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Holy Men, Holy Women: A Journey Into the faiths of Malaysians and Other Essays by Dina Zaman
misspalah's review
4.0
“We still have a long way to go. We have yet to reconcile our religion on racial lines : Malay Muslims Versus Chinese Muslims and Indian Muslims (Who are not considered Bumiputera. by the way), for example. There is chasm among minority liberals and factions among conservative muslims. We must also remember that there have been political and ideological differences in Islam, which have enriched and embittered Muslims throughout the time. If you read John Esposito and Dahlia Mogahed’s book ‘Who Speaks for Islam?’, the Muslims surveyed come from different backgrounds. There is only one Islam - all these labels have been created to belittle opponents and ridicule them. So who speaks for Islam in Malaysia? All of us. Now if we can only agree to disagree”.
- (Who speaks for Islam in Malaysia : Holy Men, Holy Women by Dina Zaman)
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This is such a ‘lay back or chill’ kind of esssays though when one is writing about religion, people would say its a heavy subject - hence why i am fond of Dina’s book. I think this is my third book that i read written by her and i am loving all of it. Multiculturalism in Malaysia is not new and along the way, faiths and traditions has been practiced side by side by all of us. We Malaysians try to understand and tolerate with each other especially in term of religion practices. The author did gather as many as she can , her perspective on witnessing the rituals or prayers from other religions other than Islam in Malaysia. However, i felt it is a bit inadequate. When i pick up the book, i expected to read more essays from other races or ethnicities especially from Sabah and Sarawak - how they practice their religion, how they navigate their faith especially when they did not convert to Abrahamic Faith and sadly this book is a bit Malays - Muslims centric. That is my only criticism that i have for this book. Other than that, i mostly concurred with author’s observation especially on how these Malays practiced their Islamic Faith.
- That Malays has become more religious over the years , that religion has started to be in capitalism mode and instead of unifying the ummah, it has started the class in itself thus creating the gap.
- Along the class income, the T20 usually getting their Islamic education from overseas - english speaking preacher that are more inclusive. The M40 mostly got attained the islamic course locally but their ustaz/ustazah usually studied abroad. Then we have the B40 who learned islam from their locally educated teachers. A stern emphasization on rituals is the testament of faith (thus pray, fasting, and other ibadahs is A MUST). This is where the thinking/opinion on religion started to differ.
Overall, this is an enjoyable reading. I would definitely recommend this to Malaysian Non Muslims readers if you are curious on what kind of Islam we practiced in Malaysia. Westerners may painted us as these crazy jihadist that go bombing airports and buildings when in reality, we just trying to live a comfortable and peaceful life and practice our faith without any disturbance.
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Being a 30-ish Unmarried Muslim Woman in Malaysia and being HALAM at the same time.
You try to adapt to your environment as much as you can because you can never show your true self. For those who didnt know what halam is - it meant ‘too halal for haram people’ and ‘too haram for halal people’ - thus you ended up being ‘Halam’ in Malaysia. I wear Hijab, I tried to be a good muslim whenever i can but i am not necessarily pious, my thinking is more liberal or progressive and i mind my own business as i believe whatever relationship you have with God does not concern me. You can pray, drink, doing tiktok dance or having a crisis of faith, whatever one do is entirely up to them and i am not here to be that ‘holier than thou person’ and judging them. But this is where it gets tricky. People cant fathom this. For example, my mom asked me why i didnt say anything when my cousin decided to no longer wear her hijab and on top of that, her hair has become blonde as well. How do you answer that? You cant answer with ‘Everyone has their own journey and maybe she felt she didnt want to wear it’ because they will answer back that “this is God’s order and theres no such thing as personal choice”. The generational differences and Conservative-liberal divide is a demon on its own - if i could say so.
- (Who speaks for Islam in Malaysia : Holy Men, Holy Women by Dina Zaman)
.
.
This is such a ‘lay back or chill’ kind of esssays though when one is writing about religion, people would say its a heavy subject - hence why i am fond of Dina’s book. I think this is my third book that i read written by her and i am loving all of it. Multiculturalism in Malaysia is not new and along the way, faiths and traditions has been practiced side by side by all of us. We Malaysians try to understand and tolerate with each other especially in term of religion practices. The author did gather as many as she can , her perspective on witnessing the rituals or prayers from other religions other than Islam in Malaysia. However, i felt it is a bit inadequate. When i pick up the book, i expected to read more essays from other races or ethnicities especially from Sabah and Sarawak - how they practice their religion, how they navigate their faith especially when they did not convert to Abrahamic Faith and sadly this book is a bit Malays - Muslims centric. That is my only criticism that i have for this book. Other than that, i mostly concurred with author’s observation especially on how these Malays practiced their Islamic Faith.
- That Malays has become more religious over the years , that religion has started to be in capitalism mode and instead of unifying the ummah, it has started the class in itself thus creating the gap.
- Along the class income, the T20 usually getting their Islamic education from overseas - english speaking preacher that are more inclusive. The M40 mostly got attained the islamic course locally but their ustaz/ustazah usually studied abroad. Then we have the B40 who learned islam from their locally educated teachers. A stern emphasization on rituals is the testament of faith (thus pray, fasting, and other ibadahs is A MUST). This is where the thinking/opinion on religion started to differ.
Overall, this is an enjoyable reading. I would definitely recommend this to Malaysian Non Muslims readers if you are curious on what kind of Islam we practiced in Malaysia. Westerners may painted us as these crazy jihadist that go bombing airports and buildings when in reality, we just trying to live a comfortable and peaceful life and practice our faith without any disturbance.
.
.
Being a 30-ish Unmarried Muslim Woman in Malaysia and being HALAM at the same time.
You try to adapt to your environment as much as you can because you can never show your true self. For those who didnt know what halam is - it meant ‘too halal for haram people’ and ‘too haram for halal people’ - thus you ended up being ‘Halam’ in Malaysia. I wear Hijab, I tried to be a good muslim whenever i can but i am not necessarily pious, my thinking is more liberal or progressive and i mind my own business as i believe whatever relationship you have with God does not concern me. You can pray, drink, doing tiktok dance or having a crisis of faith, whatever one do is entirely up to them and i am not here to be that ‘holier than thou person’ and judging them. But this is where it gets tricky. People cant fathom this. For example, my mom asked me why i didnt say anything when my cousin decided to no longer wear her hijab and on top of that, her hair has become blonde as well. How do you answer that? You cant answer with ‘Everyone has their own journey and maybe she felt she didnt want to wear it’ because they will answer back that “this is God’s order and theres no such thing as personal choice”. The generational differences and Conservative-liberal divide is a demon on its own - if i could say so.
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