BY YAMIN CHENG
Posted by : Allahyarhamah Yap Oi Lai Nurlily : 3 September 2013
(The essay below is taken from Dr Yamin’s book A CHINESE LIFE OF ISLAM: THE SEARCH FOR IDENTITY)
TODAY, a Malaysian Chinese coming into Islam will have to contend with four environments that will shape his identity as a Malaysian Chinese Muslim. He will, first of all, come face to face with the perception that to become a Muslim means to become a Malay. The Chinese in Malaysia have this perception and they are, however, not alone in this view. Some of the Malays also hold such understanding. Islam has been so intertwined with Malay cultural practices that it is hard to distinguish one from the other. One can see that using chopsticks to eat is a custom unique to the Chinese, but this is not something one sees practised by the Prophet Muhammad and the early Muslims in Makkah. It was not part of the Arab culture, although using chopsticks is also an Islamic practice. In the case of the Malays however, using the hand to eat has always been their customary practice ever since Islam became part and parcel of the Malay life, and this practice is something that the Prophet and the early Muslims in Makkah did.
Because many of the customary practices of early Islam had become part of the Malay customary practices, some Malays could not distinguish between the two, and often ended up seeing everything that has to do with Malay practices as Islamic practices, although this is not the case.
Thus, it is not surprising to find that the Chinese people in Malaysia equate Islam with Malay-ness and vice-versa. To the Chinese, to become a Muslim means to become a Malay, and one has foregone his Chinese identity for good.
This equation that being a Muslim means being a Malay would naturally pose the question about how much of his Chinese roots a Malaysian Chinese Muslim could maintain as his Muslim identity. One has to remember that Malaysian Chinese Muslims, as they are today, are mostly converts to Islam.
While there may be a few individuals and families who could trace their Muslim ancestral roots to China, the majority of them have no connection of any kind to the Muslims in China. This situation is made more complex considering the fact that Muslims in China have developed into a minority ethnic group, called the Hui, and therefore causing the religion to be called Hui Jiao, or religion of the Hui people.
This obviously has been corrected in China, whether by Muslims or by non-Muslims in the country in recent times, as the Hui is only one out of the ten Muslim groups in China recognised by the China government. When one goes to China, one should not be surprised to find that a Chinese Muslim is not necessarily one who looks like a Chinese in Malaysia. One will find that Chinese Muslims are also those who have Central Asian or Turkish look, and these people are found mainly in the Northwestern part of China, Xinjiang being one of these places. Their cultural places are also distinct from the mainstream Chinese people, who are of the Han stock.
The Chinese in Malaysia are of the Han stock. When any of the Chinese people in Malaysia becomes a Muslim, he brings with him his Han culture and civilization. He therefore forms another distinct Chinese Muslim identity, one that would be different from the Muslims in China.
Moreover, the Chinese who live in Malaysia are predominantly people whose ancestral homes in China are from the provinces of Guangdong and Fujian, two provinces in the southern part of China. They carry with them the customs and practices of the southern Chinese.
Chinese in Malaysia eat wan tan mee, chee cheong fun, Hainan chicken rice, la mai kai, and many other southern Chinese delicacies. They drink kopi and teh, or coffee and tea, for their morning breakfast at the kopitiam, or southern Chinese-style coffee shop.
When one goes to China, one hardly finds Muslim restaurants that serve these kinds of food and beverages. The usual sight of a Muslim restaurant is the Lanzhou restaurant whose specialty is the la mien or lo mee, and food of beef and mutton.
Muslims of Chinese origin in Malaysia are faced with the question about how they are going to relate to the Muslims in China, and how much of their history and cultural practices can be practically considered as Chinese Muslim practices in Malaysia.
The legacy of the Islamic history, civilization, and culture is something that a Malaysian Chinese Muslim will have to be familiar with. Had Islam been a uniform face in all Muslim places and in all times, then this would not be a problem. But in the course of its history, Islam has taken many faces as it moves from one society into another, from one culture into another, from one ethnic group into another.
As it moves from one situation into another, it replaces existing civilizations with new ones, all being Islamic civilizations nevertheless.
There was an Islamic civilization of the Arab kind, an Islamic civilization of the Persian kind, and an Islamic civilization of the Spanish or Andalusian kind.
Then there were the sub-Indian continent kind, the Turkish kind, the Chinese kind, and the Nusantara or Malay Archipelago kind.
Among these many civilizations that are still in existence today, which of these could be drawn into the Malaysian Chinese Muslim colouring of his Muslim identity?
Or should he stick to only the Islamic civilization that has flourished in China, since they share the same roots in terms of ethnicity, cultural practices, language, and history?
Finally, living in the kind of world as it is today, one cannot avoid seeing everywhere and everything as tinged with Western identity. Western lifestyle has today become synonymous with Global lifestyle. One sees, for instance, fast-food restaurants like KFC, McDonald’s, and Burger King no matter where one goes, be it New York, Paris, or Tokyo; Beijing, Dubai, or Cairo; the African states or the Himalayan highlands; Jakarta, Bangkok, or Kuala Lumpur.
One sees people watching America’s NBA basketball games in places like Nepal. One sees people from all walks of life - the old, the young, and the little ones - wearing football jerseys bearing the names of their favourite players.
When Manchester United or Liverpool comes to Malaysia to play, Malaysian spectators wear jerseys in red and flood the stadium with them, rather than wear the jerseys reflecting the Malaysian team.
Yet, when one looks at history, one finds that non-Western countries treaded cautiously when it comes to accepting anything coming from the West. In the case of the Muslims, Westernization is seen as a process of secularization -- a process that disengages religion from every aspect of their human life and reassigns it to only certain aspects of it.
Westernization, in its form as secularism and appearing in a time called modernity, has posed challenges to the Muslims in a number of ways. Westernization has challenged the Muslims with the colonization of their land, labour, and capital. Westernization has challenged the Muslims with the modern scientific thought and technological achievements. Westernization has challenged the Muslims with modern ideologies such as Capitalism, Marxism, and Socialism. And today, Westernization is challenging the Muslims in terms of their cultural lifestyle -- about how a Muslim seeks his identity through the consumption culture, in terms of what he wears and what brand-name he is wearing, for instance.
Looking at the scenarios we have presented of the kinds of things that a Malaysian Chinese Muslim has to come face to face with, how would he define and characterize his identity as a Muslim who is a Chinese and a Malaysian, and living in modern times?
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22/12/2024: 4.08 p.m
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