Muslim professionals have decisively carved out their own space in Malaysia.

This space is "Islamic" in nature, in that religion is the central identifying marker for many of Malaysia’s Muslim professionals. These professionals have increased in number over time, transforming existing professional organizations and forming new ones connected to Islam. They have actively transformed civil society and engaged publicly  in a broad range of issues. Their networks are deep and broad, extending internationally. Muslim professionals are also increasingly entering formal politics.

Although now a minority of professionals in Malaysia, Muslim professionals will in less than ten years comprise the majority of professionals. They already comprise more than half of the Muslim candidates running for office and play prominent roles in shaping norms in society.

This important group needs to be actively engaged. Muslim professionals should not be characterized in the same category as radical Islamists. Despite the common link of  Islam, the political outlooks and perspectives of Muslim professionals are diverse. It is important to appreciate this diversity. Malaysia’s Muslim professionals interpret Islam with tremendous variation, and that variation extends into their professional lives. Consequently, among Muslim professionals there is a wide range of views that relate to democracy and pluralism. To maintain and enhance democratic discourse among Muslim professionals, it is important to support conditions and networks that open up the debate within and among Malaysian professionals.

There is, however, a vocal and active group of Muslim professionals who have a conservative view of Islam. This group wants to expand the role of religion in Malaysia in areas of sharia and more broadly in governance. The advocacy of this group has fostered tensions between Malays and non-Malays as well as within the Muslim community, where some feel that their own religious rights and civil liberties have been narrowed. To dampen the rise of inter-ethnic misunderstanding between Muslims and non-Muslims in professional organizations, it is important to create common ground among all professionals. One means to do this is to deepen professional training and increase professional standards. Training and standards provide for a shared outlook and reinforce dialogue among professionals across races.

Efforts to foster engagement, encourage debate, and build common ground are essential to assure that tensions over Malaysia’s Islamization are reduced and rights for all communities protected.

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volume 18, number 3, march 2008

The National Bureau of Asian Research
Informing and Strengthening Policy in the Asia-Pacic

Introduction: Civic Platforms or Radical Springboards?.
Robert W. Hefner
The Role of Professional Organizations in Indonesia’s Socio‑political Transformation.
Ann Marie Murphy
New Identities, New Politics: Malaysia’s Muslim Professionals.
Bridget Welsh

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The NBR Analysis (ISSNISSN 1052-164X), which is published five times annually by The National Bureau of Asian Research (NBRNBR), offers timely essays on countries, events, and issues from recognized specialists. The views expressed in these essays are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of other NBRNBR research associates or institutions that support NBR.NBR.NBR.

The National Bureau of Asian Research is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research institution dedicated to informing and strengthening policy in the Asia-Pacific.

NBRNBR conducts advanced independent research on strategic, political, economic, globalization, health, and energy issues affecting U.S. relations with Asia. Drawing upon an extensive network of the world’s leading specialists and leveraging the latest technology, NBRNBR bridges the academic, business, and policy arenas. The institution disseminates its research through briefings, publications, conferences, Congressional testimony, and email forums, and by collaborating with leading institutions worldwide. NBRNBR also provides exceptional internship opportunities to graduate and undergraduate students for the purpose of attracting and training the next generation of Asia specialists. NBRNBR was started in 1989 with a major grant from the Henry M. Jackson Foundation.

Introduction: Civic Platforms or Radical Springboards?
Robert W. Hefner

Robert W. Hefner is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Program on Islam and Civil Society at the Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs at Boston University. His most recent work is the edited volume Schooling Islam: The Culture and Politics of Modern Muslim Education (Princeton University Press, 2007).

The essays by Ann Marie Murphy and Bridget Welsh in this issue are products of the third year of a project by The National Bureau of Asian Research on Islamic education and professional associations in Southeast Asia. The first two years of the project (2004–06) were dedicated to examining the varieties and socio-political impact of Islamic education in five Southeast Asian countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, and the Philippines.1 The research encountered three broad trends: first, Islamic education is booming across the region; second, the dominant doctrinal and theological currents in Islamic education are not politically radical but instead are moderate or moderately conservative; and, third, the primary influence on the reshaping of Islamic education has been not politics but rather the desire of parents, students, and educators that Islamic schooling should provide practical and vocational education as well as religious instruction. Although Cambodia’s Islamic schools have come under the influence of Saudi-influenced Salafiyyah reformism, and although a few dozen radical institutions can be found among Indonesia’s 47,000 Islamic schools, the trends in Islamic education across the region are broadly pragmatic and modernizing in orientation.

Building on the first two years of research, the project’s third year (2006–07) focused on the relationship between Islamic education and professional associations in Southeast Asia’s two large Muslim-majority countries: Malaysia (60% Muslim) and Indonesia (87.8% Muslim). The project focused on these countries because of their considerable influence in Southeast Asia and the broader Muslim world. There was also, however, a comparative policy and analytic background to the research aims of the project’s third year. In Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine in the 1990s, the growing influence of Islamist groupings with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood in professional associations raised questions as to whether these associations—long regarded as critical segments in civil society—constitute a force for democratization or, alternately, have become sites for Islamist challenges to Middle Eastern regimes. The two options are, of course, by no means mutually exclusive. Some analysts have suggested that Islamist participation in professional associations tends to have a moderating effect on Islamist political aspirations; others, however, cite examples like Palestine’s Hamas to suggest there is no single political-cultural outcome. All sides in this discussion agree, however, that the movement of individuals with ties to groups like the Muslim Brotherhood has been one of the more important developments in state-society relations over the past twenty years.

Against this scholarly and policy background, we set out to take the pulse of Muslim professional associations in these two Muslim-majority countries.4 Our aim was to examine more closely how Islamic professional associations shape their membership’s attitudes and behavior, not least of all as regards attitudes toward non-Muslims and the place of Islamic law (sharia) in public life. Over the past quarter century in both countries, a new Muslim middle class has emerged and become a major force in society and politics. Two of the more striking characteristics of this new class are a heightened enthusiasm for higher education and professional careers and, no less significant, a heightened commitment to Islamic observance. The two characteristics come together in the social life of professional associations.

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