SHARIA PERSONAL NARRATIVES AND PRACTICE

I asked some of my interlocutors to respond to more open-ended questions about the role of sharia in their personal lives. These interviews aimed to elicit information about how their communities of practice, including family and educational backgrounds, have shaped their ideas and feelings about sharia.

The first sharia personal narrative I present is from Lili Zohail, a thirty-one-year-old unmarried Malay woman, who lives and works in Kuala Lumpur. She was born into a working-class family in Kedah and moved to Kuala Lumpur thirteen years ago. I met her for this interview, with her friend Marianne, a young Indian woman that converted from Hinduism to Christianity but who now considers herself a “free thinker.” We discussed sharia in her personal story for over three hours at a restaurant near the Bangsar Village shopping mall. She wore a tight pair of jeans that accentuated her shapely body, with a short button-down blouse and no tudung. TRYING TO SOFTEN MY TONGUE AGAIN

Yes, of course, when you finish your school and studies, you want to enjoy your social life and to try something with men. But at the same time, my mother teaches Al-Quran in Kedah. Even if I am in Kuala Lumpur and even though I am social, in my mind I am still afraid of my mom.

I don’t really like clubs much anymore, maybe once in three or four months. I just drink alcohol when I am at the clubs. Some people can drink it at their home, but not for me.... At my home, I am a Muslim, so alcohol is not at my home.... My entertainment now is some karaoke and that is it. It is better that I concentrate on education now and not to spend so much time in those things. I won’t say that I have 100 percent quit, because I still can go to the club with my friends sometimes. But not like before, [when] I was more excited about it than the kids. Last time, I drank alcohol because one of my friends posted me and said you are in Kuala Lumpur and you have not drunk or had sex yet, and he sort of pushed me....

Now, sometimes, I wake up at night and read Ayatul Kursi [the Throne Verse, Q. 2:255] and recite it 179 times to protect me from evil. Last time I tried for one week and it really helped me. I was really in despair and trauma. The effects were very good for myself and I was very satisfied with what I did... because I have left behind my praying and now I think it is time to get it back.... Sometimes I want to study and be better now, but I am not sure how to start. Because once you are lost, you know you need to get back to one way but you don’t know how to get back to the right way.... After I asked my friend and my friend asked me to do this 179 times and I did and he said Alhamdulillah. I was not dizzy.... I know what to do but I am lost in myself.... I know how to read Qur’an, read slow, and I admit that last time I drank alcohol, so my tongue is not soft like other people. So, last time I was reading with my mouth, and my mom was teaching me that it is not right. But now since my mom is not around, I just use the Roman translation.

Every other day I recite Ayatul Kursi 179 times. I am starting little by little, but continuously now I read some Qur’an and recite selawat [praises of Prophet Muhammad].... I went to sekolah kebangsaan [public school] when I grew up.... But the community in Kedah, the neighbors will be talking about ugama [religion]. In terms of general knowledge about the Qur’an, I have to say I am the most knowledgeable among my friends. I would often talk with my mom about ugama. She knew almost all of the ayat [verses] of Qur’an and so did her father....

Please pray that I marry my boyfriend from the UK. He is a Muslim. I’ve been waiting for so long to get a Muslim. All of my previous boyfriends were non-Muslims. A few boyfriends wanted to marry me, but at the time my mother was still alive and she would not accept it. So I was just patient and I did not want to do what my mom disliked. So if God bless[es] me, even though my mom is not around, I still want to do what she wants. I will not convert to another religion, and she didn’t want someone to convert just to marry me. She had the instinct that they wanted to convert just to marry me.... I think he is my real love, my true love.

I asked my boyfriend, the convert man, about practicing Islam in the UK. He said there are so many places to learn about Islam and there are lots of halal restaurants, even KFCs.... I thought it may be difficult for me to practice sharia in Europe if I marry a man that just converted to Islam, but this man already converted and he knows about Islam. He converted around seven years ago.⁵

Lili’s story reflects some of the broader social and cultural conditions surrounding the movement of rural or small-town Malays into cities such as the sprawling cosmopolitan capital, Kuala Lumpur.

After many years of frequenting nightclubs and enacting related body techniques, Lili laments her past actions and wants to turn her life around. In many ways, her story mirrors the popular theme in Islamic TV dramas of a sinful Muslim going through a personal transformation to return to a life of piety (see Daniels 2013b). However, Lili has to face the all too real problem of cultivating a pious self in a body that has been trained with secular desires and experiences. She moaned that she knows what needs to be done but does not know how to do it. Her secular body has dispositions that are contrary to the required qualities of a pious self. Even though she presents herself as having lost some interest in clubbing and regrets past actions, she continues to attend nightclubs, revel in dancing, and enjoy drinking beer and wine. Nevertheless, she is struggling to “soften her tongue again” so that she can return to reciting the Qur’an the way her mother instructed her, with slow and precise recitation of Arabic. Following the advice of one of her Muslim friends, she has begun to recite Ayatul Kursi numerous times every other night and intends to revive her practice of performing the five daily prayers. She hopes to marry her first Muslim boyfriend, a Muslim convert from the UK, and to continue along this course of personal transformation.

