Islam in Malaysia : comprehensive development index

Abstract

Bismillahirrahmanirrahitn (In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful) ISLAM IN MALAYSIA: Comprehensive Development Index' Malaysia has been known to be an Islamic country more than 8 centuries ago, when Islam was embraced as the main religion of its people through the missionary efforts of Arab Muslim traders both from the Middle East and India. From the 13th century onwards, Islam became the main religion for all the States in Malaya. There has been sufficient evidence to show that the Malacca Sultanate adopted the Islamic law in trade, civil and family matters3. The Johor Sultanate had translated the Majellah which was in Arabic for adoption in the early 19th Century. Majellah was the legal instrument of the Othmaniyyah Empire or Caliphate located in Istanbul, Turkey. However, the fall of Malacca to the Portuguese in 1511 was a turning point which started the secularisation of the Malay States for more than 400 years. It was slightly disrupted in 1955 when the British allowed self-rule prior to the complete Independence of Malaya as a sovereign State on August 31, 1957. The disruption came in the form of the first written Federal Constitution that was formulated for adoption of Independent Malaya that categorically adopted Islam as its official religion. However, there had been an endless debate of whether Malaya and Malaysia now is an Islamic State or not. Notwithstanding the endless debate, Malaysia's colourful Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, declared on September 29, 2001 that Malaysia is an Islamic State. Of course there were rumblings mainly from opposition parties as to the appropriateness of making such a declaration. This was followed by workshops and seminars on the same issue. Efforts towards making Malaysia more amenable to the Islamic teachings have been quite obvious both by the government and other religious bodies and NGO's for the last three decades or so. This paper essentially intends to enumerate such efforts that have been made by the government and other religious bodies and NGO's with the objective of highlighting the successful achievements and other aspects that may need further improvements.