MALAY AND ISLAMIC SOVEREIGNTY

The UMNO, a Malay nationalist political party, has led the multiracial and multireligious National Front (Barisan Nasional; BN) that has ruled the Malaysian federal government since political independence in 1957.

After citing a poem lauding presumed Malay ancestral characteristics of flexibly accommodating customary principles with sharia and faithfully serving the Muslim community, UMNO President Najib, in his keynote speech, proceeds to further elaborate on their approach to sharia and its connection to Malay leadership of a diverse Malaysian society and economic modernity:

In fact, in terms of those Malay ancestors, they have passed the test of time.

Within this elite UMNO ideology, wasaṭiyyah fits with the already-present flexible and accommodating character of ancestral Malays who embraced Islam.³ This particular formulation of the “middle path” appears to be a complex concept that organizes and provides a framework for understanding many domains in which Malays have adopted a position between two extremes.⁴ Instead of extending equal citizenship to all Malaysians or restricting citizenship only to Malays, they negotiated a “social contract” whereby citizenship is extended to all Malaysians but full belonging or Tuan status is reserved for “indigenous” Malays. It also applies to adopting “Islam as the religion of the federation” together with “religious freedom” for non-Muslims. UMNO President Najib, following the framework laid out by former PM Mahathir Mohamad, underscores the importance of wasaṭiyyah for economic development and modernization.

Although UMNO’s format for linking race, religion, and nation has persuaded many Malaysian Muslims and non-Muslims over the years, it has not achieved total hegemony. Following the race riots of 1969, the UMNO-led Barisan Nasional government co-opted and funded many Malay nationalist silat (martial arts) groups that promoted the racialized agama, bangsa, dan negara (religion, race, and nation) ideology of Malay political elites (Lawrence Ross 2013). These groups became organized on a national level and shifted their targets from non-Muslim opposition groups to PAS as electoral politics fluctuated over the last several decades. Similarly, Malay rights organizations, such as PERKASA (Pertubuhan Pribumi Perkasa; Organization of Empowering Indigenous Peoples of Malaysia) and GERTAK (Gerakan Kebangkitan Rakyat; People’s Awakening Movement), have emerged, shoring up some support for Ketuanan Melayu and attacking detractors and opponents of UMNO. For instance, PERKASA arose in the aftermath of the twelfth general election of 2008, in which UMNO lost five states to the opposition and its two-thirds majority in the Parliament. In my interview with a few PERKASA leaders in Kedah, they blamed the electoral loss in that state on the “defection” of large numbers of Chinese and Indians from Barisan Nasional.

PERKASA and many other Malay rights organizations are quick to criticize PAS and PKR (Partai Keadilan Rakyat; People’s Justice Party) for selling out the Malay race, and they occasionally use Islam or sharia as a metaphor for Malays. Another article in Suara Perkasa (2010b) complains of visible alcohol cans in the garbage next to a Selangor state government building: “This is proof the upper-level state leaders suffer from an extremely weak administration.... [N]ot more than four of the state Exco [Executive Council] members are Malay within the Parti Keadilan Rakyat’s state administration. It’s as if they have no voice or power because the majority of Exco members are from non-Malay groups.” Alcohol cans in garbage bins near the PKR-led state government’s office building are symbols of the lack of Malay leadership. Thus, if Muslim opposition forces are shown to not be upholding sharia among their non-Muslim cohorts, then this is evidence of their failure to carry on the struggle for Malay rights.

On the other hand, PAS has mounted a significant ideological and political contest over the last three decades against both UMNO’s and Malay rights organizations’ manner of linking race, religion, and nation. The Islamic Party of Malaysia’s long-range goal is the establishment of an Islamic state that will fully implement sharia, including hudud and qisas criminal punishments. Rather than the Ketuanan Melayu championed by UMNO and PERKASA, PAS proposes Ketuanan Islam or Islamic sovereignty. Tok Guru Nik Aziz, then governor of Kelantan and spiritual leader of PAS, told me, “In Malaysia, there are two courts. There is the civil court and the sharia court. Who said it is supposed to be this way? In the time of the Prophet Muhammad, in the time of the caliphs, there was only one court.” He exclaimed that when they gain control of the state there would be only one court of law, the sharia court.⁵ PAS rejects the “secular” arrangement of relegating sharia courts to handling Muslim family and personal criminal laws on the state-level, while the civil High Court handles all manner of cases on the state and federal levels. PAS has passed two hudud and qisas enactments—in Kelantan in 1993 and Terengganu in 1999—but was not able to implement them due to federal-level restrictions. They remain dedicated to the full implementation of sharia despite some fallout in the Anwar Ibrahim–led opposition coalition, Pakatan Rakyat, of which they were members together with PKR and DAP (Democratic Action Party). PAS leaders view the establishment of an Islamic state as a Muslim responsibility:

Governing and administering the negara [country] is actually included with religious tasks.