The next sharia personal narrative is from Aliza Abu Bakar, a fifty-six-year-old married woman, who was born into a working-class Malay Muslim family in Singapore. Her father worked as a police officer. She married a man from Negeri Sembilan and lived and worked in Melaka and Negeri Sembilan for much of her life. I interviewed Aliza in her office, located on the thirty-sixth floor of a high-rise office building in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, where she and her husband, Datuk Latt, ran a construction firm and several other enterprises. She wore a baju kurung and tudung on the three occasions I interviewed her. On one occasion, she was wearing a long white prayer cloak (telekung) and performing her evening prayers in her office when I arrived. I also had the opportunity to engage in long discussions with Aliza and her husband when we went out for late evening meals following a few of our interviews. I ONLY NEED BLESSINGS FROM ALLAH, THAT’S ALL

My father sent me to religious education when I was young. In Singapore, we only learned in the surau. It was like a pondok [traditional Islamic boarding school] but it was in a surau. We learned to recite Qur’an, Arabic language, and all the Islamic topics. I was one of the Qur’an contestants. That time, I was around twelve or eleven years old, something like that.... At the age of five or six I started at the surau. My main course in Singapore schools was English. Actually, I learned more about Islam from readings and... also from my father’s advice. My father and me are like friends. This relation is very important. Anything to do with family, it must go to the relations of a family, father and son, father and daughter, mother and daughter. These relations are very important; they are priceless.... My father was a policeman, a hardcore worker.... I was very social at that age. Honestly, I was not [a] pious person. I did not pray. Imagine that! I went for my religious classes, but once I finished those and I went for my primary English school I [didn’t] pray.... I had a misunderstanding a bit with my mom. So my mom is against me all the time. First thing, I am not as educated as my sister. So I was a bit down, you see, so I will always rebel.... But somehow or other... my late father motivated me, all the days of my life. He is concerned about whatever I do, and his concern had no restrictions. That is why I am very brave and I am daring, and I can go anywhere and I mix with anybody. I mix with all races, even though my English was not so good at that time. He always told me [that] “as long as you take care of my family’s name and your name, as a woman, as a girl, as a lady, and you know what you do is wrong... You have to think. You can be as sociable as much as you want, but at the same time you have to think whether that is the right way or it is wrong. If you are still not certain than you can ask me.”

When I got married to my husband, I was still social. I still [didn’t] pray. Because at that moment, I’m so sorry, I had this kind of... I wanted to know more about what social life is. I did not need to do bad things, but I wanted to entertain myself. I was from a family where only my father took care of me. My mom was different. She always told me that “if you don’t know how to take care, you go to hell.”... As I grew up, I wanted to socialize myself, to make myself easy. I did not want to strain myself, because I am scared that I may not be able to control... I may do worse than this. So what I did was just explore; I just mixed with anybody, any races, but less with Malays. Muslims were just a small portion, but mostly non-Muslims, English, Indians, any races. Then from there I learned. I was gifted in such a way that I liked to learn the characteristics of a person. When I go to my friend’s home, their family is like this. And myself, I liked to go with groups of friends, whether they are Muslims or non-Muslims. Even though I was social, I would take non-halal food, but I always would take my father’s advice in my head. I would say, oh, by myself, this is wrong. I used to do the talking to myself, my father say this. I don’t care what people say. Everybody was like, last time, they put on baju kurung, but I put on miniskirts. I put on anything, I put on all tight-fitting clothes, until [I] was eighteen or twenty, until I got married. So I don’t care, I put on miniskirts. But somehow or other, because of my late father’s teachings, he always told me, “You can put on any dress you want as long as you know where to go. If you go to the party this is your dress; if you go to the surau this is your coverage; if you go to kenduri [a traditional feast] this is what you should wear.”... That is where I noted to myself every time. So my father did not control me. This where I begin to take what I initially need to learn. I did not feel tense. If you want to bring your friend, you can. I bring my Christian friend, whatever friend, to the house. He said, “If they want to bring you out, they have to come to meet me.”... But sometimes I lied to him also, because you have three or four friends that put on these tight-fitting skirts and all this kind of thing. He said, “Where are you going?” I tell him that we are just going around Singapore. “Why are your friends not coming?” I tell him we just meet outside. He [said], “You sure?” and asked, “What time are you coming back?” I will be a bit late. “It’s okay but just let me know when.” At that time, I could not come back after six at night. A few times I lied to him. I slept at my friend’s house and I was slapped by him.... I was carried away I think. I was at a family house.... Actually if I want to stay over night I have to inform him earlier.... He told me he whacked me because what I did was wrong.... He felt the guilt but he didn’t spoil me.... Sometimes when I go with my friends they eat soup with pork.... Alhamdulillah, at the end, I become a better person.

