MALAYSIA IS A SECULAR STATE. BUT MALAYSIA IS ALSO AN ISLAMIC STATE.

By Mansor Puteh

There was an issue which became very petty when those who wanted to comment on it got confused with what they were saying. It concerns whether Malaysia is a secular or Islamic state.

Some smart lawyers/politicians say that the Malaysian Constitution is silent on the matter. But silence on the matter does not mean that it is not Islamic. After all it is a federation of sultanates.

And what sort of sultanates if not Islamic and Melayu ones.

The Melayu/Muslim leaders insist that it is an Islamic state.

But Malaysia is a member of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC), so it must be an Islamic state.

A former Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) official got some flak when he said Malaysia was a secular-Islamic state.

What this official had said sounded too unusual for many who laughed and even chided him for saying that. How could Malaysia be both secular and Islamic, they charged?

And why not?

The title of this article says it is so. That Malaysia is both a secular and an Islamic state. So the former MCA official was right, except that he did not know it, since he too was not aware of what he had said, as much as his critics who laughed at him for which he must have felt bad for being naïve.

He was not naïve.

The truth is Malaysia is a secular state. But Malaysia is also an Islamic state.

If Malaysia has a king who is Melayu and Muslim, therefore, legally it is a kingdom. And what sort of kingdom it is if it is not an Islamic and Melayu kingdom.

Or more exactly, the Islamic and Melayu Kingdom of Malaysia.

Even though this may not be spelled in the constitution. Why should it be when the facts are that obvious?

And how can it be secular then?

Those who had wanted to debate on this issue of whether Malaysia is secular or not clearly do not know the history of Europe and also of England.

Secularism was introduced or created by those countries in Europe which did not want to have any official religion and their religious leaders going into politics.

They could have become Catholic and Christian states, but the states did not want to have anything of that sort. They wanted religion nothing to do with the running of their states.

So they decided to adopt secularism as their principles for which their states were to be governed by.

And so it also must mean that they are not Catholic or Christian states. They are secular ones.

This also does not mean that Muslim countries which are definitely not Catholic or Christian ones are also not secular. They are in effect secular states by virtue of the fact that they are not Catholic or Christian states.

Therefore, based on this fact, Malaysia can also be described as a secular state. This does not mean that it is irreligious. It is. But it is not Catholic or Christian-based. It is Islamic-based.

So that is why and how Malaysia is both a secular as well as an Islamic state. Or Malaysia is a secular-Islamic state!

One cannot jump to the wrong conclusion by saying that just because those counties in Europe and the west did not prefer to be guided by their religious faith does not mean that they are anti-religion.

It also does not mean that if any country which is Islamic cannot be secular. They can be both. And this is what’s most interesting about Malaysia, as well as in the other Muslim countries which are of the same type – secular-Islamic states.

Unbeknownst to those in the west, after they hailed secularism, one by one their countries failed; as they embarked on policies which were inhuman and not in consonant to the teachings of their religions.

And one by one their churches became empty as the congregation moved away from it, even if it means them having to attend Sunday mass for just one day.

So then we had many vacant churches which were later sold as properties to be converted to business centers such as hotels, restaurants and even masjid including temples.

This is what secularism had done to those countries in the west which were once Catholic and Christian ones, when their political leaders wanted to climb up the leadership stairs without having to pass through the gates of the churches, and they ended up trampling on their own religious principles and sidelining their priests and pastors.

Unfortunately, this did not happen in Islam as more and more countries which have a Muslim majority, started to become more religious so now we see more and more masjid being built everywhere.

And the status of Islam is put on a very high pedestal with countries which were once under communist rule or which were not religious, had started to turn to Islam for their salvation.

These countries had also been neglecting their religion in the past, and no wonder they had to suffer. Worse, when they embraced secularism and allied themselves with America and the former colonialists which never stopped to punish them for being laggard or backward.

In fact, the countries which have Catholic and Christian majority such as the Philippines, and the many others in South America and Africa have never been able to progress.

The latest addition to such a country, Timor Leste which is predominantly Catholic has also failed to develop since it ceded from the Republic of Indonesia few years ago.

The promises made by the secular states in the west which had promised them financial support had turned out to be not truthful. Timor Leste is no different today than it was when it was under Indonesia.

In fact, it was better off in Indonesia than alone in the Pacific Ocean with no real friends, even from its closest Catholic country, the Philippines who have problems of their own.

There have been attempts by the west to force secularism (in the sense that it is not Islamic) in the Arab and Muslim countries but they fail.

Turkiye which had embraced it has also not managed to do much with the system, so its only recourse it to reverse and return to Islam and become and Islamic Republic, much like Indonesia, Noegro Aceh Darussalam and some others. There are no two ways about it.

And the Muslim countries must start to withdraw from their unholy alliance with the west especially America so that they can embark on their own journey themselves, to create the New Muslim World and become self-sufficient in all the things that they need without having to bother trading with them.