1) The document discusses Muslim accommodation in Thai society, focusing on the southern Malay Muslim minority. Historically, the Thai state expanded into the southern Malay Muslim regions and imposed policies that undermined traditional Malay Muslim political and religious authority.
2) This led to resentment and rebellions among the Malay Muslims. While the Thai government recognized Islam, it continued assimilationist policies like appointing Buddhist officials and promoting a nationalistic education system.
3) Tensions remain as the Malay Muslims of southern Thailand maintain a distinct cultural identity from the dominant Thai Buddhist culture promoted by the state.
Thailand is a constitutional monarchy located in Southeast Asia with a population of 60 million people. The majority of Thais are ethnically Thai and follow Theravada Buddhism. Thailand has a long history with various kingdoms, and was united under the Chakri dynasty in the late 18th century. Today, Thailand faces challenges from rapid modernization and urbanization, including issues of corruption, human trafficking, and the rise of an unequal cash economy. The monarchy plays an important unifying role in Thai society and culture.
Thailand is a constitutional monarchy located in Southeast Asia with a population of 60 million people. The majority of Thais are ethnically Thai and follow Theravada Buddhism. Thailand has a long history with various kingdoms, and was united under the Chakri dynasty in the late 18th century. Today, Thailand faces challenges from rapid modernization and urbanization, including issues of corruption, human trafficking, and the rise of an unequal cash economy. The monarchy plays an important unifying role in Thai society and culture.
History and politics of the muslims in thailandIkhwan Ng
The document provides an overview of the history and politics of Muslims in Thailand. It discusses:
1) The history of Islam in Thailand, noting it arrived around the 9th century and was most dominant in the southern provinces, where the Malay-Muslim population formed their own sultanate until being annexed by Thailand.
2) It characterizes the Muslims in Thai society, distinguishing between the assimilated central Muslims and the largely unassimilated Malay-Muslims of the south, who still retain their distinct culture and identity.
3) It outlines the challenges of integrating the southern Malay-Muslims into the predominantly Buddhist Thai nation-state and the various terms used to classify the
This document provides an overview of republican states that existed in ancient India based on sources from Buddhist literature, Greek historians, and other texts. Some key points:
- Republican states, also known as ganarajya, were non-monarchical states where supreme power was held by the people through assemblies and councils.
- Many states in northern India in the 6th century BC were republics, including the Licchavis, Shakyas, Mallas, and others.
- Republican states had assemblies where all citizens or members of the ruling class could participate in governing. Larger states also had executive councils and were divided into provinces and cities.
- Sources describe the internal structures of republic
The document provides a historical analysis of local government in Bengal from the Vedic period through the British colonial period. It discusses that in ancient times, the basic political units were families that made up villages, which were grouped into larger tribal kingdoms. During the Mauryan Empire, villages had self-governing assemblies and officials to manage administration. Urban local government also developed during this time to administer large cities. The document outlines that local government continued to be largely based in villages through subsequent periods like the Gupta and Harsha empires, with village councils and heads managing local affairs.
Kingship Role, Duties and Concept of DivinityVirag Sontakke
This presentation is prepared for the Graduation students to get basic idea and general information’s regarding the topic. Overall content of presentations is not through and complete, also required further additions.
MEANING OFHISTORY The popular meaning of the word ‘History; is “a narrative of recording or inquiry of past events of men in society.” History is the knowledge relating to the development in science, in arts, in politics, in war, in religion and in law with human efforts in a particular country.
Thailand is a constitutional monarchy located in Southeast Asia with a population of 60 million people. The majority of Thais are ethnically Thai and follow Theravada Buddhism. Thailand has a long history with various kingdoms, and was united under the Chakri dynasty in the late 18th century. Today, Thailand faces challenges from rapid modernization and urbanization, including issues of corruption, human trafficking, and the rise of an unequal cash economy. The monarchy plays an important unifying role in Thai society and culture.
Thailand is a constitutional monarchy located in Southeast Asia with a population of 60 million people. The majority of Thais are ethnically Thai and follow Theravada Buddhism. Thailand has a long history with various kingdoms, and was united under the Chakri dynasty in the late 18th century. Today, Thailand faces challenges from rapid modernization and urbanization, including issues of corruption, human trafficking, and the rise of an unequal cash economy. The monarchy plays an important unifying role in Thai society and culture.
History and politics of the muslims in thailandIkhwan Ng
The document provides an overview of the history and politics of Muslims in Thailand. It discusses:
1) The history of Islam in Thailand, noting it arrived around the 9th century and was most dominant in the southern provinces, where the Malay-Muslim population formed their own sultanate until being annexed by Thailand.
2) It characterizes the Muslims in Thai society, distinguishing between the assimilated central Muslims and the largely unassimilated Malay-Muslims of the south, who still retain their distinct culture and identity.
3) It outlines the challenges of integrating the southern Malay-Muslims into the predominantly Buddhist Thai nation-state and the various terms used to classify the
This document provides an overview of republican states that existed in ancient India based on sources from Buddhist literature, Greek historians, and other texts. Some key points:
- Republican states, also known as ganarajya, were non-monarchical states where supreme power was held by the people through assemblies and councils.
- Many states in northern India in the 6th century BC were republics, including the Licchavis, Shakyas, Mallas, and others.
- Republican states had assemblies where all citizens or members of the ruling class could participate in governing. Larger states also had executive councils and were divided into provinces and cities.
- Sources describe the internal structures of republic
The document provides a historical analysis of local government in Bengal from the Vedic period through the British colonial period. It discusses that in ancient times, the basic political units were families that made up villages, which were grouped into larger tribal kingdoms. During the Mauryan Empire, villages had self-governing assemblies and officials to manage administration. Urban local government also developed during this time to administer large cities. The document outlines that local government continued to be largely based in villages through subsequent periods like the Gupta and Harsha empires, with village councils and heads managing local affairs.
Kingship Role, Duties and Concept of DivinityVirag Sontakke
This presentation is prepared for the Graduation students to get basic idea and general information’s regarding the topic. Overall content of presentations is not through and complete, also required further additions.
MEANING OFHISTORY The popular meaning of the word ‘History; is “a narrative of recording or inquiry of past events of men in society.” History is the knowledge relating to the development in science, in arts, in politics, in war, in religion and in law with human efforts in a particular country.
This presentation is prepared for the Graduation students to get basic idea and general information’s regarding the topic. Overall content of presentations is not through and complete, also required further additions.
This Presentation is prepared for the Graduate Students. A presentation consisting of basic information regarding the topic. Students are advised to get more information from recommended books and articles. This presentation is for students only.
State formation in early maritime southeast asiaJewel Mercader
This document provides an overview of theories regarding state formation in early maritime Southeast Asia. It discusses how Indianization was previously seen as the main driver of state formation, but more recent theories emphasize convergence in political developments across Southeast Asia and India. The document also outlines social science models of defining characteristics of early states, such as a fixed territory, population size, surplus agricultural production, and ideology legitimizing social hierarchy and kingship. However, it notes that these models do not fully capture the nature of early states in maritime Southeast Asia. The document aims to stimulate further discussion and research on the earliest states that emerged in the western Indonesian archipelago and Malay peninsula in the early 1st millennium AD.
The document discusses the evolution of tribal states and republics in ancient India. In the Rig Vedic period, tribal states had a territorial character but shifted to settled agrarian societies with strong central authorities. Some tribal states retained independence and local governance, even as monarchies developed. Republics existed in places like the foothills of the Himalayas and Northern Bihar, governed by assemblies, though tributary to larger kingdoms. The Vrijjian confederacy and Licchavis tribe had prominent republican governments modeled on tribal structures that survived into the 4th century BC.
This presentation is prepared for the Graduation students to get basic idea and general information’s regarding the topic. Overall content of presentations is not through and complete, also required further additions.
Matriparishad Composition, Functions and Scope Virag Sontakke
This presentation is prepared for the Graduation students to get basic idea and general information’s regarding the topic. Overall content of presentations is not through and complete, also required further additions.
Williams 2007 Mandala Significance In Magindanawn Societymarkswilliams59
The document discusses the origins and significance of the mandala symbol in Magindanao Muslim society in the southern Philippines. It begins by explaining that the mandala originated in Hindu India as a symbol representing the universe used in meditation and striving for enlightenment. It later took on practical significance as a political structure where a central divine king is flanked by a circle of tributary kings who owe allegiance. This mandalic structure was used in Hindu and Buddhist societies in Southeast Asia and also spread to Islamic regions. The document focuses on exploring how the mandala symbol originated religiously and was adapted as a social and political structure in Magindanao society, and how Islam interacted with pre-existing mandala systems in the
The document discusses the development of various languages and literary traditions in India during the medieval period. It describes how Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit influenced the evolution of languages like Urdu and Hindi. Literary works were produced in many regional languages under different rulers, with Sanskrit continuing despite lack of royal patronage in some Muslim-dominated areas. Different dance forms also emerged and evolved across India during this time period under various cultural influences.