So when I got married, my mom was against the marriage.... But his father and my father both gave their blessings. Because they are the head of the family, whether you like it or not, they make the decisions. They are the best motivator[s], rather than... the ladies.... I wanted to make myself a good housewife. I never thought of education at that time. I wanted to prove that I was a good housewife; I’m a good mother with responsibility... but unfortunately when I married my husband, his mother treated me bad. So nothing is granted in life. I had to drag myself a second time, what my mother did to me now his mother did it.... I have gone through a lot of hurdles in my life....

What I do for my mother-in-law, the feelings I have with my mind are all the same. I tell my friend and tell myself, when we are with Allah, we pray to Allah. What is our main intention? It is because it is our duty as hamba [servants of] Allah... Whatever you do to Allah it is our duty. When we do to my husband and my mother-in-law, I train myself to be faithful to my husband and children and it goes to my mother-in-law; it is responsibility. When I think of responsibility that is when I do more in the family. But if I think I want gratitude or compliments from my mother-in-law... if I want that then I don’t think I can perform that well, because you see I [have taken] care of her for twenty-six years. She [doesn’t] give me anything and I know I don’t get anything from her. First thing is I am not her flesh and blood. I’m totally out from her family. I am nothing, so of course I don’t expect anything from her. But it is just because of the duty and responsibility that I have, and that is why I got married, and this is what I have to perform.... I do this as a responsibility, because when I am aged I know I have already done my part. Only Allah knows when to give and when not to give. It is a blessing that I will get from Allah.... When I think of Allah, Allah [gives] us the right decision for our feelings.... Several times my mother-in-law told me that I will get pahala [blessings] from Allah if I take care of the elder person. She told me this because none of her children [wants] to take care of her.... So I told her, I was sitting like this having drinks with her, and said, “Mak, since I have been grown and married, whatever I do in this world for you and my family, or for whoever, I don’t need anything. I only need blessings from Allah, that’s all. If Allah says I don’t give you anything, then I don’t mind, because I know that Allah has always chosen the right time, the right person for me.”... Allah has given me so much courage and strong feelings... I can work and my husband, at last, realized that he has to work. He realized that he is the leader of the family and he has to give me money and that he has to give shelter to the family. These are the pahala that I get.... I need to establish myself because I belong to Allah and Allah belongs to me. Nothing can separate us. Allah cannot be separated from me....

When my father passed away... I was at a loss because I really needed guidance from my father. But some way or other I had to go on my own.... Every time that experience happened I look at my surroundings, my friend[s] tell me this and my friend[s] tell me that. So from them I began to go to the mosque by myself.... Every time I sleep or something, I wondered if I was in the grave and all these things I left behind. After my friend passed away... all of a sudden... slowly it develops my mind. God want[s] to take, you don’t know when.... So at the same time, I began to realize that I have done a lot of wrong things, so why not I be by myself first and go to the mosque.... I come back from the mosque at night.... Anybody who comes to me, Allah will give me the feeling... maybe they need something to eat or whatever.... My feeling began to grow toward Allah.... But somehow or other, I told my husband, Alhamdulillah, from the day... I started maybe a thousand times already that is why I feel the strength and the clearance of my heart. Whether I have money or I don’t, I feel the clearance of my heart. This particular feeling, ikhlas [inner sincerity], I don’t think anybody can get if they really don’t mean it....

I wanted to wear miniskirts and tight clothes because I wanted to be stylish.... Many people looked at me and said, “You are over thirty and still putting on skirts.”... I was brought up that way, even my father did not stop me. Certain things he would let me know. When I got married to my husband, the same thing. After I got married, I tried to respect my mother-in-law. Then no more skirts. I began to wear baju kurung and kebaya or long pants. That is the time, when I go into the married life, then I respect the in-laws’ family.... I have to look out for my husband’s reputation and I have to obey.... So I try my level best to be a good wife, a good mother, a good daughter-in-law.... So it has to do with my reputation of my image of putting on physical dressing. When I thought about it I had done [everything]. If you already start putting on baju kurung, the miniskirts are already gone, the tight-fitting clothes are already gone.... First, I have to consider the size and fit for my body structure, and then [it] comes to whatever patterns. As I go through, my family does not stop me, as long it is not low-cut or too tight. The skirt becomes long pants. You know, the short sleeves become long sleeves. These are just the beginnings, and the scarf is the last one and is difficult to put on my head. Nobody can stop me and no one can ask me to do what they want, because I want to do what I want. Because to me when I put everything on to fit, I want to make sure physically whatever I have already done that my internal features are already done with all [spiritual things in good order]. And I think I have already gone that far. And to me I think it is good, amanah. At the end of the day, then, I will feel satisfied, because [these are] my pieces of life.... I make sure that whenever I do something that it is good physically and internally. Only Allah knows as judgment goes. That is why when I read all of my characteristics [i.e., reflect on myself], as I go along, I think I can get along with most people, Muslims and non-Muslims. So that is why I started to put on my scarf. Because [in regard to] the time of the corrections, I think I have already made my corrections. Only I don’t have the right person to lead me [to] the right way, to the hukum [law] of the things as a Muslim. Actually, I have to do all, for example, I still need to perform my umrah [shortened pilgrimage] and hajj.⁶