According to PAS leaders, the obligation for Muslims to establish an Islamic state is rooted in the Holy Qur’an and the example of Prophet Muhammad, the Rasul or Messenger of Allah. Muslim leaders of the Islamic state must implement the laws and ethical norms provided by the sacred constitution, Al-Qur’an, and Prophetic Traditions. Combining their notion of a broad operationalization of sharia that extends into all domains of life with the contemporary idea of the “nation-state” does not pose any problem for them. They believe that the revealed ḥukum (laws) should be applied by, and provide the guiding principles of, whatever sort of polity (or negara) exists.⁶ Islamic forces must attain political power to establish the Islamic state as a geographical entity that will comprehensively execute the laws of Allah (Muhammad Syukri 1999). The current problem from their perspective is not that Islam is connected with the state but that “secular” leaders are in control of the state. “Secular” here refers to UMNO leaders’ basis in struggling for Malay rights and their lack of commitment to fully implementing sharia, including, quite notably, the hudud penal code. Not only has PAS been campaigning for installing hudud laws for several decades, but they have also institutionalized a program called Hari Hudud (Hudud Day) in which they try to educate and raise public awareness about Islamic law. In fact, many of my interlocutors in Kelantan tended to respond to my general questions about sharia with statements about hudud. As a result of PAS political campaigning, the Islamic penal code has become magnified within many of their supporters’ models of sharia.

Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat in Kelantan House, Kuala Lumpur

In the process of challenging UMNO-BN hegemony, the ulama leaders of PAS formulated competing notions for imagining the Malaysian nation, multiculturalism, and economic development. Drawing on religious sources that emphasize piety over race or ethnic identities, they stressed virtuous Muslim identities over Malay-ness. In their model of Ketuanan Islam, Muslims rather than Malays would be the rightful leaders and full citizens of the Malaysian nation. However, they also promote the appointment of non-Muslim local leaders as well as criteria based on need and class rather than race for the allocation of goods and services. In addition, PAS leaders criticize the mega projects and elitism of the UMNO-BN modernity project and argue for a populist and class-conscious economic approach that infuses sharia into processes of consumption and distribution (see Daniels 2013a).

PAS leaders publicly contest UMNO and Malay rights organizations’ formula of Islam-race-nation and their basis in struggling for Malay rights. The spiritual leader of PAS and governor of Kelantan, Nik Abdul Aziz, shocked many in the Malay community when he announced to a media gathering in September 2010 that he was not proud of being Malay. Race is something that comes automatically and in Islam there is no dominant race; if there were a dominant race in Islam, it would be the Arab race, he reportedly added. When invited to give a speech, he insisted that he would not do it in the name of Malays, but in the name of Islam. Chief minister Nik Aziz also informed the media that the PAS-led state government of Kelantan has spent as much as RM 7 million to build a Chinese-style masjid in Rantau Panjang and organized the Cheng Ho Expo in an effort to rid the society of racism. For several days his words reverberated in the media, and they elicited several scathing responses in the Malay-language newspapers (Utusan 2010a). In the Sinarharian newspaper, Mohd Zawawi, a state political official in Terengganu, called for Nik Aziz to clarify his statement, complaining that it could confuse the masses; in a place like Malaysia where Malays are Muslims, his words could be interpreted to mean he is not proud of being a Muslim. Ramlan Husain, a director of a Bumiputera business association in Selangor, charged that this statement values politics to the detriment of Malay pride and appears to be part of a project to eliminate Malay special rights when Nik Aziz and his children have benefited from these privileges as Malays: “Islam does not forbid the Muslim community from being concerned about their racial origins as long as they are not held to be more important than Islam.... This Malay leader possibly has a racial identity crisis.... What is his problem? You would think that he would acknowledge and be proud of being Muslim and Malay because Malay and Islam cannot be divided in this country.”⁷ Utusan, a Malay-language newspaper closely tied to UMNO, and The Star, an English-language newspaper, reported that Datuk Alwi Che Ahmad, the leader of BN opposition in Kelantan, called on Nik Aziz to resign as chief minister of the state for making comments that could “cause unrest among Malays.” He evoked the conventional “social contract” notion, stating that the “rights of Malays are enshrined in the Federal Constitution” and that “Malaysians of all races lived in harmony.” Like other UMNO leaders, Datuk Alwi suggested Nik Aziz was “playing politics and is not a sincere Muslim because even Prophet Muhammad had stressed... the importance of race.”⁸ UMNO leaders’ and supporters’ public responses to Nik Aziz’s downplaying of Malay racial identity exhibited a pattern of criticizing his political motivations and arguing for Malay rights, the indivisibility of Malay identity and Islam in Malaysia, and the permissibility of stressing on one’s race in Islam. Some also interpreted that Nik Aziz was expressing his opposition to UMNO’s overtures for unity talks with PAS.