Archaeology tells us about the sophisticated Harrapan civilization in India between 2500-1700 BCE. The Aryans who arrived around 1500 BCE established a rural culture and the Vedic religion. Hinduism and Buddhism later emerged, blending indigenous beliefs with the Vedas. Hinduism centered on dharma, karma, samsara and achieving moksha. Buddhism founded by Siddhartha Gautama taught the four noble truths and eightfold path to overcome suffering and reach nirvana.
The document discusses various theories about the origin of the state in ancient India:
1) Divine theory - Popular theory that kings were chosen by gods to rule and had divine sanction. Referenced in Vedas, epics, and Manusmriti.
2) Force theory - State emerged from conquests and strong warriors who led clans. However, no systematic explanation exists.
3) Contract theory - Referenced in Brahmanas, Buddhist and Jain texts. People agreed to obey a leader in return for protection and services.
4) Evolutionary theory - State evolved from family units headed by chiefs, then tribes headed by family heads, fulfilling needs of agricultural society. Supported as oldest theory
The document provides an overview of three sections in a chapter on early India: India's early civilizations, Hinduism and Buddhism, and India's first empires. It summarizes that the Mauryan dynasty built India's first empire and contributed to literature, mathematics, and science. The Gupta Empire later reunited northern India through trade and also spurred advances in various fields. Key beliefs of Hinduism and the origins and spread of Buddhism in India are outlined.
India, also known as Bharat, has a long and rich history dating back over 30,000 years. Some of the earliest human remains in South Asia have been dated to around 30,000 years ago. One of the earliest urban cultures in South Asia was the Indus Valley Civilization, which flourished between 2600-1900 BCE in modern-day Pakistan and Western India. During the Vedic period from 2000-500 BCE, many regions transitioned to the Iron Age and important Hindu scriptures like the Vedas were composed. 16 major kingdoms known as the mahajanapadas emerged by the 6th century BCE, and the Mauryan Empire went on to control most of the subcontinent by the
The document outlines the syllabus for the History subject in the NTA UGC NET JRF examination. It covers Indian history from ancient to modern times, including the pre-historic period, ancient India, medieval India, and modern India up to independence. Some of the key topics covered include the Indus Valley civilization, Vedic period, Mauryan empire, Gupta era, Delhi Sultanate, Mughal empire, Vijayanagara empire, regional kingdoms, colonial period and nationalism. The syllabus is divided into 10 units, covering aspects such as sources of history, political and administrative developments, society and culture, religion and economy during different historical periods. Key concepts, terms and personalities from Indian history are also
This document discusses Muslim historiography and the sources used by early Muslim historians. It explains that historiography is the study of how historians have studied and written about history using sources and methodologies. Early Muslim historians compiled many works documenting history using sources like battle narratives, poetry, and texts from other religious traditions. Over time, the methodology of isnad (chain of transmission) was introduced to authenticate reports and distinguish false information. This led to more critical historical works. A variety of pre-Islamic sources provided information to early historians about Arabian culture and events before Islam.
- India is a federal parliamentary republic located in South Asia. It has over 1.2 billion people and is the largest democracy in the world.
- India has a long and diverse history, with many ancient civilizations and empires rising and falling on the subcontinent over millennia. Major religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism originated in India.
- In modern times, India gained independence from British rule in 1947 after years of campaigning for self-governance led by Mahatma Gandhi and other leaders. It is now a rapidly developing country with a strong economy and cultural influence worldwide.
This document provides an overview of a course on Indian tradition, culture, and society. The course objectives are outlined, including imparting principles of thought, understanding the importance of surroundings, sensitizing students to Indian culture and issues, and acquainting students with Indian knowledge systems.
The document then provides a chapter index and slides on various topics, such as the state in ancient India, the process of state formation, theories on the origin of the state, the development of kingship and monarchy in ancient India, the duties and functions of kings, administrative structures like councils of ministers and secretariats, and political ideals.
Iran has been governed as an Islamic republic since the 1979 revolution overthrew the monarchy. It has a population of over 68 million, most of whom are Shi'a Muslims. Supreme power is held by the Supreme Leader, currently Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The president is elected to a four-year term. Iran has faced international pressure and sanctions over its nuclear program and human rights record.
1) A novel method was developed for producing carbon foam by mixing polyurethane foam and novolac resin with various additives like silicon, aluminum, iron chloride, activated carbon, and short carbon fibers.
2) When additives were included, the pore morphology changed significantly. Short carbon fibers mixed well and bonded to pore walls. Silicon converted in situ to silicon carbide and silicon nanowires. Iron chloride produced carbon nanotubes and amorphous carbon beads throughout pore surfaces.
3) Aluminum increased compressive strength when used up to 6% by weight, producing the highest specific strength of the samples tested.
King Tut's mummy was CT scanned in 2005, over 80 years after its discovery by Howard Carter in 1922. The scan revealed that Tut's breastbone and ribs were missing, indicating he did not die of natural causes but from a broken leg that was exacerbated by malaria. DNA testing and further scans of Tut and other royal mummies helped establish Tut's family tree and identified health issues like a cleft palate and clubfoot. While some deaths after Tut's tomb's discovery were attributed to a curse, advances in science have provided new insights into Tut's life, death, and lineage.
This presentation is prepared for the Graduation students to get basic idea and general information’s regarding the topic. Overall content of presentations is not through and complete, also required further additions.
This Presentation is prepared for the Graduate Students. A presentation consisting of basic information regarding the topic. Students are advised to get more information from recommended books and articles. This presentation is for students only.
State formation in early maritime southeast asiaJewel Mercader
This document provides an overview of theories regarding state formation in early maritime Southeast Asia. It discusses how Indianization was previously seen as the main driver of state formation, but more recent theories emphasize convergence in political developments across Southeast Asia and India. The document also outlines social science models of defining characteristics of early states, such as a fixed territory, population size, surplus agricultural production, and ideology legitimizing social hierarchy and kingship. However, it notes that these models do not fully capture the nature of early states in maritime Southeast Asia. The document aims to stimulate further discussion and research on the earliest states that emerged in the western Indonesian archipelago and Malay peninsula in the early 1st millennium AD.
The document discusses the evolution of tribal states and republics in ancient India. In the Rig Vedic period, tribal states had a territorial character but shifted to settled agrarian societies with strong central authorities. Some tribal states retained independence and local governance, even as monarchies developed. Republics existed in places like the foothills of the Himalayas and Northern Bihar, governed by assemblies, though tributary to larger kingdoms. The Vrijjian confederacy and Licchavis tribe had prominent republican governments modeled on tribal structures that survived into the 4th century BC.
This presentation is prepared for the Graduation students to get basic idea and general information’s regarding the topic. Overall content of presentations is not through and complete, also required further additions.
Matriparishad Composition, Functions and Scope Virag Sontakke
This presentation is prepared for the Graduation students to get basic idea and general information’s regarding the topic. Overall content of presentations is not through and complete, also required further additions.
Williams 2007 Mandala Significance In Magindanawn Societymarkswilliams59
The document discusses the origins and significance of the mandala symbol in Magindanao Muslim society in the southern Philippines. It begins by explaining that the mandala originated in Hindu India as a symbol representing the universe used in meditation and striving for enlightenment. It later took on practical significance as a political structure where a central divine king is flanked by a circle of tributary kings who owe allegiance. This mandalic structure was used in Hindu and Buddhist societies in Southeast Asia and also spread to Islamic regions. The document focuses on exploring how the mandala symbol originated religiously and was adapted as a social and political structure in Magindanao society, and how Islam interacted with pre-existing mandala systems in the
The document discusses the development of various languages and literary traditions in India during the medieval period. It describes how Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit influenced the evolution of languages like Urdu and Hindi. Literary works were produced in many regional languages under different rulers, with Sanskrit continuing despite lack of royal patronage in some Muslim-dominated areas. Different dance forms also emerged and evolved across India during this time period under various cultural influences.
Archaeology tells us about the sophisticated Harrapan civilization in India between 2500-1700 BCE. The Aryans who arrived around 1500 BCE established a rural culture and the Vedic religion. Hinduism and Buddhism later emerged, blending indigenous beliefs with the Vedas. Hinduism centered on dharma, karma, samsara and achieving moksha. Buddhism founded by Siddhartha Gautama taught the four noble truths and eightfold path to overcome suffering and reach nirvana.
The document discusses various theories about the origin of the state in ancient India:
1) Divine theory - Popular theory that kings were chosen by gods to rule and had divine sanction. Referenced in Vedas, epics, and Manusmriti.
2) Force theory - State emerged from conquests and strong warriors who led clans. However, no systematic explanation exists.
3) Contract theory - Referenced in Brahmanas, Buddhist and Jain texts. People agreed to obey a leader in return for protection and services.
4) Evolutionary theory - State evolved from family units headed by chiefs, then tribes headed by family heads, fulfilling needs of agricultural society. Supported as oldest theory
The document provides an overview of three sections in a chapter on early India: India's early civilizations, Hinduism and Buddhism, and India's first empires. It summarizes that the Mauryan dynasty built India's first empire and contributed to literature, mathematics, and science. The Gupta Empire later reunited northern India through trade and also spurred advances in various fields. Key beliefs of Hinduism and the origins and spread of Buddhism in India are outlined.
