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The Divine Bureaucracy and Disenchantment of Social Life pp 1–32Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Bureaucratisation and Disenchantment

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Part of the book series: Contestations in Contemporary Southeast Asia ((CCSA))

Abstract

This chapter introduces the background and rationale for the book, through the application of salient concepts, ideas and preceding scholarship used in the framing of the study of religion, society and state. It is broadly about the transformation of Islam in contemporary society, enabled by the state. It explores key concepts of bureaucratisation, rationalisation and disenchantment; notions of bureaucratic power, secularism and modernity; and the oscillating nature of enchantment and disenchantment in religious expression. Epistemic concepts on bureaucratisation clarify debates about whether what is occurring in many Muslim-majority societies today is the disenchantment of religious life rather than a profession of non-rational religious faith. The chapter elucidates how the notions of disenchantment and secularisation can be used to study Muslim social life in Malaysia by employing Weberian constructs with respect to extensive processes of rationalisation and de-personalisation through religion. In its deeper, popular and everyday significance, disenchantment is not only about a condition of discontentment and disillusionment but also about the acquiescence and acceptance of those under the dominance of a specific form of power—the Divine Bureaucracy, which is the main focus of the book. A summary of subsequent chapters of the book is included here, all alluding to a sense that bureaucratic Islam may not merely be a variant of religious faith, but is the definitive Islam in the modern lives of Muslims.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This study of Islam is situated in Malaysia, a multicultural, mid-sized and middle-income country which has seen a turnover in its ruling government for the first time in 2018, after some 60 years. In its governance and political, cultural and economic practices, Islam is a strong feature because of its Muslim-majority population.

  2. 2.

    On 13 May 1969, riots broke out on the streets of Kuala Lumpur. This was by far the most significant violent episode in Malaysia’s post-independence history. Most accounts of the incidence document it as an ethnic clash involving Malays and Chinese, rather than a conflict based on religion. See, for example, Malaysia (1969), Comber (1983) and Kua (2013).

  3. 3.

    The term, which is taken to mean ‘Islamic law’, can be spelt differently in different national contexts as ‘sharia’, ‘shariah’ or ‘syariah’. When not citing the term from other sources, the spelling adopted in this book is ‘syariah’ and treated as an adjective rather than noun, hence in small rather than in capital letters.

  4. 4.

    At the popular level of discourse, but presented as an academic study, see, for example, Haslinda (1999).

  5. 5.

    In a comparative study of Islamist mobilisation in Turkey, Indonesia and Malaysia, the latter had the lowest incidence of political violence, largely because the state had made the cost of employing violence “too high” (Chernov-Hwang 2009, 111). Inter-religious infractions too have been relatively minimal with the spectre of May 1969, the most prominent inter-racial riots in Malaysian history, used as a fearful disincentive.

  6. 6.

    The NEP was an affirmative action policy to reduce the socio-economic disparity between the indigenous population (the majority being Malays) and others (primarily Chinese). It was implemented in 1970 and regarded as a policy response to the ethnic riots of May 1969 (Jomo 2005).

  7. 7.

    This refers to a tradition of learning which places great reverence and authority on teachers who pass on knowledge to their pupils, with this line of discipleship credited to its originator.

  8. 8.

    The political narrative of Ketuanan Melayu is used to denote the supremacy or entitled deservedness of the Malays in controlling politics in the country.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Malay Studies and Department of Southeast Asian Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Maznah Mohamad

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Mohamad, M. (2020). Bureaucratisation and Disenchantment. In: The Divine Bureaucracy and Disenchantment of Social Life. Contestations in Contemporary Southeast Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2093-8_1

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