DEMARGINALIZING THE SHARIA: MUSLIM ACTIVISTS AND LEGAL REFORMS IN MALAYSIA

Transcription

1 DEMARGINALIZING THE SHARIA: MUSLIM ACTIVISTS AND LEGAL REFORMS IN MALAYSIA Syed Muhd Khairudin Aljunied Abstract: This article examines the active roles played by Muslim activists in agitating for the expansion of the functions of Sharia (Muslim legal and ethical code) within a given country s constitution and in society at large. Using the Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (ABIM) the largest Muslim youth movement in Malaysia as an illustrative case study, the article examines a process which I term as demarginalizing the Sharia by Muslim activists, which connotes an endeavour to reformulate and reassert the position of the Sharia to cover all aspects of the country s laws. Building upon recent works on Islamic activism and drawing from various strands of social movement theory, this essay attempts to conceptualize and explain the various tactics which Muslim movements such as ABIM had adopted to make the case for the Sharia to wield a wider influence in the public domain. Among the tactics which will be discussed are institutional subversion, ideological collaboration and dramatic contention, all of which have been utilized by Muslim activists since the advent of global Islamic resurgence in the 1970s. Keywords: Sharia, Muslim activists, Malaysia, tactical repertoires, demarginalization Introduction It is now widely accepted that the movement for the implementation of Sharia is one of the most significant developments facing the Muslim world today. In Indonesia, Nigeria, Sudan, Pakistan, Egypt, Iran, and even the once secular Turkish state, advocates of the Sharia have become more and more visible and influential. Taking on a variety of strategies to push for the implementation of the Islamic legal and ethical code so as to regularize the personal bearing of Muslims and their social conduct, these Sharia-minded activists contend that Muslims have been bound to systems and ideologies that are foreign to the spirit of Islam because of legal frameworks that were imposed upon them during the colonial era. Sharia, then, is seen as but one (if not the most important) means by which the Muslim self can be reconstituted and preserved. Indeed, the most vehement of believers regard Sharia as the means to accomplish a complete change in the lives of ordinary Muslims and to reconstitute an ideal Muslim social order. 1 Syed Muhd Khairudin Aljunied, National University of Singapore. ReOrient 1.2 Produced and distributed by Pluto Journals

2 128 REORIENT This article examines the dynamics and impact of Sharia activism a form of contentious struggle that seeks to reassert the Islamic legal and ethical code as a frame of reference that would guide the daily actions, practises, and discourses of Muslims and non-muslims alike. I will focus my attention on Malaysia, a country that has been relatively under-researched in the expanding literature on the topic, despite the fact that Malaysia is home to close to 20 million Muslims of varying ideological and linguistic backgrounds and is a major player in the Muslim world. Since the 1970s, Malaysia has witnessed endeavours by Islamic groups to implement the Sharia as part and parcel of these groups shared dream of creating an Islamic state (Mutalib 1993). The attempts by the local PAS (Parti Islam Semalaysia) government to impose hudud laws in Kelantan in the early 1990s was one of the most pivotal moments in the history of Sharia activism in the country (Seda-Poulin 1993). This experiment in the total implementation of the Sharia, along with others that follow soon after, invited responses from politicians in the national ruling party, UMNO (United Malays National Organization), to initiate reforms that would give more prominence to the Sharia in the public sphere. Since both rival parties have competed with each other to display their credentials as the true defenders and enforcers of Islamic laws and precepts in Malaysia, much ink has been spilled by scholars and analysts in delineating the underlying reasons and effects of such overtures. It is, perhaps, little surprise that most observers have paid scant attention to the roles of civil society actors and their resolve to bring the Sharia to the forefront of legal and social reforms in Malaysia. Scholars working on this topic have tended to adopt a descriptive approach rather than an analytic one, or an approach that is prescriptive rather than theoretical and conceptually nuanced (see, for example, Kamali 2000). In moving away from the inordinate attention given to the PAS-UMNO rivalry in Sharia activism and attempting to fill the reflexive and theoretical gaps in the literature, this essay focuses on the roles of the Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (ABIM), a civil society organization that has been deeply involved in Sharia activism since its founding in Priding itself on a membership of more than 65,000 youths, all of whom are below the age of 40 years, and maintaining branches in several Muslim majority and minority countries, ABIM has produced globally recognised Muslim personas in the likes of Anwar Ibrahim, the former deputy prime minister of Malaysia and current leader of the coalition of opposition parties, and the Muslim philosopher-historian Professor Osman Bakar. ABIM has also developed the reputation, both locally and internationally, of being part of the Muslim counter-public sphere that appeals to Islam as an axis of difference and as a tool of reformation. By challenging and demanding the reformation of the secular systems that have been established in Malaysia, and by continuously agitating