In the context of late 2010 and early 2011, there was plenty of discussion of political divisions in the Malay community and calls for Malay unity. With the backdrop of major UMNO electoral losses in the general election of 2008, former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad made several public statements and speeches complaining about the current weakness of Malays, which he contended was the result of political divisions into UMNO, PKR, and PAS camps. The elder statesmen appeared at public events organized by PERKASA, and together they called for Malay unity to maintain their political leadership of the nation. While UMNO leaders were declaring their preparedness to work together with PAS for Malay and Muslim unity in the country, PAS leaders were reminding the public that the dasar (basic foundations and principles) of the parties were different. Nik Abdul Aziz responded to these calls by stating that the “Malay political strength depends on the preparedness of UMNO to change their dasar to Islam” (Malaysiakini 2010). He called for principled unity based on struggling for Islam rather than struggling for Malay domination. Moreover, as UMNO ideologues continued to emphasize his downplaying of Malay-ness, Nik Aziz repeated his perspective, stating, “If I was born in a group from Orang Asli society or whatever it would not matter, my origins would be in Islam and having faith in Allah Subhaana Wa Ta’ala (SWT).” This was in response to Mahathir Mohamad publicly asking him to be thankful for being born Malay since Malays are definitely Muslims. Mahathir argued that the Malay race is unique because, according to the Constitution, they must speak Malay, perform Malay customs, and have Islam as their religion. In this exchange, Nik Aziz repeated that all races are the same and there are no special ones among them, including Arabs, except for Muslims believing in Allah. Besides, if race was important, he added, then surely Prophet Muhammad’s fellow Arab, Abu Jahal, would enter heaven, but Allah already stated long ago that he would be among those sent to hell. Reiterating PAS ideals, the spiritual leader pronounced that the Islam they struggle for is “simple and situated in a high place and opposes past actions that contradict religion” (Malaysiakini 2011). Similarly, the head of the PAS Youth wing, Nasrudin, who has emerged as a prominent media figure, contested the accusations of the president of PERKASA, Datuk Ibrahim Ali, that since PAS began working together with PKR and DAP they no longer prioritize religion. He responded to this typical attack by stating, “Ibrahim’s thickly racist attitude makes him unfit to struggle for Islam because religion does not allow things to be divided according to race” (Sinarharian 2011).

Although UMNO secular nationalist ideologues and Malay rights activists can adequately engage in public discursive skirmishes with PAS over matters relating to bangsa and the special position of Malays, they are not qualified to effectively debate the ulama leaders of PAS on agama or religious affairs. As part of the long-term contest with PAS over which party is “most Islamic,” UMNO often draws on the expertise of government and party ulama to rebut PAS positions on many religious issues. Fathul Bari Mat Jahya, the director of UMNO’s Young Ulama Secretariat, has even been argued for UMNO to establish its own council of ulama within the party. It would be UMNO’s version of the Majlis Syura and Dewan Ulama in PAS. On July 19, 2012, a highly publicized debate between Fathul Bari and Nasrudin was televised, transmitted on the radio, and covered in other media during the run-up to the thirteenth general election. The title of the program featuring these two young ulama of opposing political parties was, in translation, “Who Will Young People Vote For?” Although UMNO has stopped short of organizing an ulama council within its party and fielding large numbers of ulama in elections, they have aggressively deployed government and party ulama to undermine PAS authority as a political party struggling for Islam. For instance, when deputy prime minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin demanded that Nik Abdul Aziz stop making statements like “the prayers of UMNO people are not accepted” and that “BN just thinks of contracts when building masjids,” Fathul Bari came to his assistance and requested that the National Fatwa Council immediately investigate all of Nik Aziz’s statements. The young UMNO religious scholar, trained in the Middle East and at the International Islamic University Malaysia, claimed that such statements uttered by the spiritual leader of PAS deviates from aqidah and divides the Muslim community. Verbally chastising the revered PAS leader, Fathul Bari said, “Don’t be so busy judging the actions or ibadat of UMNO people because it is only Allah that determines those matters” (Malaysiakini 2013).

