Faces of Islam in Southern Thailand Imtiyaz Yusuf

No. 7, March 2007 Faces of Islam in Southern Thailand PAPERS Imtiyaz Yusuf East-West Center Washington WORKING East‐West Center The East‐West Center is an internationally recognized education and research organization established by the U.S. Congress in 1960 to strengthen understanding and relations between the United States and the countries of the Asia Pacific. Through its programs of cooperative study, training, seminars, and research, the Center works to promote a stable, peaceful and prosperous Asia Pacific community in which the United States is a leading and valued partner. Funding for the Center comes for the U.S. government, private foundations, individuals, corporations and a number of Asia‐ Pacific governments. East‐West Center Washington Established on September 1, 2001, the primary function of the East‐West Center Washington is to further the East‐West Center mission and the institutional objective of building a peaceful and prosperous Asia Pacific community through substantive programming activities focused on the theme of conflict reduction in the Asia Pacific region and promoting American understanding of and engagement in Asia Pacific affairs. Contact Information: Editor, EWCW Working Papers East‐West Center Washington 1819 L Street, NW, Suite 200 Washington, D.C. 20036 Tel: (202) 293‐3995 Fax: (202) 293‐1402 [email protected] Imtiyaz Yusuf is Lecturer and Head, Department of Religion, Graduate School of Philosophy and Religion, Assumption University, Bangkok, Thailand. East‐West Center Washington Working Papers This Working Paper is a product of the East‐West Center Washington project on Internal Conflicts and State‐Building Challenges in Asia. See pages 33–45 for details. No. 7, March 2007 Faces of Islam in Southern Thailand Imtiyaz Yusuf East‐West Center Washington Working Papers are non‐reviewed and unedited prepublications reporting on research in progress. These working papers are also available in PDF format on the East‐West Center Washington’s website Publications page at www.eastwestcenterwashington.org/publications. Additional paper copies can be obtained by contacting the the East‐West Center Washington office. The price for EWCW Working Papers is $3.00 each plus postage. East‐West Center Washington Faces of Islam in Southern Thailand Executive Summary shape of the ongoing crisis in southern Several commentators and analyst have talked Thailand. about the on ongoing unrest in southern For over a century, the southern Thai Thailand from the perspective of the crises had been conducted primarily on the engagement of international terrorism, basis of Malay ethnic nationalism with security issues, center‐periphery relations, religion as an additional cultural factor. But organized crime and the drug industry. But since 1980s export of Islam resurgence from none of them have written about the role of the Middle East to all parts of the Muslim religion and ethnicity in the crisis. This world and the subsequent impact of events monograph argues that the roots of the crisis such as the Iranian revolution, the American in southern Thailand lie in the role of religion sponsored Afghan Jihad against the Soviet viewed from the point of ethnic identity. The occupation of Afghanistan and the subsequent phenomena of ethnification of religion is very American war against the Taliban have had a much evident in Southeast Asia where transformative impact on Muslim world religions function along ethnic lines; here a including Thailand. It has led to the increasing Malay is a Muslim, a Siamese/Thai a Buddhist stress on the role of religion as part of solution and a Chinese either a Christian or to various conflicts concerning Muslims. Taoist/Buddhist syncretic. Thus ethnoreligious In the case of southern Thailand it has led constructs shape identities. Hence, it is to the viewing of the ongoing local conflict as important to look into the blending of ethnoreligious in nature with an increasing ethnicity and religion and how the constant stress on the role of local Islam as a factor in transformation of these two factors alter the the conflict. Hence, there are both local and Imtiyaz Yusuf foreign influences shaping conflict in southern Buddhist multi‐religious country where Islam Thailand. is the religion of a minority community; while The global religious revival of Islam as the latter views Islam as a part of political and militant factor has in the case of ethnolinguistic identity in a part of the Thailand resulted in three developments: a) country which was incorporated into setting of local Thai Islam along the path of Thailand. puritan reformism calling for the abandoning This study concludes that the southern of local pre‐Islamic practices which had Thai conflict remains a local conflict between survived within the grab of local Islam b) two ethnoreligious identities of Thai radicalization of Thai Islam in general and c) Buddhism and Malay Islam in a modern giving religious coloring to the ethnic crisis in