3 DEMARGINALIZING THE SHARIA 129 for more room for the Islamization of the state and society in the last four decades, the movement has earned the rather hyperbolic label of serving as a transmission line for fundamentalist political ideology (Rabasa 2004: 388). Much like the Ikhwanul Muslimin in Egypt and Sudan and the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan, ABIM activists devoted themselves to circulating Islamic counterdiscourses and formulat[ing] oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests and needs (Fraser 1992: 123). Among such counter-discourses and oppositional interpretations are those that relate to the Sharia. This essay develops the argument that one of ABIM s main thrusts has been to demarginalize the Sharia through the use of tactical repertoires so as to elevate the Sharia from the marginal position that it has occupied since the coming of colonialism to what is now Malaysia, to a much more prominent position that would address almost all aspects of life in this nation. I use the term demarginalizing Sharia to refer to a process by which the Islamic legal and ethical code is being redefined, repackaged and represented in a manner that departs from its parochial mould of covering specific areas of family and property laws. It is a process that runs parallel with what Jose Casanova has termed as the deprivatization of religion, a turning point in modern history that began in earnest in the 1970s. The deprivatization of religion is a process by which religions or aspects of religiosity have attained a wider public significance in modern-day societies (Casanova 1984). Dissatisfied with the fact that divine laws and injunctions have been marginalized to deal with only specific areas of Muslim life, Muslim movements such as ABIM seek to expand the scope and reach of the Sharia to include criminal laws, business activities and other aspects of social and political life that have been placed under the jurisdiction of secular courts in modern nation-states. Because of the contentious nature of any efforts to demarginalize the Sharia, such a venture would inevitably necessitate negotiations and conflicts with key actors in society whose interests and interpretations of laws and morality have been conditioned by norms that may run counter to those that are propagated by Sharia activists. In the Malaysian context, Sharia activists have been especially entangled in contestations with the ruling state. The raison d être of the Malaysian state as defined by its constitution is to ensure the protection of the equal rights of Muslims and non-muslims alike, while upholding a strict division between the sacred and profane (Kheng 2003: 51). Sharia activists, in contrast, have called for more restrictions to be placed upon non-muslim Malaysians, especially in areas related to the conversions out of Islam. The state is thus placed in the uneasy position of acquiescing to the demands of Sharia activists, who are influential persons in society, while having to defend the constitutional guarantees to protect the freedom of religion in the country. The second tier of key societal actors that Sharia activists have had to contend with consists of secularized intellectuals and leaders of civil society groups. These ReOrient 1.2 Produced and distributed by Pluto Journals

4 130 REORIENT societal actors regard the process of demarginalizing the Sharia as running counter to the exigencies of modern life whereby religion should be a private and personal matter that does not inform public morality. Sharia activists are locked in an ideological position that requires them to rationalize the expansion of the scope of the Sharia while competing with other civil society groups to win the hearts and minds of the general public. Indeed, Sharia activists must also grapple with the task of shaping the sensibilities of the informed masses, the ordinary yet well-read laymen on the street who may all too often consider the efforts of demarginalizing the Sharia as either impractical or undesirable, or as an exercise of futility. This factor is especially important in Malaysia given that non-muslims form nearly 40% of the total population. Their scepticism towards the implementation of the Sharia and towards Islam in general is a result of their experience of being marginalized within a nation-state that promotes Malay supremacy (e.g., Baxtrom 2008). Viewed from this perspective, ABIM s struggle to demarginalize the Sharia is therefore fraught with multiple barriers and impediments that may hamper its project of reform. I will show in the pages that follow that ABIM has negotiated its way through these obstacles through the use of tactical repertoires that include a range of tactics to tenaciously propagate the demarginalization of the Sharia. Tactical repertoires are established ways in which pairs of actors make and receive claims bearing on each other s interests (Tilly 1995: 43). They are, as social movement theorists have it, periodic and yet predictable, and serve as toolkits (Taylor and Van Dyke 2007: 266) that are often used by movement activists to further the contentious aims. Four main tactics can be identified, and these tactics are not sui generis to ABIM. Rather, such tactics are often used by Muslim activists globally to push for the demarginalization of the Sharia in their home countries. Quitan Wiktorowicz (2004: 3) puts it well when he wrote that the tactics used by Muslim activists are but common instruments in repertoires that exhibit consistency across time and space. The most important of these tactics, which I will elucidate in the pages that follow, is institutional subversion. This tactic involves movement activists strategic entry into state bodies and political parties to further the agenda of expanding the functions of Sharia in Malaysia sometimes discretely, and other times openly. While infiltrating state and political bodies has provided ABIM members with the political influence needed for the demarginalizing of the Sharia, there are limits to how far politicians can gain the backing of intellectuals and other social activists who are proposing new reforms in Malaysia s legal framework. ABIM has therefore adopted the tactic of ideological coalition with many independent thinkers and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that share its aspiration of demarginalizing the Sharia. The third tactic is dramatic contention in the form of public

