Religion and Society in Asia. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press; Chicago: The University of Chicago Press [distributor], 2018. 254 pp. (Tables, graphs.) US$115.00, cloth. ISBN 978-94-6298-293-2.
The State, Ulama and Islam in Malaysia and Indonesia by Norshahril Saat, an upcoming scholar based at the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, is a welcome addition to the fold of scholarly works comparing the two largest Muslim-majority countries of Southeast Asia. Studies comparing Malaysia and Indonesia have in the past been attempted by a wide range of social scientists, among whom are notable names such as Syed Farid Alatas, Vedi Hadiz, Khoo Boo Teik, Thomas Pepinsky, Andreas Ufen, Joseph Liow, and Kikue Hamayotsu. Norshahril’s work, however, stands out as an academic contribution which, while openly utilizing theoretical approaches derived from studies conducted outside Southeast Asian and Muslim-dominant contexts, emerges with a conclusion that uncharacteristically favours the indigenously driven ulama or Islamic religious scholars rather than a Western-imported domineering state in terms of the balance of power. Instead of the ulama being co-opted into the power structures of the state and beholden in their administrative tasks to their political masters, as many past studies appear to suggest, the ulama in Norshahril’s study come out as more assertive than the state had originally intended them to be, to the extent that they accomplish an Islamist partial capture of the state. The term “Islamist” here pertains to one’s advocacy of a juridical Islamic state with shariah (Islamic law) being comprehensively applied as the law of the land—the cardinal traits of Islamism or Islam’s political ideology.
Norshahril’s main investigative apparatus is the “state-in-society” approach developed by Joel Migdal, a professor of international studies with extensive fieldwork experience in the Middle East and intimate knowledge of Israel-Palestine relations. In his Cambridge University Press book first published in 2001, Migdal expresses surprise at how some policy executions of the Israeli occupying forces end up being implemented in a manner and form not intended by their original policy makers. As opposed to the conventional picture of omnipotent states forcing their will on helpless and passive populations, Migdal’s states mutually interact with the societies they are engaged with, at certain times prevailing over them but at other times having to compromise with the diverse demands of societal actors and units. Since in some circumstances society emerges as more powerful than the state, “state-society relations should not be seen as a zero-sum equation,” the opposite concepts of “co-optation” and “capture” far from being a zero-sum game (35). But if not to the state, then, to whom do the ulama owe their political allegiance? In his account of ulama behaviour in Malaysia and Indonesia, Norshahril proposes that a lot of them have been conscientious in acting as agents of Islamization in their respective societies, as a result of which a seemingly invincible ulama-powered process of shariatization has taken root in both countries. Their fealties, in other words, are vested in the Islamist ideology which swept Malaysia and Indonesia during the Islamic resurgence decades from the 1970s to the 1990s, carrying along the ulama with it. As more ulama gain employment with the state’s expanding religious bureaucracies, they acquire their own socio-political dynamics which the ruling politicians, in time, find difficult to control, let alone manipulate. These official ulama end up being loose cannons, despite still being under the state’s payroll.
Comparing both nation states, Norshahril’s verdict is emphatic: qualitatively, Malaysia’s official ulama win hands down in their capture of the state. But this does not mean the official ulama’s capture of the Indonesian state is a failure. It is rather a work in progress, in tandem with Indonesia’s longer history of political authoritarianism and greater tolerance of social pluralism. The outcome of capture in both countries has been a devastating rise in Islamist conservatism, which does not help the quest of both the Malaysian and Indonesian governments to portray images of modernity and progressive democratic ideals in their nation-building projects. On why and how Malaysian official ulama have fared better than their Indonesian counterparts in their state capture, Norshahril puts forward three modalities of capture that give the former comparative advantages: a clear institutional role, a coherent ideology, and organizational unity. To support his thesis, Norshahril employs empirical data gained from the extensive fieldwork he conducted in both countries, during which he interviewed a significant number of ulama (listed on pages 247–248) and carried out participant observation of their activities.
While The State, Ulama and Islam in Malaysia and Indonesia has managed to proffer unconventionally bold conclusions that deserve the attention of scholars working on political Islam, some criticisms of it are nonetheless in order. This has particularly to do with the author’s arbitrary employment of some core concepts that in Islamic studies, when used autochthonously, stand a fair chance of carrying different analytical implications. The book’s simplistic categorization of ulama into official and non-official ones is potentially reductionist, and fails to tackle intricacies of Islamic religious knowledge, which has traditionally been sub-divided into the disciplines of aqidah (theology), shariah (law), and tasawwuf (spirituality), under which different types of ulama are professionally classified based on specialization. While marginally touching on spiritual ulama in places, Norshahril’s account gives the broad impression of treating the fuqaha’ (experts of jurisprudence) as a proxy for the entire body of ulama. Another concept not properly explicated despite being used as an indicator of shariatization is that of “piety,” which to Islamic studies scholars connote greater spiritual-theological than legal significance.
Several minor glitches are in line for possible revision if a second edition were to appear: the affiliation of Professor Zakaria Stapa written as “UM,” i.e., Universiti Malaya instead of “Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia” (80), the rendering of “consensus” as “ijtima” instead of “ijma” (88), Tariq Ramadan being identified as a French instead of a Swiss national (176) and the contentious characterization of Malaysia’s Federal Constitution as necessarily “upholding secularism” (201). These shortcomings notwithstanding, Norshahril’s work merits commendation as a political science thesis offering novel insights into the inter-linkages between politics and religion, especially Islam.
Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid
Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia