The discourse on science and Islam in Malaysia: context and content

Abstract

In this paper I will look at the discourse on science and Islam in Malaysia from the 1970s till the present, focusing on both the context and content of the discourse. The context of the discourse, I will try to show, is shaped not only by local but also external forces and the more international discourse on science and Islam in the broader Islamic world. Nationally, the discourse is historically linked to previous divisions between the 'religious' and the 'secular', the 'orthodox' and the 'modernist', or even Kaum Muda/Kaum Tua polemics of the first half of the 20th century, where 'science' was not yet an autonomous factor in the discourse. In trying to establish a continuity between the 'Science-Islam' discourse which is of more recent vintage, and the previous 'modernis/reformist-orthodox' discourse in pre-Merdeka Malaya, caution has to be exercised so as not to transpose present concerns on to past realities, which might be different (itself a historiographical problem involving anachronism and presentism). The relationship between political Islam at the national level, and sites and actors in the discourse will also be explored, where it will be argued that a tight boundary does not exist between the two. The earlier phase of the discourse was dominated by the theme of the "lslamisation of Knowledge" and "lslamisation of Science" associated with figures such as Ismail Faruqi, Syed Naguib and Seyyed Hossein Nasr. After the decline of Anwar, who was the patron saint of the movement, the discourse later became appropriated by mainstream government projection of Islam through Abdullah Badawi's "Islam Hadhari", although remnants of the old discourse still persisted for example in the works of Wan Mohd Nor Oaud and Adi Setia. However, the more explicitly 'scientific' content of the discourse, or at least involving references to science, itself serves as an indicator of the widespread influence of science in the shaping of modernity in the Malay-Muslim world. The analysis of the Science-Islam discourse, it is hoped, will provide an insight and understanding on contemporary Malay-Muslim response to a modernity influenced by science and technology.