5 DEMARGINALIZING THE SHARIA 131 demonstrations, protests and the use of policing agencies that have sometimes been organized in concert with other civil society groups. This third tactic is usually used as and when the first two tactics seem inadequate or do not appear to achieve enough public attention for a particular issue. It should be stressed here that ABIM has consistently employed these tactics over the past four decades since the 1970s. Of course, ABIM was not alone in campaigning for the demarginalization of the Sharia in Malaysia; other groups have also worked towards that goal. Efforts by ABIM and other organizations have strengthened the existing provisions in Malaysia s constitution relating to Sharia while bringing about reforms in areas involving Muslims and Islamic affairs. 2 In addition, the employment of these tactics over the years has given rise to conflicts between secular and religious courts and other affiliated personalities and institutions, with ABIM supporting the religious courts claims for more autonomy and interference in legal matters affecting Muslims and sometimes non- Muslims in Malaysia. Did ABIM derive any inspiration for successful models and thinkers from overseas in the course of employing these tactics to demarginalize the Sharia in Malaysia? How have secular intellectuals and civil society actors resisted ABIM s Sharia activism? Have there been any shifts in the public reception of ABIM s efforts over the years? More importantly, what changes in the Malaysian constitution have come about as a result of ABIM s tactics of infiltration, coalition, contention and persuasion? Answering these and other related questions may enable us to comprehend how Muslim activists can seek to elevate the status of the Sharia in society and the tactics they employ to achieve that end. A deeper implication of this is that such a study will reveal the impact that legal dualism has had in a country where Muslims are predominant and where Islamic consciousness and Muslim politics have been on the rise. And yet, before delving fully into ABIM s tactics to demarginalize the Sharia, I will first outline the peripheral place that the Sharia has occupied under the Malaysian constitution and the wider context that fostered Muslim activist groups to agitate for radical change. Islam in the Malaysian Constitution and Muslim Resurgence Sharia was relegated to a marginal position in Malaya during the colonial era. The consolidation of British colonial rule in Malaya in the 1920s gave birth to a system of legal dualism which meant that secular laws predominated in all legal matters in the colony, with the Sharia covering specific aspects pertaining to Muslim life (Harding 2010: 495). Under this new legal arrangement, each of the Malay states was allowed to enact its own respective Sharia laws in line with the adat (customs) of Malay society but covering only the areas of family laws, waqf (Islamic endowments), the structure and jurisdiction of Sharia courts. The Majlis Ugama Islam ReOrient 1.2 Produced and distributed by Pluto Journals

6 132 REORIENT (Islamic religious councils), managed by a group of kathis (Muslim judges), ulamas (religious scholars) and muftis (expounders of Islamic laws), would advise the sultans of each state on issues pertaining to the personal laws of Muslims. The Sharia s importance within the overall legal system of the country grew increasingly inconsequential over the following decades, due to the colonial arrangement and inattention by both the Muslim and colonial elites in the running of Muslim affairs in general. The Sharia in Malaya was not only divorced from its ideal form of being a comprehensive legal and ethical code and marginalized to apply only to insignificant areas affecting Muslims in the colony. Under British colonialism up until Malaya achieved independence in August 1957, there was no proper supervision of the Sharia courts which had been created to enforce the laws that remained under Muslim purview. The legal scholar and activist Ahmad Ibrahim, who was to play a major role in the reformation of the Sharia, described the Sharia courts in the following manner: In contrast to the [civil courts], the Sharia courts were for a long time neglected and forgotten. There were no independent juridical and legal services for them and the judges and officers belonged to the general admistrative service and were subject to the control of the Religious Councils and the religious departments. The judge of the Sharia High Courts did not have the independent statues, remuneration and terms of service of the civil judges. The facilities for the Sharia Courts were far below those provided for the civil courts. (Ibrahim 2000: 194) The problems of neglect and the lack of adequate resources were just the most obvious of a multitude of issues that would surface in later years. In constructing the new constitution of Malaysia, postcolonial leaders in the likes of Tunku Abdul Rahman upheld the colonial legal framework that ensured that the Sharia would not be the law for all Malaysians, or even the whole law for Muslims. Such a stance towards the Sharia in the immediate post-independence was, of course, not unique to Malaysia. In his recent study titled The Impossible State, Wael Hallaq (2013: 2) notes that postcolonial nationalist elites in many Muslim majority countries maintained the structures of power they had inherited from the colonial experience and that, as a rule and after gaining so-called independence for their countries, they often aggressively pursue the very same colonial policies they had fiercely fought against during the colonial period. (see also Hooker 1993) Indeed, while Islam has always been entrenched in the constitution of independent Malaysia, the place of Sharia within the country s legal code and practice has been ambiguous and contentious from the start.

7 DEMARGINALIZING THE SHARIA 133 Such ambiguities are illustrated by the following examples. Article 3 (1) of the Malaysian constitution states that Islam is the official state religion and that laws can be created and enforced to punish Muslims who contravene Islamic precepts. Still, an exception was made in regard to crimes which came under the jurisdiction of the secular federal law. Article 11, in turn, provides for freedom of religion by stating, Every person has the right to profess and practice his religion, and subject to Clause (4), to propagate it. However, Clause (4) allows states to restrict the propagation of non-muslim religious doctrines and beliefs among Muslims. The maximum penalty for a violation of this law is one year s imprisonment and a RM3,000 fine. 3 The ambiguous nature of the constitution and the relative autonomy of the states also meant that every state in Malaysia could enact and revise its own Sharia code, subject to approval by the federal government. As Constance Chevallier- Govers (2010: 24) observes, Islamic laws are different from State to State. This lack of uniformity in shari ah [or Sharia] law is a consequence of the constitutional framework. The rules of shari ah are set by various Sultans, who serve as head of the Islamic religion in the respective States. Eid-ul-Fitr (a day that marks the end of the fasting month), for example, was celebrated on different days by different states in the 1980s. Also, religious preachers who were outlawed, banned or suspended from preaching in one state could easily find a safe haven in another state. Hence, until the 1970s, the Sharia s position remained marginal mainly because such ambiguities were never resolved and because of the secularized environment that existed in Malaysia then. Both the Malay Muslim elites and the society at large saw the Sharia as largely symbolic, to be respected and held in high regard but not to be privileged above and beyond the secular laws. To be sure, while Islam did encroach into the public life of Malaysians in areas such as state ceremonies, government patronage of Islamic conferences and Quranic reading competitions, and the use of public funds to set up Islamic institutions and propagate Islamic values in society, these gestures by the state were seldom seen as intrusive by the non- Muslims and were even taken as merely symbolic by many Muslims in the country. The change came with the advent of the Islamic resurgence, or what is often referred to as the da wah (missionary) movement (Seda-Poulin 1993: 231). The 1970s and 1980s witnessed the emergence of Muslim movements agitating for the implementation of Sharia in Muslim countries. This was part of the global Islamic resurgence that affected the Muslim World in general. During this period of religious effervescence, several Muslim majority countries went so far as to amend their constitutions so that Sharia norms would determine the substance of state laws (Brown 1997; Lombardi 2006). One of the countries that would soon ReOrient 1.2 Produced and distributed by Pluto Journals

