Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times by Barry Wain (fantasy novels to read .TXT) 📕

leading them to make unwise choices that were "dangerous to the individual and to society".[39] Consistent with his idea of strong leadership, he proceeded to make the interpretation himself.[40]

Bold and driven as ever, Dr. Mahathir deployed an abiding pragmatism to accompany his deep conviction of what was necessary to develop Malaysia. As political scientist Khoo Boo Teik put it, Dr. Mahathir was not concerned with offering startling premises on Islam, or in seeking a systematic engagement with the principal debates sweeping Islamic communities worldwide. He was a Muslim politician "who, in surveying the world of Islam, thought he had important insights into the contemporary Muslim condition, its failings, and what is more, its much-needed correctives".[41]

The Mahathir administration's "correct" Islam was a close reflection of the prime minister's personal and political philosophy outlined years earlier. Essentially an interpretation of an Islamic value system, it specified what the religion did or did not encourage, what it prohibited and what it allowed. Islam was intimately linked to the government's development goals, specifically the NEP and Dr. Mahathir's declared objective of making Malaysia a fully developed nation by 2020. It was a modern Islam, progressive and open to foreign investment and technology, and prepared to learn from the West.[42]

The core message, that there is no conflict between Islamic values and Malaysian-style capitalism, development and prosperity, was conveyed in speeches by cabinet ministers and leading government officials.[43] IKIM, the institute responsible for promoting an understanding of Islam as defined by the Mahathir administration, churned out books and articles making the point. One such article, directed at pious Muslims concerned about usury or interest, said that the basic aim in business "is to make profits, and making profits is nothing negative religiously".[44] In another publication, a writer claimed Islamic endorsement for the government's mega-projects, such as the Petronas Twin Towers, the new Putrajaya administrative capital and the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.[45]

Waging war against narrow-minded Islam, Dr. Mahathir lectured Malays with logic and commonsense. He said a Muslim who blamed fate when it was within his capacity to change his lot lacked faith in the justice of Allah. "Those with mouths but do not eat or drink will die," he said. "Death, when it comes, will be fate, but if the person had food and drink and had the energy to live, then that too would have been fated."[46]

In a celebrated case, Dr. Mahathir chastised a Muslim woman doctor who, loath to touch a male patient during diagnosis, prodded him with a pencil. In a letter to a local newspaper, Dr. Mahathir wrote, "The purpose of treatment is to restore the patient's health, not to protect the doctor from sin. This failure to give him sincere and proper examination is an act of cruelty, and cruelty is not part of the teachings of Islam...". If a doctor's faith were shaken by the conduct of his or her duty, Dr. Mahathir said, it would be better for the person not to be a doctor at all. But then there would be no Muslim doctors, a situation he suggested that might be "in dereliction of the Muslims' general obligation".[47]

Dr. Mahathir was withering about Muslims who opted for empty rituals and cosmetic appearances, valuing form over substance. He poured scorn on Malays who adopted an uncritical attachment to lifestyles from the early days of Islam in seventh-century Arabia, rebuking those who claimed women with covered heads were more virtuous and Islamic than others. At the National University of Malaysia, he intervened to prevent the cancellation of a concert by a popular male singer after Muslim undergraduates opposed it, keen to avoid the appearance of "a victory for the external groups that were orchestrating the opposition".[48]

Quite apart from the fact that Dr. Mahathir appropriated Islam for political purposes and to confer legitimacy on his administration,[49] his validation of a singular approach to the religion was bound to be controversial. For a start, as Patricia Martinez, a non-Muslim Malaysian expert in Islam, pointed out, Dr. Mahathir did not follow traditional Islamic scholarly practice of invoking sources from tafsir, the formal discipline of Qur'anic interpretation.[50] He and his administration, "even the regular columns by government institutions", defined Islam largely through literal interpretations, the approach usually adopted by fundamentalists.

But just as he had little use for theological interpretations of Islam,[51] Dr. Mahathir conceded not an inch to the theologians and other intellectuals trained in Islam who objected to his pronouncements. Indeed, he willingly confronted the ulama, specialists highly educated about Islam, upon whom usually rested the task of interpreting the Qur'an and the Hadith, the account of the words and deeds of the Prophet.[52] Criticized by some ulama for venturing into their territory without the necessary academic credentials, Dr. Mahathir called them arrogant and ignorant, even if they had yards of paper qualifications. "Religion should bring success to its people, but what is being constantly hammered home to Muslims is happiness in the hereafter," he said. "And these interpreters of religion are the cause of backwardness and ignorance in Muslim society."[53]

Dr. Mahathir linked his disdain for ulama critics to one of his favourite refrains, that what ailed Islam across the ages was bad leadership that abused the power to define the religion for followers.[54] An example he cited was a small group in Egypt, claiming to be following the only true teachings of Islam, who incited rebellion against the government when it was facing threats from Israel, knowing that if they were successful it would result in victory for the Israelis. "Thus something manifestly bad can be interpreted as being good by Muslims when they have a leader who deviates from the norm," he said.[55]

In assuming the power to define, to impose his norm, Dr. Mahathir drew a line that was as much political as religious. With UMNO positioning itself as moderate and responsible, the ruling party freely assigned the label of extremism to its political opponents, including PAS and any religious movements expressing a dissenting Islamic interpretation.[56] The government banned dozens of books