Oversanctification, Autonomy and Islam in Malaysia

Abstract This article demonstrates that, contrary to the common image of Islam in Malaysia as being predominantly liberal, a conservative and authoritarian Islam frequently prevails. State‐sanctioned interventions into the minutiae of people’s daily and moral lives often take place. Drawing particularly on Cornelius Castoriadis’s idea of autonomy and Roy Rappaport’s notion of oversanctification, the author argues that such interventions may have a number of negative effects, including putting at risk the wider basis on which State and religious authority rests.