8 134 REORIENT follow this trend of Sharia activism was Malaysia. Among the groups that advocated for the demarginalization of Sharia in Malaysia was ABIM. ABIM was founded in 1971, a crucial moment in Malaysian history in the wake of the racial riots of A whole host of NGOs were created during this period, ranging from those that agitated for women s rights, freedom of speech, social justice, environmental protection and religious pluralism (Ghee 1995). Most activists were well-educated. As a generation, many of these activists especially those from the Muslim community all moved into prominent political, economic and civil society positions in the decades that followed. The genesis of ABIM could also be traced to the influence of the Ikhwanul Muslimin in Egypt and, to a lesser extent, the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan. However, these youth Muslim activists were also sensitive to the exigencies of the Malaysian context, which led them to avoid a blind adoption of the methods and modes of thought inherent in movements outside Southeast Asia. ABIM s main thrusts were to disseminate a proper understanding of Islam to the Malaysians, to bring about the creation of an Islamized society and to establish a Muslim polity in Malaysia (Muzaffar 1987; Urwah 1989). By the late 1980s, ABIM activism, along with other Muslim groups such as Darul Arqam, Jamaah Islah Malaysia (JIM) and Jemaah Tabligh, made the spirit of dakwah (the Islamic calling) a pervasive phenomenon in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia (Hefner 1997). And yet, ABIM stood out among other Muslim activist groups because it made the implementation of the Sharia one of its core goals and as a viable solution to structural Malay disadvantage as well as to communalism (Nair 1997: 29). The movement advocated for a democratic and contextualized Sharia. That is to say, while regarding the Quran, the Sunnah of the Prophet, and the views of the ulama as authoritative sources for any understanding and formulation of the Sharia, ABIM however distanced itself from models that have been implemented in Muslim countries in Africa, South Asia and the Middle East. A contextualized Sharia is one that is sensitive to local Malay/Muslim practises while remaining true to the spirit and demands of Islamic legal and ethical code. This interpretation of the Sharia is very much in keeping with the findings of John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed (2007) based on data derived from a Gallup World Poll. Like many Islamic movements and dedicated Muslims in modern nation-states, ABIM members expressed strong support for Islam and democracy (35) just as they also reveal widespread support for Sharia.... they want neither a theocracy nor a secular democracy and would opt for a third model in which religious principles and democratic values coexist (63). Or, to put it in the words of a former ABIM President Yusri Mohamad, An Islamic Malaysia is not the anti-thesis to our desire to be a successful modern state. On the contrary, it is one of the ingredients that can successfully bind the various elements together ( ABIM Says 2007).

9 DEMARGINALIZING THE SHARIA 135 The entry of one of ABIM s founders, Anwar Ibrahim, into the ranks of UMNO in 1982 during the premiership of Mahathir Mohamad supercharged the process of introducing a contextualized Sharia in the country s laws and courts and the reinterpretation of the Malaysian constitution to be in keeping with the spirit of Islam. In 1988, for example, the Malaysian constitution was amended when a new clause was added to Article 21. The new amendment specifies that the secular courts shall not have jurisdiction over subjects within the competence of the Sharia courts and that decisions made by the Sharia courts cannot be overturned by the secular courts (Hamayotsu 2003: 61). During the same period and in the two decades that followed, the Sharia court systems in Malaysia were thoroughly upgraded. New buildings were built, more Sharia court judges were appointed, and their pay and recognition were greatly enhanced (Phar 2009: 22). As ABIM s activism was soon replicated by other Islamic groups, the ruling UMNO party was compelled to pursue its own Islamization programme to display the government s commitment towards making Malaysia a hub for Sharia compliant products and institutions (Shamsul 1995). This was evidenced in the establishment of the International Islamic University, the Institute of Islamic Understanding (IKIM), and the Islamic Missionary Foundation of Malaysia (YADIM), and the founding of Islamic banks, Islamic pawnshops as well as other financial institutions. So methodical and thorough was this programme of Islamization that Malaysia was touted by many Muslim countries as a model by which the demands of the Sharia could be harmonized with those of modernity (Spiegel 2008: 228; Liow 2009: 55). Together with these changes came more leeway for Sharia courts to make independent decisions of their own in the light of the new provisions of the Malaysian constitution. The increasing influence of the Sharia courts was seen in the case of the Lina Joy controversy, which involved the conversion of a Muslim lady to Christianity and her struggle to be registered as a non-muslim, which was later blocked by the Sharia courts. I will return to this case later. Suffice it to say here that this case became the impetus for Muslim activists to agitate for further constitutional amendments to ensure that Muslims would be prohibited by law from converting out of Islam. In June 2013, it was proposed in parliament that the Sharia High Court will be given expansive powers to establish whether or not a given individual is a Muslim (Malaysian Bar Council, 2013). Even so, there is a dissonance between what the Malaysian state and Muslim activists have done to demarginalize the Sharia courts as opposed to what some Malaysian Muslims feel should be the actual role of the Sharia in society. In an opinion survey conducted in 2006, Patricia Martinez found that a majority of her Muslim respondents felt 57% wanted hudud laws implemented (The Sun Daily 2006). However, a majority, 63.3%, also opted for the Sharia to remain as it is ReOrient 1.2 Produced and distributed by Pluto Journals

