Finding Moderation in Malaysia's Islam

Finding Moderation in Malaysia's Islam

By Marzuki Mohamad, 24 Aug 2006


Malaysia has long been touted as a moderate Muslim country in which modern ethos and Islamic tradition blend well in its political, legal and economic system. Though a Muslim-majority country, Malaysia’s political system is modeled after the Westminster style of parliamentary democracy. Islam is the official religion but the modern Federal Constitution is the highest law of the land. Islamic banking and insurance exists side by side, if not part and parcel of, the modern capitalist economic system.

There are more to say about Malaysia’s Islamic justice system which exists side by side the modern civil legal system. Islamic laws as administered by the Syariah courts derive their legitimacy not from some kind of divinely inspired authority of the Vicegerent of God on Earth, but from the modern constitution. The Syari’ah court judges apply written Islamic laws passed by modern legislatures, thus making Malaysia’s Islamic justice system a far cry from Max Weber’s notion of highly unpredictable traditional Kathi-justice system. Contrary to Weber’s assumption, the litigants in Malaysia’s Syariah court can expect some degree of predictability of the law, which is also a necessary requirement of modern laws.

Such unique blend of Islamic traditions and modern ethos makes Malaysia a model moderate Muslim country which is able to showcase to the world not only its harmonious plural society, but also successful experience with mutual engagement of Islam and modernity. At the heart of this success are increasingly educated and tolerant Muslim population, moderate Islamic movements and responsive government.

The Muslim population has generally accepted a “tolerated” version of Islam in the public sphere by accepting the supremacy of the modern Federal Constitution as the highest law of the land. The mainstream moderate Islamic movements, while are committed to preaching Islam, are not keen on restoring the glorious theocratic Caliphate system in order to replace the existing modern nation state set-up. The government has also been responsive. While it has been aggressive in modernizing public administration, education and defense, it has also embarked on a colossal “Islamization project” as a response to Islamic resurgence in the 1970s.

Toleration and moderation has been central not only to continued existence of Malaysia’s harmonious plural society, but also to its progress toward modernity. Recent debate and furor over special constitutional position of Islam and constitutional freedom of its multi-religious population, however, put the central role of moderation to test. In a haste to progress toward modernity, a group of human rights activists pressed for absolute religious freedom, which is a taboo for traditional Islamists. This is evident in a spate of recent events which include formation of a coalition of human rights organizations committed to promoting constitutional rights, which include rights to absolute religious freedom, and a court room battle over an application by a Muslim lady to apostate.

The response is almost predictable. There has been hue and cry among the Muslim community who often interpret the right to absolute religious freedom as synonymous to the right to murtad (apostasy), which is a grave crime in traditional Islam. While some are quick to blame recent valorization of human rights activism as a cause for the current “onslaught” on Islam, others are keen on proving international plot against Muslims in Malaysia. On top of this, the enemies are the West and its “isms” - secularism, liberalism, religious pluralism and, of course, modernism.

While recent struggle for the right to absolute religious freedom and Muslim community’s firebrand response to it seem to suggest that there has been some kind of regression from modernity, a closer look on the ground reveals that an ambience of commitment to modern values remains salient. While The Organization of Defenders of Islam (PEMBELA), a coalition of more than 70 Islamic NGOs committed to defending the rights of Muslims in Malaysia, seeks to defend the special constitutional position of Islam, what the organization demands is merely re-emphasization of the terms of pre-independence constitutional contract, which is itself a foundation for the modern Federal Constitution.

Muslim student leaders who participated in a public forum at University of Malaya recently reminded the audience not to go overboard in their response to current “onslaught” on Islam so as not to offend the non-Muslim community in the country, as well as not to severe the ties with progressive non-Muslim student groups which have been allies in their common struggle for democratic students’ rights recently. The same concern was raised by participants at a recent meet organized by Allied Coordination Council of Islamic NGOs (ACCIN), a coalition of 14 Malaysia’s Islamic NGOs.

Commitment to constitutionalism and the rule of law is also not missing. Lawyers in Defence of Islam (PPI), another organization consisting of Muslim lawyers formed to defend constitutional position of Islam, is resolute to pursue its struggle through constitutional and legal means. In short, moderation and civility are not all lost in Malaysian Muslim’s response to the call for the right to absolute religious freedom, which is regarded by the generally traditional Muslim-majority as a serious challenge to their faith.

But there is an important lesson to be learnt from the still unfolding events. The Malaysian experience shows that the Western ethnocentric view of inevitable progress toward modernity has its own limitation. In a society with deep cultural and social cleavages, the progress is not one of directional movement to one end. As modern ethos interplays with traditional values, the result can either be further progress toward modernity or complete regression from the same. Moderation is then a key to mutual co-existence of traditional and modern values in a modernizing society. Choosing to be moderate could mean taking a long journey toward modernity, or even a halt to the whole “progress”, but neither being abrasive is a guarantee for complete attainment of modern ideals.



Marzuki Mohamad (marzuki.mohamad@anu.edu.au) is a Research Scholar at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, Canberra. He is also a Central Executive Committee Member of Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia (AB