Sharia, Adab, and the Malaysian State
This paper explores several cases of adab in sharia family, criminal, and economic practices and relates these to the Malaysian state. Some fatwas are examined for the way they exhibit a certain spirit of adab in relation to gender and religious minorities. Next, it will discuss the emerging pattern for government ulama and sharia court officials to address cases connected with apostasy and religious status. Then, it focuses on some cases of sharia economics. Finally, this paper turns to discuss these instances of abab in relation to the tug-of-war between political elites, Muslim social forces, and liberal rights activists.
Biography
Timothy P. Daniels is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Hofstra University. He has conducted research as a Fulbright scholar and Wenner-Gren fellow in Malaysia and Indonesia. He is the author of Building Cultural Nationalism in Malaysia: Identity, Representation, and Citizenship, and Islamic Spectrum in Java, and editor of Performance, Popular Culture and Piety in Muslim Southeast Asia. Currently, he is working on a monograph, Sharia in Malaysia: Discourse, Thought, and Practice, and an edited volume, Sharia Dynamics.