10 136 REORIENT under the Constitution in Malaysia (the other answer-option given to the question was, The Sharia to replace the Constitution in Malaysia ). Such findings are revealing of two underlying developments. The first is that there is a growing receptiveness towards the implementation of the Sharia on the part of ordinary Muslims. This frame of mind may have been an upshot of decades of Islamization sponsored by the state under the leadership of Mahathir Mohamad and Anwar Ibrahim and driven by Muslim civil society groups such as ABIM. The second issue that emerged from this opinion survey is that Muslims in Malaysia now feel that there is still much to be done to ensure that the Sharia play a larger role that it had previously. It is worthwhile then to examine how ABIM has contributed to making ordinary Muslims more predisposed to the Sharia and the tactics Islamic activists have employed to initiate changes in the legal framework and procedures of Malaysia. ABIM s Tactical Repertoires Institutional Subversion One of the tactics that Muslim social movement activists employ to influence state policies is to participate in government-linked bodies to bring about social change and initiate reform in local societies. Muthiah Alagappa (2004: 37) has described this as the deep penetration and influence over the state by certain civil society actors. By this, he is referring to the creative ability of civil society actors to enter into various arms of the state apparatus and take up strategic positions in statelinked bodies, in order to gain access to a range of resources. Such tactics allow social movement activists to push for mobilization efforts that were previously impossible due to restrictions put in place by the state. Hank Johnston (2011: 66) drives this point home by arguing that it is not uncommon that movement activists become part of the political establishment, or are already institutionally well connected. It is important to mention here that ABIM members did not immediately delve into such tactics when the organization was founded; instead, they waited until the movement had consolidated itself internally. This stance changed a decade later when the ABIM leadership saw that Muslim movements overseas such as those in Sudan and Egypt were successful in implementing aspects of the Sharia by subverting state institutions. Another reason that propelled Muslim activists in Malaysia to join state institutions has to do with strict amendments to Societies Act that were introduced by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to restrict the growth of Muslim movements in the country (Crouch 1996: 172; Case 2002: ). ABIM members thus took several routes to realize institutional subversion.

11 DEMARGINALIZING THE SHARIA 137 Some joined the ruling UMNO party and used their clout to further the agenda of Sharia activism as well as to ease the way for ABIM members as they became involved in many of its Sharia-related activities. The entry of Anwar Ibrahim, the third president of ABIM, into UMNO in 1982 is one example of institutional subversion. His decision to join the ruling party shocked many who saw him as a radical Muslim activist with the reputation of being anti-establishment. More crucially, Anwar s decision to join UMNO encouraged many other members to follow suit, including Sanusi Junid, Roslan Kassim, Kamaruddin Mohd Nor, Zambry Abdul Kadir, Fuad Hassan, Alias Anor, and Fauzi Rahman (Jaafar 1984; Hassan 1987). 4 Although ABIM members had to formally resign from the organization following their entry into political parties, they maintained close links with Islamic movements and pursued the ideals of creating an Islamized Malaysia which they had embraced in their activist days. Undoubtedly, the tactic of joining these institutions such as political parties en masse laid the conditions for the enhancement of the Islamization and Sharia agendas in Malaysia. Many older members of ABIM actually became senior politicians and formed their own political and business networks, which influenced state policies pertaining to Islam (Gomez and Jomo 1999: 73). Although Anwar Ibrahim was eventually sacked from UMNO by Mahathir and formed his own opposition coalition, he and many ABIM members constructed an Islamized state bureaucracy that became a privileged force, as they are not accountable to voters but have the backing of the law and receive support from a clamorous section of the Muslim civil society (Mohamad 2010: 1). The entry of ABIM members into political parties also paved the way for many ABIM members who were themselves Sharia-trained lawyers to be employed in the state bureaucracy, including the Sharia courts, the state and federal courts, the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (JAKIM), the IKIM, the YADIM and many local universities and government-linked corporations. ABIM members are also part of the Sharia Committee under the auspices of the Attorney- General s Chambers of Malaysia (n.d.). 5 While some ABIM members in these bodies tend to take a more judicious approach in arguing for the viability of expanding the scope of the Sharia in Malaysia, other members such as Professor Razali Nawawi (former dean of International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM)), Dr Siddiq Fadhil (former professor at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and principal fellow at the Malaysian Islamic Economic Development Foundation (YAPEIM)), Professor Zaleha Kamaruddin (present rector of IIUM) and Dr Yusri Mohamad (a Sharia-trained lawyer) adopted a more hard-line approach calling for the hastening of the Islamisation of Laws in Malaysia (Risalah 1986; Saravanamuttu 2010: 238). Another group of ABIM members who were not in favour of joining UMNO gravitated towards the opposition party, PAS. These former members, including ReOrient 1.2 Produced and distributed by Pluto Journals

