Less Ulama, More Mindless Regurgitators

 Less Ulama, More Mindless Regurgitators

M. Bakri Musa

Excerpt #31 from my book:  Qur’an, Hadith, and Hikayat:  Exercises In Critical Thinking.

Dec 7, 2025

 

Despite the overwhelming presence of regressive Islam in Malaysia, there are a few brave souls and entities ready to challenge the prevailing socio-religious order. One non-governmental organization is Sisters In Islam (SIS) led by Zainah Anwar. It is concerned with women’s issues and firm in their beliefs that the faith is a force for emancipating women. 

 

         In the current orthodox interpretation of Islam in Malaysia (as elsewhere), SIS has its work cut out. It is less concerned with arcane interpretations of the scripture, more with saving battered women, abandoned wives, and rescuing young girls forced into marriages with old men. May Allah reward those ladies in SIS for their good work, and may they continue doing it.

 

         The other is Islamic Renaissance Front (IRF). This organization is instrumental in bringing such speakers as Tariq Ramadan (Oxford Islamic scholar), Mu’nim Sirry (Scriptural Polemics: The Qur’an And Other Religions), and the Turkish journalist Mustafa Akyol (Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case For Liberty) to Malaysia. Akyol was detained after giving a lecture. Only an intervention at the highest diplomatic level was his release secured. Akyol later related his adverse personal experiences in Malaysia to audiences worldwide, including at such places as Harvard. 

 

         IRF’s many excellent public forums are conducted in hotel conference rooms as no mosque committee or university academic department would welcome them on their premises. IRF’s forums are a refreshing departure from the usual religious discourses in that the speakers are in casual attires rather than embellished robes and thick turbans. Of even greater significance, the organizers devote enough time for robust question-and-discussion sessions, a marked contrast to the usual one-way street that is the hallmark of public “discussions” in Malaysia.

 

         One IRF forum featured Mun’im Sirry and Mohammad Asri Zainal Abdin, a Youtube celebrity ulama and Mufti of Perlis. He is more known by his acronym Dr. Maza, aping the great scholar Za’aba. At that session, Maza walked out of the discussions as he was not used to being asked penetrating questions, or his pontifications challenged.

 

         Both SIS and IRF are tarred with the derogative “Islam liberal” label. When you cannot beat them, you tag them with silly terms. In Indonesia, the term liberal Islam is also derogative (at least among the establishment) but that brand of Islam is flourishing there. It has its own television channel (LiberTV) and a stable of highly qualified leaders and preachers. Of even greater significance they are reaching the younger set in ever-increasing numbers.

 

         When one of its earlier leaders, Harun Nasution, returned from McGill in 1969, he knew that his modern neo-Mutazilite views would not get a favorable reception from the establishment and the masses. He sidestepped that and avoided direct confrontation by setting up his own institution, Institute Agama Islam Negri (IAIN). In English that would translate as State Institute of Islam, making it sound as if it was a public institution. Later eminent scholars like Nurcholish Madjid were products of IAIN. 

 

         These efforts by IRF and SIS in Malaysia as well as IAIN in Indonesia notwithstanding, the prevailing belief among Nusantara Muslims is that akal (reason or intellect) has no place in Islam if not outright anti-Islamic. Like oil and water, they should remain separate and distinct, never

to be mixed. 

 

         No surprise that Islam among Malays today is less a guide to and along the straight path, more an instrument to lead Malays into the cloistered life of an Arab Bedouin of the Prophet’s era. 

 

Next:  Religious Education In Malaysia