Islam and Colonialism

Chapter 5 looks at institutions and other policies created by the British to address Muslim affairs. The Majlis Ugama Islam (Islamic Religious Councils) was one of these. Although modeled upon British experience in Egypt and India with the aim of bureaucratizing Islam in Malaysia, these institutions were also platforms for the propagation of Islam as local Muslims collaborated with the British in restructuring Muslim lives. Orientalism under the sponsorship of colonial states also helped to create deeper appreciation on the part of the Muslims about their own faith and history. Although regulated, the hajj continued as an avenue where reformist and modernist ideas flowed into and out of Malaysia. Colonialism was, in hindsight, Islamization by other means, or “colonial Islamization.” This chapter provides a counterargument against previously held beliefs that colonialism in Malaysia arrested the infusion of Islam. The reverse held true, though it must also be acknowledged that colonialism did result in fragmentation of the Muslim community into Anglophones and British-compliant elites. Divide and rule was the British way of keeping Muslims in check.