Aliza’s early experiences in 1960s and 1970s Singapore reflect the experiences of many Malays in the majority Chinese non-Muslim urban context of this newly independent city-state with a colonial heritage of being tied directly to British rule. The Malay Muslim minority in postcolonial Singapore was subject to the top-down multiculturalism of the Chinese-dominated state. Aliza’s father sent her to study Islam in a prayer hall for her younger years, but then she attended English-medium public schools (i.e., schools where education was conducted in English) and developed friendships with youth from mostly non-Muslim and non-Malay backgrounds. She began to learn and embody popular styles and performed secular body techniques, donning miniskirts and short blouses and engaging in social activities with diverse members of Singaporean society. Her father, with whom she developed a strong relationship, instructed her in liberal Islamic teachings that facilitated her openness for social interactions but reminded her of limitations and the need to respect their family’s reputation. She often thought of her father’s moral teachings when she dressed for different contexts and socialized with her non-Muslim friends. On the other hand, being held in lower esteem than her siblings by her mother fueled her desire to explore and learn the characteristics of other social groups. She did not perform daily prayers or other forms of public piety while attending primary and secondary schools. As other Muslim women began to wear baju kurung and tudung under the influence of the Islamic resurgence of the 1970s and 1980s, Aliza continued to wear popular secular styles criticized as contrary to proper public comportment.

It was not until after she married her boyfriend from Negeri Sembilan that she began to wear somewhat more modest clothing, in order to uphold the reputation of her husband and his family. Nevertheless, she did not undergo a personal transformation and begin to wear clothing that expressed her personal piety until much later. Aliza stated that it was after her father passed away and she began to think more of death and the meaning of life that she made some personal changes. She started performing her daily prayers and going to the masjid, practices that honed her inner qualities and cultivated a religious self that felt humility and gratitude for blessings from Allah. From there she developed the patience and inner sincerity, feelings of sabar (patience) and ikhlas, to take care of her mother and mother-in-law, both of whom mistreated her, looking only for the rewards from Allah. She also began to regularly perform acts of amalan soleh (good works), providing direct assistance to poor Muslims that asked her for help with food or money, and mobilizing those around her to join in her campaigns to help uplift poor families struggling to survive. Aliza was critical of PAS for not promoting more economic development and for exhibiting a somewhat “backward” mentality, and of UMNO for staging campaigns to assist poor people for photo opportunities and other political benefits. She charged that after the media spotlight moved on, UMNO left most of these needy people in the same state that they found them. Eventually, after developing and cultivating inner religious features, she added a headscarf to her long-sleeved blouses and long skirts, placing her public embodiment of piety in accord with her personal piety. To be sure, Aliza’s discourse constructs and performs the religious identity of a Muslim that has corrected sinful and negative personal characteristics and attained a heightened spiritual level of remembering Allah, performing selfless acts of righteousness, and feeling ikhlas. She presented the image that the only thing left to complete her life of devotion to Allah is to find the “right leader,” an ulama no doubt, to instruct her in the laws of performing the pilgrimage to Mecca.

This leader is clearly not her husband, Datuk Latt, who has not undergone the same transformation of personal and public piety that she has. Although he is not the personal religious guide she seeks, he has been her husband for all these years and is the leader of her family. This fact accounts for some of the tension I perceived in her sharia personal narrative. As she has gone through personal changes, learning and embodying Islamic knowledge, her husband has finally developed the ability to provide more reliable financial support for his family. While Aliza took the responsibility of caring for her children and elder family members, she also worked several jobs in the private sector. On one job, which she held for many years, the Chinese company executives passed her over many times for bonuses, raises, and promotions. Now, she feels it is a “blessing” that she can work with her husband, who is accruing more wealth for them. However, it is largely through UMNO-affiliated Bumiputera business connections and their corrupt practices of giving and taking bribes and patronage money that he has been able to advance as a construction contractor. From one perspective, we can interpret that it is the gendered nature of their relationship as husband and obedient wife that underscores her inability to overrule him when it comes to his business dealings. However, from another angle, we can construe her interpretation that Datuk Latt’s newfound ability to earn material wealth is a “blessing” as rooted in a sense of relief from a long life of socioeconomic challenges. After all, as Ustaz Ibrahim, a sixty-five-year-old working-class PAS member from Kedah, explained to me, applying the principles of ubudiah, mas’uliah, and itqan in one’s economic life can be highly problematic.

