Islam Embedded

The greatest success of Malaysian Islamist political party PAS is that it has managed to shift the centre of political debate to religion without being in power. Like Pakistan’s Jama’at-e Islami (with no more than nine seats in the national legislative), said political scientist and researcher on Political Islam Dr. Farish A. Noor, Islamist political projects like PAS have managed to force the state to reciprocate and meet demands on their terms.

In a study session to discuss his book, Islam Embedded: The Historical Development of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party PAS, Farish suggested that PAS’s ability to not only survive the odds but also grow throughout the past few decades is due to its message of Islam and its objective of an Islamic state.

The changing definitions and evolution of meaning over time of the message and objective has enabled PAS to survive many challenges, Farish said. In a society where social structures have been so radically altered that it is not possible to return to its pre-Islamisation state, PAS stands to gain the most when religion is so much a part of national politics.

The history of PAS, wrote Farish in the two-volume book published by the Malaysian Sociological Research Institute (2004), is just as much a story of Malaysian, and in particular, Malay-Muslim politics. PAS’s success or failure, he added, will be dependent on its ability to win the mandate and support of the Malaysian public and adapt to the social realities of today.

[ Back ]