The Legal Definition of “Malay”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ 

What a Reserved Election in Singapore has highlighted is the incongruent definition of “Malay”.  The problem with the Constitutional definition of “Malay” essentially inherited from the British is that Malays who are not Muslim are not considered “Malay” according to the Constitution, but Indians, Arabs and others who are born as Muslims - not converts - are “Malay”. 

One issue here is that there is a growing community of Malays who are not Muslim, including senior people in academia, the judiciary, in government and business.  Those who are converts to Christianity have non-Malay names even, but ethnically, they should be Malay.  The British used to call them Native Christians.  Are we going to bring that back? 

From a Muslim convert perspective, this is also problematic because it means that Malay issues are necessarily Muslim issues, and that is not right.  Why should the issues of a separate community become our problem?  Why should converts care what organisations like MUIS have to say if it is solely about the Malay-Shafi’i perspective.  Converts are left out, the Shi’ah are left, anybody who does not fit the mould has no say. 

Muslim issues should be Muslim issues, and Malay issues should be Malay issues.  Whilst there is some overlap, they are not always the same.  The needs of the Malay community are not the needs of all Muslims, and certainly not the needs of converts to Islam.  We converted to a religion; we did not change our ethnicity.  I am not interested lowering myself to adopt another culture or subscribe to their notions of religion from a Malay exceptionalist perspective.  There has to be some sort of referendum and a constitutional amendment to address this utter ridiculousness.