The next sharia personal narrative is from Mohamad Zuhaidi, a twenty-seven-year-old University of Malaya graduate student, whom I met on campus. Hailing originally from Penang, for our interview he wore casual slacks and a shirt. Before I approached him he was speaking to a Malay woman in her late thirties with whom he seemed to be acquainted. Perhaps she was a fellow graduate student in his program. They were sitting at separate tables and speaking from a distance. MY FATHER OFTEN CHASTISED ME IF I DID NOT GO FOR CONGREGATIONAL PRAYERS

In regard to Islam in my life, my father, from when I was young, around five or six years old, he already took me to the masjid and at the same time I studied to read Al-Qur’an. [At] five or six years of age, before I went to school, he had me instructed in religion, reciting Arabic, alif ba ta [characters in Arabic language], Sūrah Al-Fātiha, and other usual verses... I grew up in a kampung [village] in Pulau Pinang. After that, when I entered primary school, on the second floor there was an Islamic school, and there I studied tajwid [pronunciation of Arabic characters], akidah, fundamentals of religion that fit with my age. This was primary school. The normal primary school had more limited religious instruction. Only the village primary school had more religious instruction. We studied hadith and everyday supplications, prayers for entering the bathroom, [the] house, and other prayers that children could learn.... When I returned home, my father often chastised me if I did not go to the masjid for congregational prayers. Always in the middle of my time at home we would go to the masjid to pray Zohor, Asr, Maghrib, and Ishak. And at the masjid we would have religious studies, organized on the part of the masjid, advanced religious talks given by teachers on texts, hadiths, given by certain teachers. This is my life with my family. Then when I went to secondary school, I could help other students study religious topics, help them understand Arabic characters... and I take my younger relatives, when they reach the age of five or so, to the masjid. And sometimes at night, I can teach them to read Arabic, alif ba ta, at home....

One matter that we have to consider today is the mixing of men and women in school and in many other places. I think that the interaction of men and women at school is good for us to understand the method of communication with other people and to know what women are like. We do not know that women are like this because we don’t know automatically. We are instructed from when we are young about the fundamentals of relationships between men and women, so that we can know that these are the rights of women and this is the way to respect women. In case this knowledge is not acquired from a young age, knowing the limits of mixing with girls, then the boys may not understand how to respect women. I don’t think there is a problem from a religious perspective of men and women mixing in an educational setting. Then, when you return home, we have mothers and fathers that can instruct us on the proper way to interact with boys and girls. Yet, it is still a problem when they don’t have control and things are seen in public that are not supposed to happen. From my perspective, a strong religious basis [should be] at the level of schooling about the mingling of boys and girls, then when we grow up we understand and know the limits and know better than to do something that violates the limits of religion such as acts of zina.... But I think that today the level of religious education on the part of schools and families is low. They view religion, religious fundamentals, and religious lessons as if it is just for passing examinations and not to be put into practice. That is the problem nowadays.⁷

Mohamad Zuhaidi’s narrative, and Wan Hafizi’s below, reflect the lives and experiences of many born in the 1980s and later, in the midst of the Islamic resurgence, during which appeals for enhancing Islamic knowledge, practice, and institutionalization spread widely in Malaysian society. The environment in which this generation grew up was becoming increasingly Islamized—in the sense of greater promotion and adoption of normative Islamic disciplinary practices in public life—and conducive to the cultivation of virtuous Muslim selves. Mohamad learned first basic and then more advanced Islamic knowledge at home, schools, and masjids. His father facilitated his instruction and motivated him to practice and embody piety in his consistent performance of congregational prayers in the masjid and proper comportment with girls and young women. Mohamad, in turn, has become a socializing agent for his younger siblings and the next generation by transmitting Islamic knowledge to them. He does not view the mingling of young women and men in educational and social settings as contrary to sharia as long as the moral limits are not violated, such as through inappropriate physical contact or proximity in private settings. He argues for strengthening Islamic education in home and school contexts with the definite aim of putting this knowledge into practice.

