The role and status of religious authority needs to be read into Malaysian political history over the past fifty years. During this period as the Malaysian state constructed its national identity and plotted its policy course, the role of Islam and religious leaders became an important point of debate. It is within this context that this article considers the independence and autonomy of Malaysian Muslim religious leaders. Traditional religious authority in Malaysia finds its underpinnings largely in the institutions of Islamic learning locally known as pondoks, which are a community of students of Islam under the directions of a religious leader, ulama (also often known as a Tok Guru). However as the state consolidated their control over these religious leaders whom were co-opted into the state apparatus, by employment and education at state universities, their social significance has been destabilized. In the wake of this compromised socio-political and religious position alternative sources of authoritative Islamic teachings have emerged in recent years such as the Tablighi Jamaʿat discussed in this article.
It specializes in Indonesian Islamic studies in particular, and Southeast Asian Islamic Studies in general, and is intended to communicate original researches and current issues on the subject. is journal warmly welcomes contributions from scholars of related disciplines.
This chapter discusses the relationship between al Azhar and the government policy of ulama training in Malaysia. It traces how, during the twentieth century, a number of factors led to al Azhar becoming one of the most popular choices for Malaysian students wanting to major in Islamic Studies. Initially, ulama adopted al Azhar's reformed curriculum by choice, as the mixed curriculum introduced by al Azhar, starting with Muhammad Abduh's modernisation project, helped the religious schools in Malaysia to compete with the state run modern schools. However, to demonstrate its commitment to Islam, the Malaysian state eventually started to invest in al Azhar education. Under a series of policies intended to emphasise Islam, religious education and religious administration expanded rapidly, thus providing increased job opportunities for al Azhar graduates.
This paper aims to describe the nature of contemporary discourses on Islamic Epistemology. Islamic epistemology has gone through a reconstruction through the process of development of modern education system. While many contemporary Muslim scholars had tried to recover the "true" epistemology in Islam, the personal epistemology among the ordinal Muslims has rarely been discussed empirically. This study aims to fill the gap by identifying the nature of the contemporary Muslim's epistemology through an analysis of counter-discourse based on the dimensions of personal epistemology. A series of field research was conducted in two non-formal Islamic schools (madrasahs) in Kuala Lumpur and Terengganu between 2010 and 2016. The nature of epistemology in the madrasah can be explained in comparison with the four dimensions: (1) peers, not only the teachers, are important "source of knowledge" ( Schommer, 1990) (2) but that is true only when people also have a trust in the traditional authority. Learning should take a long time as opposed to the belief in (3)"quick learning" ( Schommer & Dunnell, 1994) and in relation to the dimension of (4) "certainty of knowledge" (M. Schommer, 1990), knowledge is static but it should be reached through a process of construction of meaning. It is also found that in addition to the four dimensions, a dimension of (5) learning as a process of moral development should be considered to analyze the nature of Muslim discourse of epistemology.
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