India, also known as Bharat, has a long and rich history dating back over 30,000 years. Some of the earliest human remains in South Asia have been dated to around 30,000 years ago. One of the earliest urban cultures in South Asia was the Indus Valley Civilization, which flourished between 2600-1900 BCE in modern-day Pakistan and Western India. During the Vedic period from 2000-500 BCE, many regions transitioned to the Iron Age and important Hindu scriptures like the Vedas were composed. 16 major kingdoms known as the mahajanapadas emerged by the 6th century BCE, and the Mauryan Empire went on to control most of the subcontinent by the
The document outlines the syllabus for the History subject in the NTA UGC NET JRF examination. It covers Indian history from ancient to modern times, including the pre-historic period, ancient India, medieval India, and modern India up to independence. Some of the key topics covered include the Indus Valley civilization, Vedic period, Mauryan empire, Gupta era, Delhi Sultanate, Mughal empire, Vijayanagara empire, regional kingdoms, colonial period and nationalism. The syllabus is divided into 10 units, covering aspects such as sources of history, political and administrative developments, society and culture, religion and economy during different historical periods. Key concepts, terms and personalities from Indian history are also
This document discusses Muslim historiography and the sources used by early Muslim historians. It explains that historiography is the study of how historians have studied and written about history using sources and methodologies. Early Muslim historians compiled many works documenting history using sources like battle narratives, poetry, and texts from other religious traditions. Over time, the methodology of isnad (chain of transmission) was introduced to authenticate reports and distinguish false information. This led to more critical historical works. A variety of pre-Islamic sources provided information to early historians about Arabian culture and events before Islam.
- India is a federal parliamentary republic located in South Asia. It has over 1.2 billion people and is the largest democracy in the world.
- India has a long and diverse history, with many ancient civilizations and empires rising and falling on the subcontinent over millennia. Major religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism originated in India.
- In modern times, India gained independence from British rule in 1947 after years of campaigning for self-governance led by Mahatma Gandhi and other leaders. It is now a rapidly developing country with a strong economy and cultural influence worldwide.
This document provides an overview of a course on Indian tradition, culture, and society. The course objectives are outlined, including imparting principles of thought, understanding the importance of surroundings, sensitizing students to Indian culture and issues, and acquainting students with Indian knowledge systems.
The document then provides a chapter index and slides on various topics, such as the state in ancient India, the process of state formation, theories on the origin of the state, the development of kingship and monarchy in ancient India, the duties and functions of kings, administrative structures like councils of ministers and secretariats, and political ideals.
Iran has been governed as an Islamic republic since the 1979 revolution overthrew the monarchy. It has a population of over 68 million, most of whom are Shi'a Muslims. Supreme power is held by the Supreme Leader, currently Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The president is elected to a four-year term. Iran has faced international pressure and sanctions over its nuclear program and human rights record.
1) A novel method was developed for producing carbon foam by mixing polyurethane foam and novolac resin with various additives like silicon, aluminum, iron chloride, activated carbon, and short carbon fibers.
2) When additives were included, the pore morphology changed significantly. Short carbon fibers mixed well and bonded to pore walls. Silicon converted in situ to silicon carbide and silicon nanowires. Iron chloride produced carbon nanotubes and amorphous carbon beads throughout pore surfaces.
3) Aluminum increased compressive strength when used up to 6% by weight, producing the highest specific strength of the samples tested.
King Tut's mummy was CT scanned in 2005, over 80 years after its discovery by Howard Carter in 1922. The scan revealed that Tut's breastbone and ribs were missing, indicating he did not die of natural causes but from a broken leg that was exacerbated by malaria. DNA testing and further scans of Tut and other royal mummies helped establish Tut's family tree and identified health issues like a cleft palate and clubfoot. While some deaths after Tut's tomb's discovery were attributed to a curse, advances in science have provided new insights into Tut's life, death, and lineage.
الرسالة الكبرى إلى أخي المنتظم في جماعة الإخوان المسلمينOm Muktar
The brotherhood of Ikhwaanil-Muslimeen by 18 great scholars
رسالة إلى منتظم في جماعة الإخوان المسلمين
Rebuttal of the sect and brotherhood of Muslim Brotherhood by : Ibn Baaz, al-Albaanee, Muqbil al-Waadi'ee, al-'Uthaymeen, al-Fawzaan, al-Lajnah ad-Daaimah, al-'Abbad, Saalih Aal ash-Shaykh, Rabee' al-Madkhalee, Zayd al-Madkhalee, an-Najmee, Amaan al-Jaamee, al-Ghudayyan, Bakr abu Zayd, Hammaad al-Ansaree, Ahmad Shakir...
Attended by Sheikh ar-Razihi
Game Sense, also known as Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU), is an approach that emphasizes student-centered learning in physical education. It focuses on developing problem-solving skills through modified game play, allowing students to explore strengths and weaknesses. Teachers facilitate learning by asking questions and letting students find solutions through trial and error rather than simply providing instruction. This motivates students and enhances creativity, critical thinking, and overall development.
عنوان الكتاب: الحديث حجة بنفسه في العقائد والأحكام
المؤلف: محمد ناصر الدين الألباني
حالة الفهرسة: مفهرس على العناوين الرئيسية
الناشر: مكتبة المعارف
سنة النشر: 1425 - 2005
عدد المجلدات: 1
رقم الطبعة: 1
عدد الصفحات: 96
Muslim Intellectuals in Thailand: Exercises in Reform and ModerationOm Muktar
This document summarizes the history of Islam in Thailand and the tensions between Muslim and Buddhist populations in southern Thailand. It discusses how Thai government policies aimed at assimilation of the Malay Muslim minority in the south, such as imposing the Thai language and Buddhist curriculum in schools, have led to resentment and periodic rebellions since the early 20th century. More recent violence erupted in 2004 following attacks on Buddhist monks, and over 3,200 deaths have occurred in the southern insurgency since then. The document provides important historical and cultural context to understand the current conflict.
The document discusses the benefits of exercise for both physical and mental health. Regular exercise can improve cardiovascular health, reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety, enhance mood, and boost brain health. Staying physically active aims to strengthen muscles and bones and can help manage weight.
This document consists of test questions from a mathematics exam. It includes 16 pages with multiple choice and free response questions covering topics like statistics, finance, geometry, probability, algebra and trigonometry. Students are asked to show their work and provide reasons for their answers. The questions involve graphs, equations, word problems, constructions and calculations.
My photo album contains pictures from my family vacation to Hawaii last summer. There are photos from the beach, hiking in volcanoes national park, and eating shave ice. The album allows me to look back fondly at the memories from our trip to the islands.
Balavigna Weaving Mills is an ISO 9001-2008 certified weaving company located in Tamil Nadu, India. It has 51 looms and produces 15,000 meters of fabric per day. The company produces a variety of fabrics including organic, bamboo, and linen. It has an annual turnover of 100 crores and employs 160 people. The document discusses Balavigna's 5S certification and its efforts to implement 5S practices throughout its facilities and operations to reduce waste and improve efficiency.
A report on oxidation protection of carbon carbon compositestshameel farhan
- C/C composites have excellent mechanical properties but are highly susceptible to oxidation at temperatures above 370°C. Two main approaches are used to protect against oxidation: adding inhibitors internally or applying surface coatings as thermal barriers.
- Effective inhibitors include boron compounds like B2O3, which can block reactive sites and fill cracks. Common barrier coatings are silicon carbide and silicon nitride, which form protective silica layers. Addition of boron improves crack sealing at temperatures up to 1500°C.
- The ideal protective coating adheres well without cracks, has a similar thermal expansion to C/C, resists oxidation at service temperatures, and prevents oxygen and carbon diffusion. Composition gradient coatings provide excellent
Islam in Thailand before the Bangkok PeriodOm Muktar
1) Islam first spread to Southeast Asia through Arab and Persian traders in the 9th century, but mass conversions did not begin until the 13th century with the arrival of Muslim scholars fleeing the Mongol invasion of Baghdad.
2) Local traditions from Patani in southern Thailand indicate that the initial converts to Islam were high-status individuals like rulers, who converted for political and economic reasons rather than spiritual ones. Whole populations did not immediately convert.
3) While Thai historiography claims the southern Muslim provinces were incorporated into the kingdom in the 13th century, the evidence suggests these areas had only loose tributary relationships with northern Thai kingdoms like Sukhodaya and were largely autonomous.
Pop music originated in the 1950s and 1960s in the Western world, borrowing from various genres like rock, country, and gospel. It is characterized by catchy melodies and hooks, songs that are 2-3 minutes long, and lyrics focused on simple themes like love. Though aimed mostly at teenagers, pop music has a wide audience and includes subgenres like bubblegum pop and electropop. Music videos for pop songs typically feature bright colors, choreography, and close-ups of the artist to complement the upbeat music and appeal to youth.