Wan Hafizi’s sharia personal narrative also presents an image of a consistently pious life from an early age. After meeting Wan Hafizi on a previous occasion, I scheduled an appointment to interview her at a KFC on the upper level of Kuala Lumpur Sentral. She brought a friend with her, Siti, a fellow finance student at the International Islamic University, Malaysia (UIA). They were off from classes for the weekend but still had some assignments to complete. They both wore polite clothing, closing their aurat. Wan Hafizi wore a black robe with a colorful tudung, and her friend wore a long top and tudung with a long, loose skirt. Wan Hafizi, from Kelantan, is twenty-two, and her friend twenty-one years old. I ASKED MY MOTHER TO BUY ME A SCARF WHEN I WAS EIGHT

My father, from when I was small, invited me to read Al-Qur’an, and we prayed together in congregation, and we always made sure we had time together. My father’s father was a very religious person, and also my father, and so I am definitely like them. From when I was small they instructed me in reciting Qur’an, and during primary school there was a religious school also, and then in secondary school I went to an Islamic school in Kelantan... and then I went to UIA because of the Islamic environment in UIA.... We have to wear loose clothing covering our aurat, and all students have to attend Islamic study groups, and they are trying to implement a regulation in which brothers and sisters sit separately in the library and cafeteria. But some students are not in favor of it. In the library, as far as we can see, students sit separately between genders. But in the cafeteria they may be doing discussion sometimes and work on the projects together but still sit separately, boys and girls...

I asked my mother to buy me a scarf when I was eight. When I was small, I liked to see people covering up.... I have some male friends, but if they saw me without my tudung I would feel miserable and that something is not right. I would feel ashamed because covering our aurat is an amanah; it’s our responsibility. It is not forced. Actually, when I was young, I always liked to read books, especially Islamic historical stories. My father would always buy me books for my birthday present. I don’t know if it is because of iman [Islamic faith] or not, but I always loved reading about the lives of Prophet Muhammad and his wives, about the women during those times, like Sūmayya, and I always admired them, and ‘Āisha and Khaḍīja. Maybe that’s why, because I already read those things, since I was small.... They were so scared of Allah, so much love for Allah....

We also apply sharia in decisions in our lives according to the objectives of sharia. For example, if you want to buy something, which one do you prefer... so we have to give priorities to the thing to buy first... because we have the teenage feeling that we want to buy all those things. But we are here to learn and to gain knowledge and not to do other things... so when I make a decision between my desire, the things I like, or to just take the money for myself.... For example, in buying clothes, I accompany my friends and I really want to buy clothes, too, because all my clothes are the same and I have been wearing them for three or four years.... I have an interest in buying new clothes, but I keep thinking that I can buy new clothes in the future and I can still wear my clothes. They are still nice so I don’t need to be wasteful and just to spend for those things, so I just keep it.... Many youth buy clothes to show that they are rich and for status, but this is just wastefulness and we would rather use it for studying or something.

I normally will spend some time to pray Tahajjud some nights, and another night I may pray Hajat or Istikhārah.⁸ Some nights I will pray all three. But sometimes I just choose one and recite Al-Qur’an and wait for subuh [prayer time before sunrise]. And then after subuh, I will stay up and not sleep. According to Islam it is best to stay up after subuh. I stay up and recite prayers. I recite Sunna supplications every morning and also every late afternoon.... Sometimes I pray Istikhārah because every day we have to make decisions and I fear that I may make the wrong decision... Sometimes Allah will answer much later, so I perform this prayer three times.... Also one of my routines is to always recite Sūrah Al-Wāqi’a after Maghrib prayers because during my secondary school I read this one book that said that reciting Al-Wāqi’a opens up the rezeki [sustenance] and Alhamdulillah I can feel that I get lots of rezeki. There are lots of different kinds of rezeki. My friend, [Siti’s brother], wanted to marry this girl and he recited Al-Wāqi’a every night. And he has already married her.⁹

Similar to Mohamad Zuhaidi, Wan grew up in a normative Islamic community of practice. Her father and late grandfather were religious people that socialized her with a strong emphasis on Islamic values and norms. She studied at Islamic schools in Kelantan from a young age and participated in congregational prayers and Qur’anic recitation with elders in her family. Wan’s father also sparked her interest in reading Islamic books on various topics, including stories about the lives of virtuous Muslim women in early Islamic history. Wan and Siti both spoke about how these women are exemplary models for them to cultivate within themselves intense fear and love for Allah. Wan, at the young age of eight, asked her mother for a tudung. She and her friend expressed the feelings of shame and discomfort they would have around friends without their properly modest clothing covering their bodies. In contrast to Mohamad’s views about the permissibility of men and women mingling in educational settings, these two young women agreed on the correctness of religious regulations at the International Islamic University that included the public performance of normative piety in the separation of students according to gender in libraries and cafeterias. Furthermore, Wan and others in her moral community often perform optional prayers, such as Tahajjud, Hajat, and Istikhārah, worshiping Allah in the middle of the night and asking for divine guidance and blessings. She also cultivates and embodies piety by staying up after morning prayers to recite Sunna supplications and after evening prayers to recite Sūrah Al-Wāqi’a (Q. 56). After the conclusion of this interview, I bought them both a chicken dinner and left them to eat it alone out of respect for their religious dispositions to not mingle unnecessarily with a man.