12 138 REORIENT the late Ustaz Fadzil Noor (former president of PAS), Abdul Hadi Awang (former chairman of ABIM Terengganu), Mohamad Sabu, Ustaz Abdul Ghani Shamsudin, Husam Musa, Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man, Ustaz Abu Bakar Chik, Ustaz Muhammad Mustafa, and Ustaz Mohd Daud Iraqi, among many others, were aggressive in pushing for the implementation of hudud laws in the Northern Malay States, particularly in Kelantan. For this group of former ABIM members, matters relating to the Sharia required the transcending of political differences and affiliations (Verma 2002: 196; Noor 2004: 326). 6 For that reason, many PAS politicians still maintained links with the ABIM even though they were active in opposition politics while ABIM was in support of UMNO for nearly two decades in the 1980s and 1990s. All in all, due to their activism along with ABIM members in UMNO and other state bodies, a few changes in the Malaysian laws took effect since the 1970s. One of these was the repeal of the Horse Racing Act, the Gambling Ordinance, the Lottery Ordinance and The Pawn Act (Risalah 1983: 12). By the eve of the twenty-first century, ABIM and former ABIM members were so deeply entrenched in the establishment of state and state-linked institutions that the Islamization of laws in Malaysia has become seemingly irreversible (S. Hassan 2003). Ideological Coalition The second tactic is ideological coalition, which is a type of coalition which resulted in the coming together of different groups and personalities under a common umbrella to work and agitate towards the achievement of ideological goals. Such initiatives are often ephemeral and event-based but they can be potent enough to push for changes in the realms of societal and legal reforms. Ideological coalition is made possible when specific groups in society develop a strong sense of apprehension towards the weakening of certain norms, values and ideals which they perceive as worth defending. Nella Van Dyke and Holly J. McCammon stressed that serious threats to the goals of a specific group may allow it to overcome ideological barriers to form an alliance with another group (Van Dyke and McCammon 2010: xiv). The ideology which brings these groups together within a shared platform can be religious or secular. It may well be aspirational or already in operation. Whatever form these ideologies might take, what is worth noting here is that they are compelling systems of ideas which could rapidly bind disparate groups together for the achievement of explicit ends. ABIM operationalized ideological coalition in support of the Sharia in two ways. One way was to establish alliances with intellectuals who were particularly predisposed to the idea of augmenting the importance of the Sharia in society and in the Malaysian constitution. Among the personalities with whom ABIM built alliances were Professor Ahmad Ibrahim and Professor Abdul Aziz Bari. Both

13 DEMARGINALIZING THE SHARIA 139 were university dons specializing in constitutional law. Ahmad Ibrahim was the dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Malaya before he was appointed as the sheikh and dean of the Kulliyyah of Laws at the IIUM. There, Ahmad Ibrahim became increasingly involved in the Islamization of the legal curriculum and also in the transformation of policies regarding the Sharia in Malaysia. Many of Ahmad Ibrahim s students became lawyers, judges, and government officials, some of whom were ABIM members. Abdul Aziz Bari, in turn, was a protégé of Ahmad Ibrahim. After studying under Ahmad Ibrahim, he went on to pursue higher studies, writing a PhD thesis on the status of the Malay rulers under the Malaysian constitution. 7 These men, along with other luminaries such as Dr Abdul Halim El-Muhammady (vice-president of Wadah Pencerdasan Umat Malaysia) and Musa Awang (vicepresident of Persatuan Peguam Syarie Malaysia), were public intellectuals in the sense that they were active in public life and sought to bring their ideas about Islam s constitutional supremacy to the minds of policymakers, academics and the masses. They argued that it was the state s duty to elevate the position of Sharia in the country and that this should be achieved by way of amendments to the constitution as well as through public education (Savaranmuttu 2010: 289). ABIM leadership leveraged on the sway of these public intellectuals over policymakers and the public by providing these intellectuals with the necessary avenues and aid for them to amplify their calls that Islamic laws must never be superseded by secular laws. More to the point, ABIM s sixth president, Razali Nawawi, was the dean of the Faculty of Law when Ahmad Ibrahim was appointed a full professor there. Razali gave Ahmad Ibrahim the full support he needed to further the Sharia advocacy agenda. He also made use of Ahmad Ibrahim s stature by making him the patron of ABIM s Clinic for Sharia and Laws which was launched in March The clinic was established to help needy persons to overcome any legal problems and questions that they had from the perspective of Sharia. When Ahmad Ibrahim launched the clinic, he mentioned, Islamic laws are the best of laws for us. Even though all systems of laws aim to establish justice, the reality is such that because Islamic laws originate from revelation, these laws are most suited for mankind and should be given priority above all other laws. (Risalah 1988: 5) The second form of ideological coalition was with other NGOs in Malaysia to create what Sumit Mandal (2003) has described as trans-ethnic solidarities in a racialised context. ABIM was the anchor group behind the Organizations for the Defence of Islam (Pertubuhan-pertubuhan Pembela Islam (PEMBELA)) and the Allied Coordinating Committee of Islamic NGOs (ACCIN). PEMBELA was ReOrient 1.2 Produced and distributed by Pluto Journals