ظاهرة التبديع والتفسيق والتكفير وضوابطها ـ الفوزان
Dhaahira at-Tadbee' wat-Tafseeq wat-Takfeer - al-Fawzan
---------------------------------------------------------
Risala on a very misunderstood subject : make a person mubtadi', or wicked or miscreant. Followed by a brief comment of Shaykh ibn Baz, then questions and answers
The document discusses the nature of God and one's relationship with God. It prompts self-reflection on identity, beliefs, habits, and how often one spends time with God. It encourages allowing God to accompany one in facing wounds. It then lists many affirming identities a person has as a child of God, member of Christ's body, and saint. It affirms that through Christ, one is free from condemnation, cannot be separated from God's love, and is God's workmanship.
Kitab al-Qadar - AbdAllah ibn Wahb (197H)
القدر وما ورد في ذلك من الآثار للإمام عبد الله بن وهب
A book about the Aqeedah on the Qadar, according to the Salaf methodology to argue Aqeedah Saheehah
and refute the innovations (here Qadari and Jabiriya) collecting the hadith on the subject.
Configurable and Expandable Modbus IoT (Internet of Things) ControllersICP DAS USA, Inc.
4. The Internet of Things (IoT) was first introduced by British entrepreneur Kevin Ashton. It refers to a network of connected devices and shared data over the internet. The devices can be sensors, machines, mobile devices, etc. With connected devices and data, IoT technology brings automation to the next level, creating a new way of communication and work.
In this webinar, you will learn about:
IoT: Internet of Things
MQTT: MQ Telemetry Transport
Configuring Control Operations via Web Page
SNMP, FTP & CGI Commands
Sending Email Alarms & Using Timers
Using FTP for Data Logging
IoT & SCADA Software
Learn more: http://www.icpdas-usa.com/webpresentations.php?r=slideshare
Thailand is located in Southeast Asia with a population of 60 million people, most of whom are ethnic Thai. Thailand has a long history with various kingdoms, and was united under the Chakri Dynasty in the late 18th century. Today, Thailand is a constitutional monarchy with Buddhism as the dominant religion. The country faces challenges from rapid modernization and urbanization, including issues like human trafficking, corruption, and environmental degradation. However, Thailand maintains a strong national identity through its revered King and traditions rooted in Buddhism and Thai culture.
This document summarizes a working paper about the faces of Islam in southern Thailand. It discusses how Islam in southern Thailand has both local religious features as well as influences from global Islamic trends. There are two main types of Islam practiced in Thailand - an integrationist form found in central and northern provinces, and a more volatile, unassimilated form in the deep south influenced by Malay ethnicity and identity. The conflict in southern Thailand remains a local issue between Thai Buddhism and Malay Islam, shaped by both religious and ethnic identities within the modern nation-state context. The paper examines different aspects of Thai Islam and their relationship to the southern conflict.
This document summarizes a research paper on the causes and consequences of hegemonic masculinity and dominance in Thailand. The key points are:
1) Thai society is dominated by hegemonic masculinity which places men in positions of power over women. The three main institutions that reinforce this are Buddhism, the monarchy, and the patriarchal Thai state.
2) Buddhism denies women equal spiritual status and power, such as prohibiting women from becoming monks. The monarchy also only allows men to become king.
3) This hegemonic system relegates women to submissive roles and denies them opportunities, rights, and access to resources. However, some women resist through delaying marriage/child
This document discusses the role of religion, specifically Theravada Buddhism, in political Thailand and its relationship to the Thai monarchy. It explains that Buddhism is very important to the identity and legitimacy of the Thai monarchy, with kings traditionally seen as protectors of the religion. It then provides historical context about the role of religion and kingship in different eras of Thai history, from Sukhothai to modern Bangkok. It also discusses how Thai kings incorporated aspects of modernization while maintaining the importance of Buddhism in national identity and the monarchy's authority.
THERAVADA BUDDHISM AND BUDDHIST NATIONALISM: SRI LANKA, MYANMAR, CAMBODIA, AN...MYO AUNG Myanmar
https://www.academia.edu/30206661/THERAVADA_BUDDHISM_AND_BUDDHIST_NATIONALISM_SRI_LANKA_MYANMAR_CAMBODIA_AND_THAILAND?auto=download
Published as “Theravada Buddhism and Buddhist Nationalism: Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Thailand,”
The Review of Faith and International Affairs
THERAVADA BUDDHISM AND BUDDHIST NATIONALISM:SRI LANKA, MYANMAR, CAMBODIA, AND THAILAND
By Charles KeyesProfessor Professor
Thailand is located in Southeast Asia. It borders Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia and Myanmar. Bangkok is the capital city. Theravada Buddhism is the dominant religion in Thailand. The climate is tropical, with three seasons in the north and two seasons in the south. Historically, Thailand has been influenced by the Mon, Khmer, Malay and Tai peoples. Major historical periods include the Sukhothai Kingdom, Ayutthaya Kingdom and the current Rattanakosin period under the Chakri dynasty.
This document provides an overview of Confucianism, including its history, core teachings, symbols, and scriptures. It describes how Confucianism emerged in China during a period of political and social upheaval to promote social harmony. Confucius is introduced as the founder who sought to restore order through ethical and social philosophy emphasizing virtues like righteousness, wisdom and propriety. The document outlines Confucianism's debate as a philosophy vs religion and how its focus on relationships in everyday life influenced East Asian thought for centuries through scriptures like the Five Classics and Analects.
Assessment of arts and cultural festival project the 3rd koree murottal and a...Madpouzee Rubama
Thai society is multi-cultural where people respect differences of religions and cultures as a way of life. Islam also consists of its own identities, especially the Quran recitation; however, the influences, environment, and changes of the society have altered much on its cultures, traditions, and customs. These make some of Islamic practices disappear from the memory of youths. Hatyai University has foreseen the significance of living in the multi-cultural society, and run the Koree, Murottal, and Anasyid recitations competition in order to maintain the culture of Muslims. The Quran recitations will promote peaceful living in the society. The overall picture of the assessment of Arts and Cultural Festival Project: "The 3 rd Koree, Murottal, and Anasyid Recitations Competition for Peace in the South" is found that the participants are satisfied with the project, averagely at the high level at 3.85. Separately, it is found that the benefits of the project reach the highest mean at 3.97, followed by work performance at 3.84, while the public relations and facilities have the mean at 3.82 and 3.71 respectively.
The document provides information on the objectives and outcomes of a course on Indian traditions, culture, and society. The course aims to impart principles of reasoning to understand contemporary issues in India, encourage sustainable development, and sensitize students to Indian culture and traditions. It will make students aware of concepts in yoga, Sanskrit literature, and the Indian knowledge system. The key modules will cover society, state and politics in ancient India, including theories of state formation, political ideals, and the seven limbs of the state according to Kautilya's Arthashastra.
This case study examines an education for coexistence program at a public school in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The school was established to serve minority and immigrant children, providing free education. It currently has over 800 students from 11 ethnic/cultural backgrounds. The school promotes coexistence through mixed dormitories and encouraging seeing others as individuals rather than from their ethnic group. A survey of 150+ lower secondary students found diversity in terms of gender, religion and ethnicity, showing how the school brings together a multicultural student body. The school aims to foster understanding and equality among all students.
Taliban and Al Qaeda, culural sociology , Sage 2012A.R.M. Imtiyaz
The document discusses the origins and ideologies of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. It states that the Taliban emerged in the 1990s from madrassas in Pakistan and captured control of Afghanistan in 1996. They imposed a strict interpretation of Sharia law and severely restricted women's rights. Al-Qaeda was formed by Osama Bin Laden in 1988 with the goal of defeating foreign occupation in Muslim lands and establishing a global caliphate. It carried out terrorist attacks against the US in response to American presence in the Middle East. Both groups employed Islamic symbols to garner support but their extreme interpretations of Islam were rejected by many.
1. Identification List(6 Paragraph )a. In a short paragraph, des.docxberthacarradice
The document provides guidance for students to complete a historical identification and essay assignment on Chinese history prior to 1911. For the identification section, students must choose 6 historical persons, places, events, or concepts from various categories and briefly describe each one in relation to Chinese history and society. For the essay, students must analyze which Chinese ruler prior to 1911 had the most and least successful reigns, making an argument supported by historical evidence and context. The document also provides feedback on a student's attempted identification and essay responses, noting areas that need improvement in contextualizing the historical figures, developing clear arguments, and using proper evidence and analysis.
The document discusses the historical treatment of Thai Muslims by the Thai state prior to 2000, factors that triggered a Muslim insurgency in southern Thailand, and details of insurgencies that occurred in the Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat provinces. It analyzes social, economic, and political factors contributing to tensions, including policies that discouraged Malay identity, unequal treatment of Muslims, and lack of educational and employment opportunities. The document also outlines solutions attempted in Thailand to address the conflict, such as peace-building initiatives, royal speeches promoting understanding, and establishing a National Reconciliation Commission.