nation‐state setting. The ethnoreligious extent southern Thailand without identifying it as a of Islam in southern Thailand makes it jihadist struggle along the lines of conflict difficult to negotiate an end to the conflict interpretations of al‐Qaeda or Jemaah unless it is accompanied by recognition of Islamiyah. ethnic, linguistic and cultural identity of This monograph looks into the variety southern Muslim and addressing their within Thai Islam as practiced across different political complaints with a sense of justice. regions of the country, contributing to the And that though southern Thai Islam is differences within Thai Islam. It also largely shaped by the local religious features, illustrates the different faces of Islam in currently it is also subject to different Islamist Thailand in general and not only in South. trends both from the region and the Middle The approach adopted in this monograph East. is rooted in the field of religious studies. The discussion in this monograph illustrates how a Introduction variety of Islamic features and trends impact Islamic attitudes towards state and society the conflict and the general situation of Islam grounded in the main religious teachings of in Thailand. This is done by looking at the: the Qur’an of monotheism (Tauhid) , prophet overall profile of Islam in Thailand; the Thai (Risalah) and life after death (Akrirah) and the Muslim view of Buddhism; the ethnoreligious related moral values and social principles of character of Islam in southern Thailand; the mercy (rahmah), justice (adl), fraternity (ikhwah) impact of global Islamic resurgence on Thai and community (ummah) have been Islam and its influence on the rise of Salafi‐ interpreted and applied variedly in history. Wahhabi reformism amongst the Thai and The period of the prophet Muhammad Malay speaking groups of Thailand; the Krue saw the establishment of the political entity of Se jihad; the role of Muslim politicians in Thai the ummah which was a composite politics and the southern Thai conflict and the sociopolitical unit—a community of members Muslim world. comprising of different religious faiths. The The key finding of this research is that Constitution of Medina, an early document there are two types of Islam in Thailand, the negotiated by the prophet Muhammad in 622 integrationist which is practiced in the CE with the leading clans of Medina refers to provinces extending from the upper South to Jewish and pagan citizens of Medina as Chiangrai in the North and the volatile and members of the ummah. unassimilated Islam in the deep South with its This was followed by the period of different variants. The difference between Muslim caliphates of the Umayyads and the these two types of Islam lies in their Abbasids which began as Muslim minority backgrounds, history and the ethnolinguistic polities and gradually became Muslim configurations. Both of them interpret Islam majority communities. Similar was the case differently, the former sees itself as a part of a with the Indo‐Malay sultanates of Southeast 2 Faces of Islam in Southern Thailand Asia. The fall of the Abbasid empire of separatist movements in these countries which Baghdad in 1258 at the hands of the Mongols interpreted and proposed their integration in led to the introduction of the political concepts or separation from the non‐Muslim majority of dar al‐Islam (Abode of Islam) and dar al‐harb countries on the terms of Muslim nationalism (the abode of war). This marked change in the or Islamist political ideology defined along the geopolitical map of the Muslim world made it ethnoreligious difference with the majority more confrontational in orientation. It was non‐Muslim ruling community. The case of succeeded by a period of rule by petty states Thai Muslims facing the options of integration in the Middle East and Asia following which or separation is one such instance, who, being the Muslim world entered into the phase of an ethnoreligious majority in one part of the European colonial domination. At the end of country seek to determine their identity and the Ottoman empire in 1924 the subsequent stipulate their conditions of political changes in the political map of the Muslim participation and social coexistence with non‐ world were marked by the emergence of Muslims in terms of their ethnic, geographic Muslim majority countries. This event at the and religious terms. end of the colonial phase had important ramifications on the development of Islamic January 2004—The Beginning of political thought; it led to the rise of internal Southern Thai Unrest Muslim debate concerning the political nature On December 14, 2004, Thai police arrested of the newly established Muslim countries’ four ustaz (Islamic teachers) in the South as choice to become a secular or an Islamic state. 1 alleged masterminds behind the ongoing two The Asian and African Muslim countries years of unrest and turmoil in that part of the established after the Second World War were country.

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