The final sharia narrative I will present here is from Cik Firdaus Koh, a fifty-two-year-old man, who converted (or “reverted”) to Islam twenty years ago in order to marry a Malay woman. This was the third time we met. After returning from visiting his wife’s family in a northern state, Firdaus asked me and my wife, Rachida, to attend a Hari Raya Aidilfitri open house with them at the home of a University of Malaya professor. They picked us up from a local train station near the event and drove us to their friend’s house. Firdaus wore a kopiah with slacks and a dress shirt, and his wife, Nurul, wore a baju kurung and tudung. Following two hours of delicious Malaysian Raya cuisine and intense conversations with the host and other guests, they drove us back to the train station. I asked Firdaus if we could stop somewhere en route where I could interview him. He drove to a masjid in the area, we performed our evening prayers, after which we found a small room in the back where I asked him to share his personal sharia story. THERE IS SOME WISDOM IN WHY IT HAPPENED TO ME

It was not easy for me as a “revert” to Islam, especially for the Chinese people. These converts, sometimes we call them reverts to Islam. It was mainly for marriage purpose[s], between Muslim and non-Muslim, twenty years ago. At that time, I was thirty-two years old. Of course, I married a Malay woman. I went through a lot of problems right from the beginning with my parents. My parents were old-fashioned. They came from China, and they were traditional Buddhists or mixed already. There [are] no longer any real pure Buddhists or Taoists; they have all become mixed already. They are all mixed together, that is why they have become like what Malays call rojak.... So, born into that family and being Chinese-educated for the first ten years of my school life, of course, I was brought up in Chinese ethics—that is, Confucius teachings, you know. It was a very good thing that we had one subject in Chinese school right from primary school called civic studies. Actually, it is moral studies; the proper term in English is moral studies, mostly Confucian values and some Taoism. It was good for me and I thought this knowledge of morality was good enough for me, when I was beginning, to carry on living as a Muslim. So, at that time, also there were not classes available everywhere for Islamic studies. The only place you want to learn probably is in the masjid, and when you are a new revert to Islam you are very skeptical, at least myself, and a bit afraid to go into a mosque. This morbid fear, you can call it an unfounded fear, something that is blocking; you cannot get to the masjid. And if I, at that time, went to the masjid, I would probably be the only one Chinese in the masjid. It is not so easily accessible to enter the Islamic classes; that was probably one of the reasons why I never got started in Islamic studies. So I was mostly on my own, on my moral values, and I went about my family life and career life with no major problems.

I did very well in my career actually as an electrical engineer at Telekom Malaysia. For nineteen years I was there. As I look back, the strange thing is that Telekom is a government-based company, mostly Muslims, maybe 80 or 90 percent of the employees are Muslims, and nobody at all spoke to me about Islam, you know, close friends, Muslim converts. A strange thing, you know. I cannot put the blame on people, you see, it was my own fault not to expose myself to classes. They were available [at] PERKIM; I was in Kuala Lumpur [and felt their classes were a] quite faraway kind of thing.¹⁰ So I cannot totally put the blame on my fellow Muslims for not telling me about Islam. Actually, the main thing is my own fault for not [getting] involved in the classes or even just [reading] books about Islam. At the time, I was thirty plus, so the focus was on developing the career and trying to get promotions and so on. So I spent all my time in pursuit of career. And I must say I did, for a Chinese, quite well. I got a promotion fast, and even after only ten years I was a manager already. I even got a company car after fifteen years. But for ibadah I must say I neglected. Basic things, yes, simple solat, I was not regular. Fasting okay, somehow fasting attracted me. Other things, no major sins, I don’t drink or smoke, no bad habits. So I thought that was good as a Muslim.

