Overview
- Examines the extent to which a divine bureaucracy had refashioned Malay and Malaysian society into a post-secular state
- Highlights how an Islamic state within the modern state has reshaped the way politics and personal relations are being fostered
- Focuses on the expansion, differentiation and rationalisation of the Malaysian Syariah judicial and bureaucratic system and its relation to the emergence of a new Malay middle class, and reconstruction of the modern Muslim family
Part of the book series: Contestations in Contemporary Southeast Asia (CCSA)
Access this book
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Other ways to access
About this book
This book traces the expansion of Islamisation within a modern and plural state such as Malaysia. It elaborates on how elements of theology, sacred space, resources, and their interactivity with secular instruments such as legislative, electoral, and new social technological platforms are all instrumentally employed to consolidate a divine bureaucracy. The book makes the point that religious social movements and political parties are only few of the important agents of Islamisation in society. The other is the modern and secular state structure itself. Weber’s legal rational bureaucracy or Hegel’s ethical bureaucracy predominantly characterises a modern feature of governmentality. In this instance an Islamic bureaucracy is advantageously situated not only within an ambit of modernity and therefore legality, but divinity and therefore sacrality as well. This positioning gives religious state agents more salience than any other form of bureaucracy leading to their unquestioned authorityin the current contexts of societies with Muslim majority rule. One of the requisites of this condition is the homogenisation of Islam followed by ring-fencing of its constituents. The latter can involve contestations with women, other genders, ‘secular’ Muslims, non-Muslims as well as dissenting Muslims with their differing truthful ‘Islams’.
Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
Table of contents (9 chapters)
-
Front Matter
-
Back Matter
Reviews
“Maznah Mohamad’s The Divine Bureaucracy is a riveting read, delving into issues that many a Malaysian Muslim would hesitate to comment on publicly. ... the merits of Maznah’s well-grounded assertion ... as far as Malaysia is concerned.” (Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid, SOJOURN - Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, Vol. 38 (3), November, 2023)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Maznah Mohamad is an Associate Professor with joint-affiliation at the Department of Malay Studies and the Department of Southeast Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. She joined NUS in 2006. Prior to this she was an Associate Professor of Development Studies at Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang. She teaches courses on Gender in Malay Societies, Religion and Politics in Southeast Asia and Malaysian politics. Her areas of research include the Muslim family, Islamic law and bureaucracy and Malaysian electoral politics. Her books include Feminism and the Women’s Movement in Malaysia (2006), Melayu: The Politics, Poetics and Paradoxes of Malayness (co-edited, 2011), and Family Ambiguity and Domestic Violence in Asia (co-edited, 2013). Her recent publications include articles on matrilineal land rights and Islam in JMBRAS (2016), Malay-Islamic colonial law in Kajian Malaysia (2016), Islamic finance and business in Pacific Affairs (2015) and the monetisation of Malaysian politics in Journal of Contemporary Asia (2019).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Divine Bureaucracy and Disenchantment of Social Life
Book Subtitle: A Study of Bureaucratic Islam in Malaysia
Authors: Maznah Mohamad
Series Title: Contestations in Contemporary Southeast Asia
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2093-8
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Singapore
eBook Packages: Political Science and International Studies, Political Science and International Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 978-981-15-2092-1Published: 03 March 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-981-15-2095-2Published: 03 March 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-981-15-2093-8Published: 02 March 2020
Series ISSN: 2661-8354
Series E-ISSN: 2661-8362
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXIV, 320
Topics: Politics and Religion, Sociology of Religion, Constitutional Law, Religion and Society, Public Administration, Asian Politics