institute for Advanced Islamic Studies (IAIS) saw itself forced to respond to accusations made by Datuk Zulkifli Noordin, an independent MP from the northern state of Kedah, who, until 2010, was a member of Anwar Ibrahim's People's Justice Party (Partai Keadilan Rakyat, PKR), and before that of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS). Zulkifli was ousted from PKR in the wake of the controversy he caused by objecting to the use of the word Allah by Malaysian Christians, notwithstanding a court ruling that this was permissible.

Mohd Hashim Kamali

Now he has turned on IAIS, an independent research institute founded in 2008 with support from Prime Minister Ahmad Badawi to promote the idea of civilizational Islam and keep alive the 'Islamization of Knowledge' Project (see my post of  21 January 2012).On the website of Utusan Malaysia, Zulkifli attacks IAIN for promoting the notion of 'pluralism' and acting as a stooge for the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (to read this article click here). In a response issued by the institute's chairman and CEO, Prof. Mohammad Hashim Kamali, an Afghan-born legal scholar, IAIS notes that:

[Zulkifli's] urge may give the wrong impression to the general public as if IAIS Malaysia is active in spreading pluralism which contradicts the teachings of Islam. Such a misleading impression is possible because some Malaysian Muslims in this country have already understood “religious pluralism” as claiming that all religions are the same.

IAIS Malaysia would like to assert that it rejects religious pluralism which claims that all religions are the same. Nevertheless, it is also conscious of the fact that in contemporary thought, whether among Muslims or non-Muslims, there are understandings of pluralism that do not contravene the teachings of Islam. IAIS Malaysia is of the view that the best way to deal with issues on religious pluralism is not to judge all such beliefs as being contrary to Islam but, on the basis of the Holy Qur’an and rational arguments, to explain to the general public the Islamic perspective on religious pluralism so that the sanctity of Islam is safeguarded.

The undertone of contrition in this press release demonstrates how extremely sensitive this issue is in the Malaysian setting, forcing intellectuals into a position where they must be seen to reaffirm their adherence to the perceived basic teachings of Islam in unequivocal terms.

By way of evidence for his allegations, Zulkifli  also pointed at a joint event planned for 10 May 2012 under the title 'Freedom of Religion and Pluralism in the 20th Century' in which the Iranian scholar and philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr was scheduled to participate, and whom Zulkifli Noordin qualifies as a 'known advocate' of religious pluralism. IAIS found itself obliged to retort that:

The plan by IAIS to hold a public lecture by Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr on the Islamic response to the concept of freedom of religion as espoused by secular belief is meant precisely to refute that belief. As a renowned Islamic scholar, he has the credentials to offer the best Islamic response to it. However due to health reasons which prevented him from travelling to this country, the initial plan to have the lecture was cancelled two months ago.

As one of the pioneers of the 'Islamization of Knowledge' Project, Seyyed Hossein Nasr has become one of the leading contemporary Muslim thinkers, whose ideas are also disseminated through a foundation which bears his name.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr

 The apologetic tone of the IAIS media statement, bordering on servility, makes one cringe. It evinces that in terms of permitting critical thinking by Muslim intellectuals, Malaysia still has a long way to go. The full statement released by IAIS, can be read here.