And I was quite ambitious in pursuing wealth.... Around 1985, when the company became privatized, we were given shares. This is the time I got exposed in stocks, and when I got deeper into it, in 1997, came the market crash, and I lost everything. And that was the time my wife decided to say goodbye. That was the worse thing to happen to my life. I could never have envisioned that I could have divorce in my life. So, in 2000, it happened officially. In 1999 was the time that I started to think very deeply, what is this religion about? Does it really place so much importance on wealth or on other things? So I started to learn Islam seriously in 1999 and, from that time, I never went back. Everyday I would be in religious classes and I found this Islamic NGO, which helped me really pursue the studies in Islam. I had a few very good Islamic teachers that really guided me. I found out so many things about Islam. All these perceptions that people blame on Islam, actually it is the Muslims themselves that portray a bad image of Islam. Alhamdulillah. That is my story from then until now. From 1999 until now I am still attending Islamic classes.... Well, it is something we call the grace of Allah, which we cannot really explain. I have come to realize it is something we call hidayah [divine guidance]. Some people may learn Islam their whole life but still don’t get the hidayah and they still remain as non-Muslims. There are some people like that. I guess [the] first, immediate reaction is that I needed spiritual comfort. When you are in disaster, somehow you feel that there is a super being that you must get some comfort from... so when you are in trouble, you ask God is this something that should happen to me?... That was my initial reaction, but as I got deeper into getting Islamic knowledge I came to understand that there is a super being that is controlling everything, and the more I got in touch with good Muslims the more I found consolation and comfort. I also came to realize that this disaster is something that is good for me. There is some wisdom in why it happened to me. That was wonderful, very wonderful, and this is actually the teaching of Islam: when there is a musibah [misfortune] then there is something lying behind it.... There is something else better in store for me.

When you are really into it and seriously looking for the answer, Allah gives it to you. Allah gives you the solution. Like the saying goes, when you try to reach out to Allah and you just make the move, you run, and He will fly to you. It depended on my sincerity in looking for the answer and looking for the comfort; they both came together. The ibadah and the implementation of sharia just came naturally.... First thing, you must have the knowledge and I have been involved for so many years after learning, what are the obligations, what things are haram and halal, not just in terms of food, but also in terms of actions, in terms of thoughts, in terms of relations with Allah and with human beings. We really have to have the knowledge; without it you cannot differentiate between haram and halal. Once you have the knowledge and with the guidance of your teachers, you will become conscious of your thoughts and actions, your deeds. That is the whole Islamic life, and to put that into practice, at least myself, you are brave enough to step into the masjid and then everything else comes very naturally. You become brave and you are concerned about your dos and don’ts and you are no longer afraid of people in the masjid even if you are the only Chinese there. This is all through the grace of Allah. You put everything step by step, and as long as you have the intention to be a good Muslim, He will guide you. So there is no more looking back.... Three years later, by chance, I met my present wife. We were both attending a class in Islamic studies. Because Allah willed it my next marriage turned out to be much better. She was searching for Islamic knowledge, too, and she doesn’t mind that I was poor. That was a beautiful thing.... This was a blessing. From then on, 2005, with Allah’s will, someone just sponsored me to make my hajj. It was the environment I was in and I was working around a lot of people and it was Allah’s way to touch their heart to help me back, which I never asked for anything like that. I got the news. You never ask for it but it came as a blessing. I had the intention to make my repentance in the Holy Land and it just came like that. No one can explain it.¹¹

Cik Firdaus Koh grew up in a Chinese Buddhist-Taoist family that sent him to Chinese schools. The civics or moral classes, which instructed students in Confucian values and norms, appeared to have a lasting impact on his practice even after he converted to Islam in order to marry a Malay woman, much to the chagrin of his traditional Chinese family. These values continued to direct his actions in his family and work life, and were not displaced by Islamic ethics in the eight years from the time he converted in 1992 to 1999, when his first wife initiated divorce proceedings. During this period, Firdaus did not receive any religious instruction from his Muslim friends and coworkers and he did not seek out religious studies from Islamic institutions. His narrative reflects the experiences of many Chinese converts that are shunned by their families and marginalized in the majority Malay Muslim community (see Daniels 2005, 197–208). It was not until he experienced the twin disasters of losing his material wealth and suffering divorce that normative Islamic discourses began to influence his views and practices. Unlike some converts that look to officially return to their original religions when their marriage to a Muslim falls apart, Firdaus sought out Islamic knowledge and made a personal transformation to a life of piety. He continues to attend organized Islamic studies classes and puts this knowledge into practice, which he feels comes naturally when motivated by a sincere desire and intention to be a good Muslim. Firdaus founded an Islamic NGO and became part of a broad network of Chinese, Indians, and Malays involved in dakwah activities. In the midst of his studies and organizational work he met Nurul, his present wife, who accepted him despite his material poverty, and someone unexpectedly sponsored his trip to Mecca to fulfill his ibadah of hajj. Cik Firdaus Koh casts his experiences of finally acquiring Islamic knowledge after several years of legal conversion and receiving unexpected “blessings” after misfortune, as resulting from hidayah and hikmah lying behind the musibah. Moreover, Haji Firdaus has come to a place in his self-reflections of not blaming his fellow Malay Muslims for not sharing Islamic knowledge with him, but rather taking responsibility for his lack of personal initiative in seeking religious instruction. He performs an inspirational story of spiritual transformation that calls Muslims to actively search for deeper knowledge of their religion and to correct their misplaced priorities and materialistic orientation.