This document summarizes the historical treatment of Thai Muslims by the Thai state prior to 2000, factors that triggered the Muslim insurgency, and details of insurgencies that occurred in Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat provinces. It discusses social inequality faced by Thai Muslims, prejudices leading to their discrimination, and the social, economic, and political factors contributing to tensions. It then compares the situations in Thailand and Singapore, and describes solutions addressed in Thailand and obstacles faced, including peace-building efforts, royal speeches promoting understanding, and the establishment of a National Reconciliation Commission.
This document provides an overview of the comparative politics of Southeast Asia. It begins with a discussion of what constitutes Southeast Asia as a region from a physical, cultural and political perspective. It then reviews state formation in Southeast Asia, covering pre-colonial states, the impacts of colonialism, and independence movements. The document also analyzes the different political systems that emerged in post-colonial Southeast Asian countries, focusing on countries like the Philippines, Indonesia, East Timor, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Key political events and transitions are highlighted for each country, along with important scholarly sources on their politics.
As Of 2910 0255 Format Edited By Kaiteygredhtm2118
Thailand has a rich culture influenced by Buddhism. Some key aspects of Thai culture include:
- Buddhism is deeply ingrained in Thai society and influences aspects of daily life and festivals. Temples are central to communities.
- Festivals celebrate important events in the Buddhist calendar like Loy Krathong and Songkran, attracting tourists.
- Thai cuisine balances flavors of spicy, sour, sweet and salty. Dishes are meant for sharing family-style.
- The Thai monarchy and King Bhumibol Adulya are highly respected. His portrait is displayed publicly.
- Arts like dance, drama, and music incorporate religious and historical stories. Muay Thai boxing is
This document summarizes the development of Islamic reformism in Thailand. It discusses how Islam originally syncretized with local beliefs when it arrived in Southeast Asia. It then describes how Islamic reformist ideas originating in the Middle East in the 18th-19th centuries were introduced to Thailand in the early 20th century by an Indonesian political refugee named Ahmad Wahab. Wahab established the first Islamic reform group in Thailand and began propagating reformist ideology. One of his students, Direk Kulsiriswasd, became a central figure in the reform movement and worked to translate Islamic texts to spread awareness of true Islamic principles to Thai Muslims. The reform movement aimed to purify Islam of non-Islamic folk beliefs and
Political events that led to the creation of modern day Thailand, from pre-colonial times to the 2010s.
For our Southeast Asian Politics class (comparative politics).
Civilizations in East Asia developed unique philosophies that shaped their cultures and governments. In China, Confucianism became the dominant philosophy and encouraged social harmony and hierarchy. It supported the imperial government and merit-based civil service. Taoism focused on natural balance and complemented Confucianism. Japan was influenced by Buddhism, which introduced new technologies and culture. Shintoism was the native belief that nature contained gods. Both countries developed strict social stratification with samurai, farmers, artisans, and merchants having distinct roles and legal limitations.
Similar to Muslim Accommodation in Thai Society (20)
الردود والتعقبات على النووي في شرح صحيح مسلمOm Muktar
الردود والتعقبات على ما وقع للإمام النووي في «شرح صحيح مسلم» من التأويل في الصفات وغيرها من المسائل المهمات
تأليف الشيخ : مشهور بن حسن آل سلمان - حفظه الله
ط2 : دار الهجرة 1415
في 368 صفحة
بلوغ المنى في حكم الاستمنى - محمد بن علي الشوكاني ، قدم له وعلق عليه وخرج أحاديثه مشهور بن حسن آل سلمان ، دار الصميعي ، الرياض ، ط 1 ، 1414 هـ / 1994 م ، 103 صفحات
الدلائل الوفية في تحقيق عقيدة (النووي)؛ أسلفية أم خلفيةOm Muktar
الدلائل الوفية في تحقيق عقيدة الإمام النووي : أسلفية أم خلفية
المؤلف مشهور بن حسن آل سلمان
دار النشر الدار الأثرية
تاريخ النشر 2008مـ / 1429هـ
رقم الطبعة الأولى
Acts of Terrorism Done in the Name of Islam Do Not Equate to Acts Condoned by...Om Muktar
Acts of Terrorism in the Name of Islam Do Not Equate to Acts Condoned by Islam: Islam and the overwhelming majority of Muslims are free from the barbarous acts perpetrated in Paris by ISIS.
Jihad in Two Faces of Shari’ah: Sufism and Islamic Jurisprudence (FIQH) and t...Om Muktar
Title: Jihad in Two Faces of Shari’ah: Sufism and Islamic Jurisprudence (FIQH) and the Revival of Islamic Movements in the Malay World
Author: Hakim Darusman, Lukmanul
Affiliation: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
The Australian National University
Keywords: Jihad, Shari’a, Sufism, concept of methodology, Malays-Indonesian, Islam, Sheikh Yusuf al Maqassary, Sheikh Dawud al-Fatani.
Year accepted: 2008
Title พัฒนาการการเขียนประวัติศาสตร์อิสลามในสังคมไทย (ยุครัฐจารีต-พ.ศ.2511)
Title Alternative The development of writing on Islamic history in Thai society (The age of pre-nation state - 1968 C.E.)
Creator อามีน ลอนา
Creator in other language Amin Lona
Keyword ประวัติศาสตร์นิพนธ์อิสลาม
รัฐจารีต
ชนชั้นนำทางสังคมไทย
กลุ่มผู้นิพนธ์ประวัติศาสตร์อิสลาม
ศาสดามุฮัมหมัด
Islamic historiography
Pre-nation state
Thai elite
Authors of Islamic history
Prophet Muhammad
Publisher มหาวิทยาลัยธรรมศาสตร์
Contributors จุฬาพร เอื้อรักสกุล, อาจารย์ที่ปรึกษา
Date of issued 2014
Type Text
Format application/pdf
Format-extent (9), 253 แผ่น
Language thai
Rights Copyright of Thammasat University. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
Rights holder Thammasat University
Degree name ศิลปศาสตรมหาบัณฑิต (ประวัติศาสตร์)
Degree discipline ประวัติศาสตร์
ภาควิชาประวัติศาสตร์
Faculty/College คณะศิลปศาสตร์
Diseases of the Hearts & their Cures (Ibn Taymiyyah)Om Muktar
"Know O beloved reader that it is most important to spend one's time and energy in treating the heart, and hastening to correct and purify it from sickness and all sins. This is due to the heart occupying a great and lofty position in Islaam, for it is the place to which the Lord looks and the storehouse for tawheed, faith, and sincerity. Actions are distinguished, one from the other, with respect to their excellence in the Sight of Allah in accordance with the condition of the heart, not by their number or form, but rather due to the strength of the caller, his or her truthfulness, his or her sincerity and the extent to which he or she prefers Allah over himself or herself ... Al-Haafidh ibn Hajr al-Asqalaanee, may Allah have mercy upon him and provide us with his knowledge, said: "The heart has been singled out for this because it is the leader of the body, and through the purification of the leader the subjects become purified, and with his corruption they become corrupted. So if you, O servant of Allah, with to cure your heart then it is upon you to be truthful with regards to seeking refuge with Allah and putting your trust in Him, to pray a great deal of superogatory prayers, to perform the actions of obedience to Allah frequently, to pray the night prayer while the people are sleeping, and to treat your heart by making it continuously stick to the remembrances and by befriending only the righteous ... and to frequently recite the Qur'an. And Allah will indeed allow all of this to be preserved by him."
أمراض القلوب وشفاؤها ويليها التحفة العراقية في الأعمال القلبيةOm Muktar
عنوان الكتاب: أمراض القلوب وشفاؤها ويليها التحفة العراقية في الأعمال القلبية
المؤلف: أحمد بن عبد الحليم بن عبد السلام بن تيمية الحراني أبو العباس تقي الدين
الناشر: المطبعة السلفية ومكتبتها
سنة النشر: 1403
عدد المجلدات: 1
رقم الطبعة: 2
عدد الصفحات: 80
(مسألة السماع حكم ما يسمى : (أناشيد إسلاميةOm Muktar
عنوان الكتاب: مسألة السماع حكم ما يسمى أناشيد إسلامية
المؤلف: أحمد بن عبد الحليم بن عبد السلام بن تيمية الحراني أبو العباس تقي الدين
المحقق: أحمد بن صالح الزهراني
الناشر: مكبتة الرشد
سنة النشر: 1429
عدد المجلدات: 1
رقم الطبعة: 1
عدد الصفحات: 264
نبذة عن الكتاب: - فصل مستل من كتاب (الإستقامة)
(الرد على علي حسن الحلبي (رفع اللائمة عن فتوى اللجنة الدائمةOm Muktar
كتاب قيم وفيه رد على المرجئة الذين يقولون أنه لايضر مع التوحيد ذنب. وهو رد للشيخ محمد بن سالم الدوسري على المدعو - علي بن حسن الحلبي - في اعتراضاته على فتوى اللجنة الدائمة في موضوع الإرجاء. .. وفق الله الجميع للعلم النافع والعمل الصالح ..