14 140 REORIENT formed in 2006 and it consisted of over seventy Muslim NGOs in Malaysia. PEMBELA was formed in a meeting convened by ACCIN which consisted of the fourteen largest Muslim NGOs. ACCIN was initially formed to oppose the founding of an Interfaith Commission (IFC), purported to be an instrument of secular forces in society to weaken the influence of Sharia courts and the religious affairs department. The organizers however felt that a larger movement such as PEMBELA was needed to arrest the challenges coming from factions within the Malaysian Muslim community as well as the non-muslim community that were bent on liberalizing the constitution. The origins of PEMBELA can also be traced to the controversial court cases of Moorthy Maniam and Lina Joy. Moorthy was a famed mountaineer who became one of the few Malaysians to scale Mount Everest. After his death, the High Court ruled that he was a Muslim in accordance to Article 121 (1A), and he was buried according to Muslim rites. This decision was contested by Moorthy s widow, S. Kaliammal, who claimed that her late husband was never a Muslim. As for the Lina Joy case, Azlina Jailani s (or Lina Joy) appeal to the National Registration Department to remove the word Islam from her national identity card was ruled out by the Federal Court for the reason that approvals could only be given by the Sharia court because it involved matters relating to apostasy (Aliran Monthly, 2005; Li-ann 2006). PEMBELA led by ABIM, however, maintained that the court decisions were not enough to resolve what it saw as a growing problem of apostasy in the Muslim community in Malaysia and a slow yet progressive encroachment of secularism into Muslim life and laws. On 29 September 2007, PEMBELA submitted a memorandum signed by 701,822 Muslims to the Yang di-pertuan Agong and the prime minister to protest against all attempts to diminish the place of Islam in the constitution in the light of the two cases mentioned above. PEMBELA also defended the existence of Article 121 in the constitution and contended that the authority of the Sharia courts should be upheld above and beyond the federal courts. In taking such an ideological stance, PEMBELA received support from hundreds of Muslim professionals and lawyers who feared that these apostasy cases might encourage more conversions out of Islam. More importantly, ABIM s dominant role in steering PEMBELA and the ACCIN was apparent to many. ABIM s president, Yusri Mohamad, was PEMBELA s coordinating chairman and also the spokesperson for the two collectives. Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid (2008: 231), a noted analyst of Malaysian Islam, surmised, By championing Malay rights and the legal sanctity of Islam, ABIM has successfully entrenched itself as a powerful voice for Islamist civil society. Insofar as acting as a pressure group to the political and legal establishment, ABIM s efforts have

15 DEMARGINALIZING THE SHARIA 141 borne fruit. As shown in the Moorthy Maniam aka Muhammad Abdullah and Lina Joy cases, court verdicts have generally been consonant with PEMBELA s stance. Prime Minister Abdullah and his fellow Muslim cabinet ministers have many times insisted that Article 121 (1A) will neither be reviewed nor abrogated. In January 2006, when all nine non-muslim cabinet ministers all of them leaders of BN component parties unexpectedly presented Abdullah with a memorandum requesting a re-examination of Article 121 (1A), the Prime Minister was quick to show his displeasure such that the memorandum was swiftly withdrawn. Similarly, urgings that the government and enlightened Muslims reconsider the abandoned IFC proposal have fallen on deaf ears. In sum, ideological coalition had enabled ABIM to push for the demarginalization of the Sharia and to move it from the periphery of society, politics and law to the centre. The participation of so many Muslim civil society groups and personalities also bears testimony that the Sharia can become a formidable mobilizing tool that would not only bind these groups together but also lend credence to the goals of specific Muslim movements such as ABIM. Dramatic Contention No analysis of any Muslim movement s tactics to demarginalize the Sharia would be complete without a reference to dramatic contention, which is employed in moments when the two above-mentioned tactics prove to have been relatively ineffectual in attracting public and media attention. Dramatic contention involves making the demands of Muslim movement activists heard through the use of religious placards, roadblocks, mass prayers, chants, flash mobs, the burning of pictures and flags and the utilization of law-enforcement agencies. It is dramatic in that claims, petitions and/or ultimatums are often couched in high-sounding and pejorative language and performed in such a radical manner that they attract considerable public and media attention. Put differently, dramatic contention produce dramatic effects, which are also emotional effects (Yang 2005: 83). It follows then that the main objective of such a tactic is not only to send potent messages across and to shape public opinion but also to embarrass and discredit opponents (Benford and Hunt 1992). In the case of ABIM, dramatic contention has raised awareness about why the Sharia should be defended and used as a means to rebut attempts to discount the validity of Islamic laws in resolving and regulating issues within the Muslim community. The constraints of space do not permit a full exposition of the dramatic contention that ABIM has been involved in during the last four decades. A few recent examples of this tactic will avail us of its potency. One of these involved the lodging of police reports by ABIM against other civil society groups. Eleven reports ReOrient 1.2 Produced and distributed by Pluto Journals