Similarly, Perak mufti Tan Sri Harussani Zakaria and Selangor mufti Datuk Mohd Tamyes Abd Wahid debated PAS ulama about the proper religious approach concerning the potential conflict of performing the obligatory ibadah of hajj with fulfilling responsibilities of participating in the upcoming Malaysian general election. These Islamic scholars along with some UMNO political elites wrangled over this matter in June 2012 when there was the possibility that the thirteenth general election would be called at the prerogative of the prime minister later that year, overlapping with the time Malaysian pilgrims would be departing for Mecca. Prime Minister Najib dropped hints that this might happen, and PAS leaders warned that it would deprive tens of thousands of Malaysians of their right to vote. While PAS leaders asked Prime Minister Najib to guarantee that the general election would not occur during the hajj season, they also announced that their party members directly involved in the election—including candidates, their representatives, and election directors—should postpone their plans to perform hajj. There was a flurry of media interviews and newspaper articles covering the ensuing debate. Dr. Abdul Rani, the PAS electoral officer in Selangor, said he supported this announcement made by the PAS information chief Datuk Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man: “We study closely the principles of fiqh awlawiyat clarified by Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, that is, whenever presented with two important matters, we need to select the matter that is of more importance. Performing the hajj is definitely important to the Muslim community but the right for determining the national leadership is more important” (Sinarharian 2012e). To the contrary, Selangor mufti Datuk Mohd Tamyes Abd Wahid expressed the legal opinion that performing hajj for the second or third time or more is sunat (recommended behavior), so the decision to proceed with the niat (intention) to make hajj or not devolves to the individual. Individuals receive a reward for performing sunat, but if they fail to do the act it is not a sin. However, if individuals are performing hajj for the first time and they and their families have enough provisions, then it is wajib (obligatory) for them to proceed with their intention to make hajj: “If they cancel their intention just for some worldly matter... and let’s say the person dies before they have the opportunity to perform hajj they would die in the condition of ignorance” (Sinarharian 2012b).

Nik Abdul Aziz responded to scholarly criticism of the PAS announcement by stating that the hajj is not an ibadat that needs to be done immediately and that the dalil (evidence) for this lies in the Sunna of the Prophet. The PAS spiritual leader further clarified that Rasulullah himself performed hajj in the tenth year of Hijrah although the revelation that performing hajj is wajib came down in the sixth year of Hijrah. “This proves that ibadat haji does not have to be performed immediately,” he said (Sinarharian 2012b). Moreover, this evidence, Nik Abdul Aziz asserted, demonstrates that Islam allows followers to postpone the hajj even if they are listed in a group prepared to perform this ibadat. Perak mufti Tan Sri Harussani Zakaria presented his rebuttal to the media the following day, declaring that ibadat haji is the fifth obligation of the Rukun Islam (Pillars of Islam) and that if one fulfills all the requirements of having enough resources, including nafkah for the family, then it cannot be delayed due to a general election. If one is sick or the situation is not safe, then that is sufficient reason to postpone making the hajj. Like the Selangor mufti, Harussani warned of the possible grave outcome if the individuals delaying their hajj die in the interim. He reported that there is a hadith that points out the death of such individuals would occur with them in the state of being a Jew or Christian, a major sin (Sinarharian 2012f). As it turned out, the thirteenth general election was not called in the last quarter of 2012; instead, it took place on May 5, 2013. Clearly, the advanced Islamic knowledge of these government ulama has allowed them to go far beyond the criticism of secular nationalist elites that PAS was just prioritizing politics over religious obligations. They were able to present opinions on the legal and ethical status of postponing performance of the hajj and warn of the dire consequences of delaying it for inadequate worldly reasons. It is important to note that they downplayed the obligation of participating in electoral politics, considering it a mundane matter. In contrast, in the PAS sharia model performing one’s political responsibilities has religious significance; it is part of political jihad aimed at attaining the political power to establish an Islamic state and to fully implement sharia laws. I found that this methodological and epistemological distinction between UMNO-oriented and PAS-oriented ulama carries over into the masjid context.