عنوان الكتاب: رفع اللائمة عن فتوى اللجنة الدائمة
المؤلف: محمد بن سالم الدوسري
الناشر: دار عالم الفوائد
سنة النشر: 1422
عدد المجلدات: 1
رقم الطبعة: 2
عدد الصفحات: 155
عنوان الكتاب: عقيدة أهل السنة والجماعة للإمام الحافظ أبي عيسى الترمذي
المؤلف: طارق بن عوض الله بن محمد أبو معاذ
الناشر: دار الوطن
سنة النشر: 1421 - 2000
عدد المجلدات: 1
رقم الطبعة: 1
عدد الصفحات: 120
الأمر بالإتباع والنهي عن الإبتداع للإمام السيوطيOm Muktar
Al-Amr bil-Ittibaa' wan-nahyu 'anil-Ibtidaa' - as-Suyuti
الأمر بالاتباع والنهي عن الابتداع ، جلال الدين السيوطي ، تحقيق مشهور بن حسن آل سلمان ، دار ابن القيم للنشر والتوزيع ، الدمام ، ط 1 ، 1410 هـ / 1990 م .
Book of Imam Jalal ad-Din as-Suyootee whose title is: The order of Follow (the Sunnah) and the prohibition to innovate. He collected many words and evidence on this topic.
Checking texts, referencing and authentication by very good Muhaqqiq Mashhour Hasan Salman.
عنوان الكتاب: الإمام الأشعري حياته وأطواره العقدية
المؤلف: أبو عبد الإله صالح بن مقبل بن عبد الله العصيمي التميمي أبو عبد الإله
الناشر: دار الفضيلة - الرياض
عدد المجلدات: 1
عدد الصفحات: 412
نبذة عن الكتاب: - أصل هذا الكتاب رسالة دكتوراة
منهج إمام الحرمين في دراسة العقيدة : عرض ونقدOm Muktar
عنوان الكتاب: منهج إمام الحرمين في دراسة العقيدة : عرض ونقد
المؤلف: أحمد بن عبد اللطيف بن عبد الله آل عبد اللطيف
الناشر: مركز الملك فيصل للبحوث والدراسات الإسلامية - الرياض
سنة النشر: 1414 - 1993
عدد المجلدات: 1
نبذة عن الكتاب:
الطبعة الأولى
527 صفحة
عنوان الكتاب: الإمام الخطابي ومنهجه في العقيدة
المؤلف: الحسن بن عبد الرحمن العلوي
نبذة عن الكتاب: الحسن بن عبد الرحمن العلوي أبو عبد الرحمن - عدد المجلدات : 1 - عدد الصفحات : 597 - الحجم الإجمالي : 9 ميجا - أصل هذا الكتاب هو رسالة علمية من الجامعة الإسلامية
منهج الحافظ ابن حجر العسقلاني في العقيدة من خلال كتابه - فتح الباريOm Muktar
عنوان الكتاب: منهج ابن حجر العسقلاني في العقيدة من خلال كتاب فتح الباري
المؤلف: محمد إسحاق كندو
نبذة عن الكتاب: مكتبة الرشد - الرياض - 3 مجلداتن - 1590 صفحة - 16 ميجا
A workshop hosted by the South African Journal of Science aimed at postgraduate students and early career researchers with little or no experience in writing and publishing journal articles.
How to Make a Field Mandatory in Odoo 17Celine George
In Odoo, making a field required can be done through both Python code and XML views. When you set the required attribute to True in Python code, it makes the field required across all views where it's used. Conversely, when you set the required attribute in XML views, it makes the field required only in the context of that particular view.
LAND USE LAND COVER AND NDVI OF MIRZAPUR DISTRICT, UPRAHUL
This Dissertation explores the particular circumstances of Mirzapur, a region located in the
core of India. Mirzapur, with its varied terrains and abundant biodiversity, offers an optimal
environment for investigating the changes in vegetation cover dynamics. Our study utilizes
advanced technologies such as GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and Remote sensing to
analyze the transformations that have taken place over the course of a decade.
The complex relationship between human activities and the environment has been the focus
of extensive research and worry. As the global community grapples with swift urbanization,
population expansion, and economic progress, the effects on natural ecosystems are becoming
more evident. A crucial element of this impact is the alteration of vegetation cover, which plays a
significant role in maintaining the ecological equilibrium of our planet.Land serves as the foundation for all human activities and provides the necessary materials for
these activities. As the most crucial natural resource, its utilization by humans results in different
'Land uses,' which are determined by both human activities and the physical characteristics of the
land.
The utilization of land is impacted by human needs and environmental factors. In countries
like India, rapid population growth and the emphasis on extensive resource exploitation can lead
to significant land degradation, adversely affecting the region's land cover.
Therefore, human intervention has significantly influenced land use patterns over many
centuries, evolving its structure over time and space. In the present era, these changes have
accelerated due to factors such as agriculture and urbanization. Information regarding land use and
cover is essential for various planning and management tasks related to the Earth's surface,
providing crucial environmental data for scientific, resource management, policy purposes, and
diverse human activities.
Accurate understanding of land use and cover is imperative for the development planning
of any area. Consequently, a wide range of professionals, including earth system scientists, land
and water managers, and urban planners, are interested in obtaining data on land use and cover
changes, conversion trends, and other related patterns. The spatial dimensions of land use and
cover support policymakers and scientists in making well-informed decisions, as alterations in
these patterns indicate shifts in economic and social conditions. Monitoring such changes with the
help of Advanced technologies like Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems is
crucial for coordinated efforts across different administrative levels. Advanced technologies like
Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems
9
Changes in vegetation cover refer to variations in the distribution, composition, and overall
structure of plant communities across different temporal and spatial scales. These changes can
occur natural.
Strategies for Effective Upskilling is a presentation by Chinwendu Peace in a Your Skill Boost Masterclass organisation by the Excellence Foundation for South Sudan on 08th and 09th June 2024 from 1 PM to 3 PM on each day.
How to Add Chatter in the odoo 17 ERP ModuleCeline George
In Odoo, the chatter is like a chat tool that helps you work together on records. You can leave notes and track things, making it easier to talk with your team and partners. Inside chatter, all communication history, activity, and changes will be displayed.
it describes the bony anatomy including the femoral head , acetabulum, labrum . also discusses the capsule , ligaments . muscle that act on the hip joint and the range of motion are outlined. factors affecting hip joint stability and weight transmission through the joint are summarized.
How to Build a Module in Odoo 17 Using the Scaffold MethodCeline George
Odoo provides an option for creating a module by using a single line command. By using this command the user can make a whole structure of a module. It is very easy for a beginner to make a module. There is no need to make each file manually. This slide will show how to create a module using the scaffold method.
1. O Journal of Islamic Studies 9:2 (1998) pp. 229-258
MUSLIM ACCOMMODATION IN
THAI SOCIETY
RAYMOND SCUPIN
Lindenwood University, St Charles, MO
Theravada Buddhism, along with other early Brahmanic and animist
spiritual practices, is accepted by about 95 per cent of the approximately
62 million citizens of Thailand. Muslims comprise the largest religious
minority in Thailand, approximately 6 per cent of the population.
About 4 million Thai citizens profess the Islamic faith and maintain
over 2,700 mosques. The Muslims in Thailand comprise two broad
self-defined categories consisting of 'Malay Muslims', who speak the
Malay language and reside primarily in south Thailand in a number of
provinces bordering on Malaysia, and 'Thai Muslims' or Thai Isalam,
who reside in central and north Thailand. The Malay Muslims of south
Thailand make up over 70 per cent of the population in that region. In
contrast, the Thai Muslims of central and north Thailand reside as
smaller ethnic and religious minorities in those regions. Historically,
the Muslims of south Thailand resided in a cultural region imbued with
a Malay-Indonesian Islamic political and religious cultural ethos,
whereas the Muslims of central and north Thailand have been influenced
by the political-religious culture of Brahmanic, animist, and Theravada
Buddhist traditions. Recently, however, because of the administrative
practices and policies of the Thai state during the twentieth century,
all Muslims in Thailand have been greatly affected by the dominant
Buddhist-Brahmanic-animist political and religious culture. This essay
will focus on how Muslims in Thailand have accommodated to the
dominant political culture that has circumscribed the Islamic beliefs
and practices in this South-East Asian country.
THAI POLITICAL CULTURE
A number of recent scholars have emphasized how Thai nationalist
leaders and bureaucrats have constructed an image of Thailand as a
culturally homogeneous nation, whereas in actuality there are many
atGrandValleyStateUnivonOctober28,2011http://jis.oxfordjournals.org/Downloadedfrom
2. 230 RAYMOND SCUPIN
different ethnic and linguistic communities that have existed within the
country, including the Muslim minority.1
Despite this diversity, Thai
nationalist leaders and state officials promoted a collective identity
based on what has been referred to as the 'Three Pillars'. The Three
Pillars of this Thai collective identity were the Nation (chat), Religion
(sasana), and Monarchy (phramahaksat). This Thai political and cul-
tural code constituted an iconic representation of the structure of Thai
society that was formulated to mediate the actual ethnic ambiguities
and contradictions within the country. The first pillar, chat, derived
from the Hindi term jati, which translates roughly as 'caste', is used by
the Thai majority to refer to their common cultural or ethnic identity.
