A New Mufti: Revisionism or Pragmatism for the Islamic Community in Singapore?
This March, Dr Nazirudin Mohd Nasir will take over as the top Islamic official in Singapore, known as the Mufti. Following the succession of his predecessor, Mufti Mohamed Fatris Bakaram, Dr Nazirudin will be the fourth Mufti in Singapore’s history.
Dr Nazirudin will be tasked with maintaining the progressive policies of Mufti Mohamed Fatris Bakaram. For instance, he will work to continue initiatives such as the Asatizah education reforms, which helped raise the ethical and professional standards for teachers of Islam and the Quaran during the previous Mufti administration.
The office of the Mufti has three principal duties for the Islamic community of Singapore. His first duty is the observance of the Kutbah, which is a weekly message for how Muslims should go about their daily lives in Singapore and beyond.
To compliment his sermons, the Mufti is the direct point of contact for Singaporean Muslims with queries about how to fit Islam with the current status quo of Singaporean society. Given Singapore’s stature in the global economic community, the Mufti plays a key role for Muslims who want to engage both in trade and commerce (a career path restricted by the Sharia, which mandates that Muslims may not profit from exchanging money with others). For instance, with foreign exchanges, the Mufti’s current stance is that Muslims can engage in the trade of currencies so long as there is no lag in each exchange.
The final duty of the Mufti is to help grow the Islamic community of Singapore. This policy’s goal is for retaining the current Islamic population, not converting the population to Islam. The Mufti is currently pursuing these goals through new Fatwa guidelines that allow for less religious restrictions on owning property in Singapore. For instance, in 2008, the hibah ruqbah additional religious document needed for survivorship of property was removed. The 2008 action has been critical to allowing the succession of property within the Islamic community with less Muslims having to evict themselves upon their loved one’s death due to strict religious requirements.
The progressive policy of the Mufti is based on Singapore’s consistent trend towards reformist Islam that begun in the early 20th century. The majority of early Muslims in Malaya practiced Sufi Islam, which promotes the unity of being and tolerance among other beliefs. Moreover, through charitable Islamic organizations like Jamiyah, charity works were carried out, such as building hospitals; along pluralist, not religious lines. In the 1990’s the Jamiya’s predecessor, Da wa, emphasized a new form modernization less concerned with unity and aimed more at bringing people into the Islamic faith. The organization promotes a philosophy of learning the raison d’etres for Islam and how to bring religion in touch with modernization of the 21st century. At the start of the 21st century, the Singaporean government and the Mufti were part of an ongoing debate about two different fates for the Islamic community of Singapore. The first path is the provision of ethnic enclaves for the Islamic community under increased Mufti’s supervision. The second option is for increased government supervision of the Islamic community.
The office of the Mufti is also important for Singaporeans who are locked into geopolitics with two majority Islamic nations, Indonesia and Malaysia. Moreover, Indonesia has the largest concentration of Muslims in the world. Malaysia has taken key steps to engage issues of Islamic affairs worldwide during the Kuala Lumpur summit this January. Moreover, the event was lambasted for being the formation of a new Islamic bloc in Southeast Asia by Saudi Arabia. In addition, in November, Malaysian Home Minister Mihyiddin Yassin made a statement saying that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria could relocate to Southeast Asia.
Because Malaysia and Singapore have been interconnected economically and socially since the 1965 partition; Dr Nazirudin will need to be wary of the direction of Malay Islam if he is to keep pushing Singaporean Muslims in a more progressive and tolerant direction. This fear of extreme forms of Islam being carried over to Singapore via the Malay population is part of what has been coined ‘The Malay problem’.
The past year has been remarkable for Muslims in Singapore. The first person to be charged with financing ISIS, Imran Kassim, was arrested this fall after transferring money for publishing propaganda for the group and its intolerant practices of Islam. The interesting part about Kassim’s trial is that he took issue with being charged under Singaporean law, wanting to being judged under Sharia law.
Given the geopolitical factors and rise of religiously motivated terrorism in Singapore, the initial months of Dr Nazirudin ’s tenure as Mufti will judge whether the Islamic community in Singapore will continue its pragmatic approach towards progressive religion, or pursue a stance that emphasizes a return to traditional Islam.
