Inter-Research And Studies (IRAS)

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 27/2/2017 Well, the so-called PAS-sponsored Himpunan 355 has come and gone. The rally was supposedly to garner support for PAS president Hadi Awang’s private member’s bill, which is expected to be tabled in parliament next month, to enhance punishments under the Shariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965, also known as Act 355. PAS’ long-time arch rival Umno has also come out in support of Hadi’s bill, citing the importance of uniting regardless of political affiliation in order to protect the religion from threats. Can PAS and Umno enlighten us on who is “threatening” Islam in Malaysia and how the “threat” has been initiated? Are they able to identify the culprits who have threatened the religion all this while? Prior to PAS’ decision to forward the bill to amend Act 355 to provide for stiffer shariah punishments, did they scrutinise the bill to look for measures that would enforce good governance and curb corrupt...

By Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid The grim reality of elusive unity, plagued by ethnocentric and ethno-religious divisions, is underlined by the continual existence of fault lines that anthropologist Shamsul A. B. calls ‘axes of contradictions’ . The stubborn presence of such social cleavages, after half a century of nationhood, raises the issue of the efficacy of integrative policies pursued by successive Barisan Nasional (BN: National Front) governments. Momentarily eclipsed by the modernisation ethos of Mahathir’s Vision 2020 and Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s Islam Hadhari (civilisational Islam), the ‘national unity’ agenda has made a comeback during Najib Razak’s era since 2009 in the form of his ‘One Malaysia’ (1Malaysia) scheme. It has not been smooth sailing for Najib. It is understandably difficult for him to admit that the multiple polarisation of Malaysian society was effected at the hands of none other than his colleagues and former bosses in the ruling United Malays National Organisati...

By Nesrine Malik "Allah" means God, unless you are a non-Muslim Malaysian, in which case you have to find another word. After a recent court ruling in the country, Allah can now be used only to refer to the Muslim God, and non-Muslims (mainly the Malaysian Christian Catholic community and press) have been banned from using it. It is a decision that has inflamed opinion among minority religions and disheartened Muslims. Apart from all the practical implications of this (re-printing Bibles and so on), there are other intangible but more heartfelt grievances. At first glance it looks like a petty scuffle over semantics, but the roots of the dispute go deep into the issue of national identity. The ruling was flimsily justified by the "risk" of conversion. Announcing the change, the judge said: "It is my judgment that the possible and most probable threat to Islam, in the context of this country, is the propagation of other religions to the followers of Islam....

By Waleed Aly Six years ago, Proton - Malaysia's national car maker - teamed up with carmakers in Iran and Turkey pledging to develop the world's first ''Islamic car''. Apparently automobiles had hitherto been non-Muslims. If that's not absurd enough, this week we learnt it's a good thing Malaysian cars can't talk, because if they could, they'd no longer be able to use the word ''Allah'' to mean ''God''. That's what a Malaysian appeal court ruled this week, after a Catholic, Malay-language newspaper had dared to drop the A-bomb. The ''Allah'' controversy has been running for years, and isn't over yet. This decision overturned the original finding from 2009 in favour of the newspaper. Now the editor is planning to appeal to the highest court in the country and the government will resist. This immediately reminded me of Proton's Islamic car: strip both these stories of ...