In Thai linguistic usage chat is often combined with Thai to refer to a
communal ethnic and historical identity as chat Thai. Historically, the
second pillar, sasana, religion, was synonymous with Theravada
Buddhism, although more recently the term has expanded to include
non-Buddhist traditions such as Christianity and Islam. This second
pillar, religion, also includes the sanctity of the Buddhist monastic
organization, or sangha, which is interwoven with Thai political author-
ity. The third pillar, phramahakasat, is an honorific term for 'king' or
'monarch' and embodies the vertical or hierarchical symbolic relation-
ship between the ruler and the people in Thai society. In early periods
of Thai history the monarch represented a paternalistic devaraja, or
dhammaraja, a sacred universal ruler connecting the social and cosmo-
logical realms. More recently, although the Thai kings gradually abdic-
ated their divine status, the monarchy has come to personify all that is
sacred and valued in Thai history and culture.2
The classical Thai state, referred to by the term 'galactic polity', had
1
On the attempts to construct an image of a homogeneous, united Thai nation by
state officials see T. Winichakul, Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation
(Honolulu, HI, 1994), W. F. Vella, Chaiyo! King Vajiravudh and the Development of
Thai Nationalism (Honolulu, HI, 1978), and S. Barmc, Luang Wichit Wathakan and the
Creation of a Thai Identity (Singapore, 1993). Essays that focus on the heterogeneous
character of Thai society are C. Prachuabmoh and C. Satha-Anand, 'Thailand: A Mosaic
of Ethnic Tensions under Control', Ethnic Studies Report (Sri Lanka), 3:1 (January
1985), and R. Scupin, 'Thailand as a Plural Society: Ethnic Interaction in a Buddhist
Kingdom', Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 2:3
(1986).
2
For early conceptions of the Thai monarchy see R. Heine-Geldern, 'Conceptions of
State and Kingship in Southeast Asia', in J. T. McAlister (ed.), Southeast Asia: The
Politics of National Integration (New York, 1973). For recent conceptions of the Thai
monarchy see B. R. O'G. Anderson, 'Studies of the Thai State: The State of Thai Studies'
in E. B. Ayal (ed.), The Study of Thailand (Athens, OH, 1978), and F. E. Reynolds,
'Sacred Kingship and National Development: The Case of Thailand' in B. L. Smith (ed.),
Religion and Legitimation of Power in Thailand, Laos, and Burma (Chambersburg,
PA, 1978).
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3. MUSLIM ACCOMMODATION IN THAI SOCIETY 231
similarities to other South-East Asian polities in that it was a hierarchic-
ally organized political structure, which was originally based in Ayudhya
in central Thailand, where the monarch lived and ruled over sur-
rounding regions arrayed in concentric circles, and the ruler's authority
was diminished in peripheral areas that were remote from the centre.
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries due to both internal and
external developments, including the expansion of capitalism and
absorption of Thailand into the world political economy, the Thai state
evolved from a 'galactic polity' to an expansive 'radial polity', now
based in Bangkok, which began to administer and directly control
various regions to the south, north, west, and east, outside the domain
of traditional royal authority.3
Gradually, traditional royal authority
gave way to a more rationalized administrative state based on a Western-
inspired bureaucratic apparatus that blended civilian and military
sources of authority. By the 1930s Thailand had established a semi-
democratic regime based on a constitutional monarchy. The present
Thai government, including the military, civilian, and royal factions,
has developed authority through various networks of powerful patrons
and circles of clients throughout the nation.4
Thai political culture, which draws on polysemic symbols of national-
ity, royalty, and religion, has had major consequences for ethnic and
religious minorities such as Muslims. Over time the Thai state developed
a complex ethnic management programme that combined assimilation
policies without openly denying pluralistic tendencies. Until the 1950s
the emphasis of the Thai government was to promote the assimilation
of its ethnic minorities. Aggressive assimilationist policies were adopted
by both military and civilian political leaders. Eventually, during the
1960s the government began to pursue an assimilation policy along with
some recognition of pluralism. This ongoing ethnic management pro-
gramme was based on the modernization and development policies
promulgated by the Thai political 61ite, which attempted to underplay
ethnic communal differences, while simultaneously maintaining the
ethnic dominance of Thai Buddhism, without having to do so explicitly.
These ethnic policies and practices were developed primarily in the
3
For an overview of the development of the Thai state and the formulation of the
terms 'galactic polity' and 'radial polity' see S. J. Tambiah, World Conqueror and World
Renouncer: A Study of Buddhism and Polity in Thailand against a Historical Background
(Cambridge, 1976). In this work Tambiah argues that the secular authorities within
the Thai polity have co-opted the Buddhist religious hierarchy to reinforce state
legitimacy.
4
For modern developments of the Thai state see D. Morell and C. Samudavanija,
Political Conflict in Thailand: Reform, Reaction, Revolution (Cambridge, MA, 1981),
and S. Xuto (ed.), Government and Politics of Thailand (Oxford, 1987).
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4. 232 RAYMOND SCUPIN
context of dealing with the Muslim minority, especially in the southern
region of Thailand.
SOUTH THAILAND: RELIGION AND POLITICS5
The majority of the Muslims in Thailand are based in south Thailand
as a result of the expansion of the Thai state into that region. The four
southern provinces of Patani, Narathiwat, Satul, and Yala bordering on
Malaysia have been gradually integrated into Thailand since at least
the sixteenth century. It is difficult to establish a definitive date for the
introduction of Islam into what is now south Thailand. Although some
scholars have posited that Islam came to Patani, the principal Muslim
centre of south Thailand, before it came to Malacca, no firm evidence
has been established to corroborate this conclusion. Most specialists
assume that local inhabitants were converted to Islam during the thir-
teenth or fourteenth century CE.6
As in many other areas of the
Malaysian-Indonesian region, the form of Islam was based on the Sunni-
Shafi'I tradition; however, this tradition coexisted with earlier Hindu-
Buddhist-animistic spiritual beliefs and practices. In addition, both Shi*a
and Sufi elements influenced local forms of the belief system in this
area. The majority of the Muslims in these southern provinces speak
5
A number of scholars have described the historical developments and problems of
the Muslims in south Thailand including W. K. Che Man, Muslim Separatism: The
Mows of Southern Philippines and the Malays of Southern Thailand (Oxford, 1990),
N. Haemindra, 'The Problems of the Thai Muslims in the Four Southern Provinces of
Thailand (Part One)', Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 7:2 (1976), 'The Problems of
the Thai Muslims in the Four Southern Provinces of Thailand (Part Two)', Journal of
Southeast Asian Studies, 8:1 (1977), A. D. W. Forbes (ed.), The Muslims of Thailand:
Politics of the Malay-Speaking South, vol. 2 (Bihar, 1989), A. Suhrke, 'Loyalists
and Separatists: The Muslims in Southern Thailand', Asian Survey, 17 (1977), L. Thomas,
Political Violence in the Muslim Provinces of Southern Thailand (Singapore, 1975),
L. Thomas, 'Political Integration of Muslims in Southernmost Thailand: Recent
Developments and Their Impacts', in B. Huang-Kay Luk (ed.), Contacts between Cultures
in Eastern Asia: History and Social Sciences, vol.4 (Lewiston, NY, 1992), C. Satha-
Anand, Islam and Violence: A Case Study of Violent Events in the Four Southern
Provinces, Thailand 1976-1981 (Tampa, FL, 1987), C. Satha-Anand, 'Pattani in the
1980s: Academic Literature and Political Stories', Sojourn: Social Issues in Southeast
Asia, 7:1 (1992). The most thorough historical account of the southern Muslim provinces
by a Thai Muslim is S. Pitsuwan, Islam and Malay Nationalism: A Case Study of the
Malay-Muslims of Southern Thailand (Bangkok, 1985).
6
See I. Syukri, Sejarah Kerajaan Melayu Patani {History of the Malay Kingdom of
Patani, translated by C. Bailey and J. Miksic, Athens, OH, 1985), for an indigenous
Malay account of Islamization in Patani in south Thailand. For a translation of an
indigenous Thai account of this area see D. Wyatt and A. Teeuw, Hikayat Patani (The
Hague, 1970).
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5. MUSLIM ACCOMMODATION IN THAI SOCIETY 233
Malay, and historically and culturally are linked to the Malaysian-
Indonesian island world. These Malay Muslims identify themselves as
ore nayu (the Malay people), and they refer to the Thai Buddhists as
ore siye (the Siamese people). The Thai Buddhists, or chat Thai, use
the ethnic category khaek Musalayam to refer to the Malay Muslims,
which was perceived as a pejorative term by the native Muslims in
the south.
Prior to the nineteenth century these southern Malay Islamic regions
were informal tributary states tied to Bangkok authorities. But after the
nineteenth century and the introduction of colonialism into this region
the Thai state began to compete with the designs of the British in
Malaysia, and initiated a policy of directed expansion and colonialism
into these Islamic regions. After 1902 the Thai state led an attempt to
restructure the traditional political order in the Malay Islamic regions.