The UMNO-led BN government attempts to control the expression of ideological and political perspectives in masjids by having JAKIM administer the texts of khutbah (Friday sermons) and the Islamic religious departments regulate the tauliah of ulama permitted to give religious talks in the mosque (kuliah masjid). These regulated speech events tend to focus on the specific religious teachings on a topic and/or reflect the ideology of Malay political elites. For instance, UMNO-oriented ulama present the details of conventional interpretations of Qur’anic verses, hadith, and fiqh rulings on particular topics without making analogies or connections to contemporary political contexts. One ulama giving a religious talk following the evening prayer (kuliah maghrib) at a large masjid in Selangor spoke extensively about apostates in the days of Rasulullah and his Sahabat (companions) and how these authorities responded to the matter of murtad. He shifted from the texts to the present context, mentioning the case of a high school student who committed zina with a religious figure in Malaysia, but he did not make any connections to politics. Likewise, another ulama at a local masjid focused on the details of Shāfi’ī rulings about the requirements for being an imam leading collective ritual prayers and which types of people should take precedence over others in performing this important role in worship. The person should be the best at recitation, fiqh, and akhlak (ethical conduct), but if several people are on the same level in these characteristics you select the one who has berhijrah (migrated) for the longest period of time. This scholar interpreted berhijrah as referring to “the longest in Islam” and declared that this means that if there are “born Muslims” and “mualaf” (converts) on the same level in terms of other valued features, the “born Muslim” must be the imam regardless of age and length of time as a Muslim. This scholar’s interpretation appeared to reinforce the racialized hierarchy of Malay Muslims as the preferred group of Muslims over non-Malay converts. However, when the masjid organizing committee falls under the influence of PAS-oriented members, sermons and other religious talks expressing counter-hegemonic models may take place in these venues.

During 2011 and 2012, many of the masjids and prayer halls I visited were sites rife with contestation of dominant cultural frameworks, and their kuliah masjid tended to make explicit analogies and metaphorical connections to contemporary politics. At one prayer hall I often attended in 2012, the committee moved the evening kuliah, during the month of Ramadan, to the time after we performed Isyak (late evening) or Tarawih and Witr (recommended prayers during the month of Ramadan). Because of strong local values of performing ibadat and spending more time in the masjids and prayer halls, there was always a large group of men and women staying late at night for these religious talks. On one occasion, the scholar spoke extensively about how firm faith in Allah can bring assistance from Allah in the believer’s times of need, even in the form of miracles. Initially, he provided examples from the histories of Rasulullah and his Sahabat, and then shifted to make connections to recent events in Egypt, where Muhammad Morsi had just won the presidential election; and then to Malaysia, where Muslims are struggling for Islam. This scholar mentioned being with other ulama protesting in support of the Selangor opposition government’s project to provide free water for people, which the federal government is blocking. He likened Morsi and other moral fighters for Islam to Prophet Yusuf, and cruel oppressive leaders throughout the Muslim world, including Malaysia, to Firaun (the Pharaoh). On another night during Ramadan, a scholar in his thirties gave a kuliah Isyak focusing on the fact that we are not given much time in our lives to worship Allah and wondered about how many years will we have the opportunity to fast for Ramadan. Many of us wait until the end of our lives to worship Allah and do the things that are most important in this world. He spoke about the experience of different prophets when the Angel of Death came to take their souls, and contrasted their behavior to that of the zalim, or cruel and oppressive rulers, who seem to live for a long time. Finally, the scholar made connections between the moral and immoral figures of the past with contemporary Islamic movements and their foes in Egypt and Malaysia. These sorts of talks went on for much of the month, except for a few days when the surau (prayer hall not used for Friday congregational prayers) seemed to be under surveillance by government authorities. Around the same time, Malay-language newspapers were reporting that the Islamic religious department in Selangor was investigating what it considered masjid panas (hot masjids). Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah, the sultan of Selangor, declared that he “did not want the people in his state to make masjids and prayers halls political places or for people to gather there forming political associations that don’t bring development to Islam” (Sinarharian 2012d). A PAS member I interviewed in this neighborhood in Selangor told me that this prayer hall is now under the control of PAS, but around 1995 JAIS raided and seized control of it, terminating all kuliah there and appointing new religious figures. Gradually PAS got stronger and was able to take it back. These are the kinds of political and ideological skirmishes happening on the ground in many neighborhoods as UMNO and PAS forces vie for control of religious spaces, hearts, and minds. There is great interdependence between the discourses and approaches of these political camps, including attempts by PAS to fashion their own alternative multiculturalism and efforts by UMNO to organize and mobilize their own ulama corps. Although they continue to clash over which party presents the best approach to race and religion, UMNO and PAS often find themselves working together, along with many Islamic NGOs, when confronted with issues perceived to be threatening Islam and challenging its place in Malaysian society.