16 142 REORIENT were filed against the Joint Action Group for Gender Equality (JAG) after this group demanded a repeal of the Sharia criminal law, which, to JAG, was encroaching upon the lives of ordinary Malaysians (Malaysiakini 2009). ABIM s use of the police to deal with the JAG is dramatic because it had couched JAG s views and standpoint as not only offensive to the sensitivities of the Muslims but also as a transgression against the constitution which ensures the protection of Muslim laws, religion and rights. This move by ABIM attracted much public and media interest. In another incident, ABIM and the PAS Youth, the UMNO Youth, and the Malaysian Shari a Lawyers Association (PGSM) filed 50 criminal complaints against the Sisters of Islam (SIS), a feminist organization, which had continuously expressed its strong opposition to the growing influence of the Sharia in laws and in the Malaysian constitution (Whiting 2010: 6). Such use of police agencies was certainly an unprecedented tactic used by a Muslim civil society actor in Malaysia against other civil society groups. The effects of these tactics were felt by all sections of the Malaysian population. Part of the dramatic contention tactic was also to urge the government and the general public to take action against senior politicians who made statements against Islam, the Sharia and its place within the constitution. In October 2012, ABIM voiced its regrets and shock towards Dato Seri Chua Soi Lek, a politician from the Malaysian Chinese Alliance (MCA), who stated in public that countries which have implemented the hudud laws are usually those that are rife with corruption. ABIM called upon all Muslims to categorically condemn Chua Soi Lek s statements and to vote him out in the 2013 elections. ABIM portrayed such declarations by a senior politician as biadab (rude) and melampaui batas (transgressing limits). 8 Another example of dramatic contention for the purposes of the Sharia could be seen during the height of the Lina Joy controversy. ABIM organized a mass reading of prayers and made speeches outside the High Court while waiting for rulings regarding Lina s appeal to be passed. Together with more than 200 activists, many of whom were seen weeping for Lina with the hope that she would revert back to Islam, the event was staged precisely for the purpose of generating public awareness and, perhaps more fundamentally, to obtain support from the Muslim public towards the agenda of upholding the Sharia as enshrined in the Malaysian constitution. 9 Conclusion ABIM s Sharia activism and the tactical repertoires that the movement employed have brought about perplexing outcomes. On the one hand, the movement s relentless efforts to demarginalize the Sharia have resulted in landmark changes in the Malaysian constitution, giving more room for the Sharia courts to have a bearing

17 DEMARGINALIZING THE SHARIA 143 upon issues relating to criminal and business laws, domains that were once seen as outside the ambit of the Sharia within a secular state. It was also through the agency of ABIM and its activists who have taken up so many positions in state and non-state institutions that other Muslim activists have been encouraged to be more belligerent about the Sharia than they were previously. Indeed, as recently as July 2013, the Perak Mufti Harussani Zakaria, made headlines when he proposed that Articles 3, 5, and 11 of the Malaysian Constitution which pertain to religion, liberty, and freedom, should be amended to ensure that Muslim minors with parents who have converted out of Islam will be protected by law to remain as Muslims (The Star 2013). Viewed from the other side of the looking glass, ABIM s Sharia activism has made many segments of the Malaysian population anxious about the violations of their own rights and perceived threats to the freedom of religion as the threat of creeping Sharia looms large in their minds. Both reactions to the growing influence of the Sharia in Malaysia have attracted the attention of many scholars, although the tactics and strategies that Islamic activists have utilized continue to be overlooked. This essay has brought to the surface the variety of tactics, which Muslim movements such as ABIM have employed creatively, albeit, with much resistance and apprehension from the state and many groups in society. From institutional subversion to ideological coalition to dramatic contention, the ensemble of these tactics has enabled the Sharia and its proponents to play greater roles in the structuring of Muslim lives in countries such as Malaysia. This rapid expansion of the Sharia in the public domain will become more intense as the religious consciousness among urban, middle-class and well-informed Muslims continue to heighten and as Muslims who affiliate themselves with Muslim movements continue to take on the responsibility of making Islam supreme (Turner and Nasir 2013: 284). Notes 1. The literature of Sharia activism or what has been termed as shari a politics in Muslim countries is too vast to be listed here. The most current and theoretically engaging volume is Hefner (2011). Malaysia is, however, not examined in the volume as a worthwhile case study that could push the boundaries of research on Sharia activism. 2. For examples of the involvement of other Muslim groups and activists in pushing for constitutional reforms and more space to be given to the Sharia, see Lee (2010). 3. For detailed exposition of the ambiguous place which Islam and other religions occupy in the Malaysian constitution, see Harding (2013: ). 4. And personal conversation with Dr Muhammad Nur Manuty, 7 September Many years after his ouster from United Malays National Organization (UMNO) and subsequent imprisonment, Anwar Ibrahim declared publicly that his entry into politics encouraged many Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (ABIM) members to follow suit, a tactic that he was a pioneer of which remain intact until today. See: ReOrient 1.2 Produced and distributed by Pluto Journals