Through the imposition of new tax policies and administrative reforms
the Thai polity divested the indigenous leadership of their traditional
authority in the south. As the British colonial economic and political
strategies developed in neighbouring Malaysia, Thai authorities adopted
policies which paralleled those of the British in these Malay regions,
namely, the building of roads, post offices, and other infrastructural
developments. However, whereas the British wanted to retain the Malay
elite authority base as a means of reinforcing the status quo and asserting
indirect colonial policies, Thai authorities were suspicious of the tradi-
tional Malay elite and sought to subvert their power base through the
appointment of conscientious Thai Buddhist bureaucrats throughout
these southern Malay regions.
The result of this Thai policy was that it created immediate resent-
ment in this southern area. The Malay elite felt a sense of deprivation
in comparison with their Islamic neighbours in British Malaya. The
Malay elite in the Patani region had close social and political ties with
the Malay nobles in Malaysia through marital alliances. Thus, the
Malay ruling elite in this entire region was united by fate and history
which fuelled their desire for autonomy. This solidarity, combined with
insensitive Thai policies, led to an increase in support for Malay resist-
ance and political distance between central Thai authorities and the
southern Malay rulers. In addition, Thai authorities began to interfere
directly with the religious practices of the Muslims in the south.
Bangkok authorities attempted to assume all legal matters under Thai
law. In effect, this meant that the Muslim legal code, structured by the
SharVa and adat (Malay custom) and administered by the local QadT
(Muslim judge), was to be controlled by Thai Buddhist officials. These
state policies induced conflict between the Malay elite and Thai authorit-
ies, but also with religious leaders, the 'ulama", who had vital support
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6. 234 RAYMOND SCUPIN
from the rural people and had served as a legitimating force for Malay
authority throughout the history of Patani, as the spiritual centre of the
Islamic world in the Malaysia-Indonesia area. These policies led to the
first large-scale rebellions in these southern regions in 1903 and 1922
initiating the use of Thai military force—which set the stage for the
consistent pattern of Malay Muslim irredentism plaguing central Thai
authorities until the present.
Following the outbreak of mass rebellions in 1903 and 1922, the Thai
government was forced to reconsider its policies in the southern prov-
inces by establishing new guidelines for the treatment of the Malays in
the south. Taxation policies were to be equal to the policies instituted
by the British in Malaysia. In addition, a modicum of pluralism was
introduced by giving official recognition to the Islamic religious tradi-
tion. Yet, as Thai compulsory education spread into these southern
provinces, mosques were encouraged to modify the Islamic curriculum
to include an emphasis on the three sacred pillars of the Thai state:
nation, religion, king. And the Thai government continued to appoint
Buddhists from central Thailand, who were unable to speak Malay, as
the bureaucratic officials in these southern provinces. These policies
resulted in negative attitudes and misconceptions between the Muslims
and Thai Buddhists.
In the period following the establishment of a democratic regime in
Thailand in the 1930s the government promoted education as the means
of instilling new democratic values throughout the region. This created
a dilemma for the Malay Muslims in the south, because the Thai
compulsory education system was based upon Buddhist values, intim-
ately associated with a curriculum developed by the Buddhist Sangha,
and the language of education was Thai. Therefore, to become involved
in the Thai political process necessitated a rejection of one's language
and religion, the primordial basis of ethnic identity for these Malay
Muslims. To resolve this dilemma, the 'ulatna', the local religious
leaders and the source of political legitimacy, played a prominent role
in mobilizing political support around Malay leaders in democratic
politics as a means of strengthening their autonomy. Islamic religious
and cultural symbols were highlighted in the election of the Malay
leadership in this southern region.
In the late 1930s, with the downfall of democratic politics and the
resurgence of the military faction in the Thai state led by the extreme
nationalist Prime Minister, Phibun Songkram, who emulated the state
policies of fascist Germany, Italy, and Japan, Malay Muslim aspirations
were devastated. Phibun adopted a concept of a racist nation based
upon the Thai race (Thai Rathaniyom) and a cultural policy based
upon 'Cultural Rules' (Kot Wattanatham). These policies attempted to
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7. MUSLIM ACCOMMODATION IN THAI SOCIETY 2.35
enforce central Thai 'race' and culture at the expense of other minority
groups in Thailand. This pan-Thai movement celebrated the three
pillars in order to unify the state. The Malay Muslims were not allowed
to wear their traditional clothing, remaining elements of the Sharfa
which applied to marriage and inheritance were banned, non-Buddhists
were deliberately discriminated against in government, and conscious
attempts at proselytization of the Buddhist faith in the south were to
be carried out within the government-sponsored educational system.
Thus, any attempts at reform or good will which had been carried out
in the south during previous Thai regimes were emasculated by the
aggressive assimilationist policies enforced by the Phibun regime.
After World War II the Thai state began once again to liberalize and
pluralize its policies towards its southern provinces by establishing
governmental machinery to manage the Malay leadership and draw the
'ulamd' into the official bureaucratic network. Through legislation
known as the Patronage Act of 1945 the 'ulamd', the mosque councils,
and the madrasas were centralized under the authority of the Shaykh
al-Islam or Chularajmontri and articulated into the Thai bureaucracy
through the Ministry of Interior.7
The Chularajmontri would advise
the monarchy and be considered the spiritual leader of the Muslims in
Thailand. The office was to be a counterpart of the Sangharaja (the
Supreme Patriarch) of the Buddhist religious hierarchy. The Patronage
Act also directed the government to develop Islamic educational institu-
tions for Muslim children with an appropriate Islamic curriculum. In
conjunction with this an Islamic college was to be established in
Thailand with king's scholarships for pilgrimages to Makka. The
'ulamd' were to be integrated into the state bureaucracy through Islamic
Provincial Committees set up by the Minister of Interior. One surrepti-
tious clause of the Act allowed the Minister of Interior to appoint and
dismiss 'ulamd' in order to ensure loyalty and to subvert irredentism.
Unfortunately, because of deep suspicions of Malay Muslims towards
Thai authorities, the Patronage Act became a divisive issue in southern
Thailand, splitting Malay Muslims between 'loyalists' and 'separatists'.
The next phase of Thai government policies in the southern area
7
The Chularajmontri is an institution that has an extensive history in Thailand. It
evolved out of an early appointed administrative position which was given to a Persian
Shi"a Islamic leader during the Ayudhyan period (1350-1767 CE). However, the position
did not get official recognition by the government until the 1945 Patronage Act. To some
extent, the Chularajmontri position was parallel to the Shaykh al-Islam or mufti office
established in various Islamic countries. The office of the Chularajmontri evolved to be
able to issue fatawd (religious rulings), regulate the administration of the mosques,
distribute subsidies for the mosques, support Islamic publications, organize the Islamic
festivals, co-ordinate the hajj, oversee the certification of halal in the manufacturing and
production of foods and other consumer goods for Muslims, and other religious activities.
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8. 236 RAYMOND SCUPIN
began with a succession of military governments from 1957 until recent
times. During this phase a new ideology of nation-building referred to
as patanakarn or 'development' was promoted by Thai authorities for
the southern Malay area. National integration and assimilation were
to be approached through socio-economic development programmes.
Yet, as previously, these national integrationist policies were based upon
an assimilation-cum-pluralist model, including the imposition of deeply
entrenched Buddhist cultural ideals in the southern Malay areas. The
Thai policy was directed at promoting socio-economic development as
a means of reducing social conflict and rebellion in the south and
reinforcing political (and Buddhist) legitimacy. As expected, many
Muslim leaders viewed this new ideology as another means of inducing
internal colonialism. Specifically the Thai government tried to promul-
gate this new ideology of development through the educational institu-
tions in the south, the traditional pondoks or religious schools
(madrasas). What the Thai state did not recognize was the reality of
the pondok as the pre-eminent symbol of Malay Muslim ideals and
cultural resistance to Buddhist authorities in the north. The pondok
tended to reinforce ethnic and religious differences through symbols
and rituals which affected individuals throughout their entire lives. In
the process these inculturation rituals created problems for Thai
Buddhist legitimacy in the south. As the Thai authorities viewed the
pondok, correctly, as the key institution in transmitting Malay religious
and political ideology in the south, their aim was to transform this
institution into a quasi-secular instrument to cultivate 'Thai' values.
The Ministry of Education initiated a plan to regulate and secularize
the pondoks and introduce Thai language instruction. The curriculum
was restructured and by the end of 1970 there were 463 pondoks in the
south that were formally incorporated into the Thai government
programme.
Though, on the face of it, this Thai administrative and educational
programme appeared somewhat successful, in actuality the 'ulamd'
were not submitting to Thai authority in this matter, but were rather
practising, again, a policy of restrained participation. Since the 'ulamd'
could not legally operate their own private pondoks, they opted to
co-operate in the hopes of avoiding too much government (Buddhist)
interference in their religious affairs. Yet, as in previous Thai regimes,
secularization was equivalent to the adoption of 'Thai culture' which
included Buddhism. One result of these secularizing-Buddhist policies
interwoven with the Thai political culture was the decision of some
Malay Muslims to send their children abroad to Islamic countries.
Another result was the development of more overt irredentist activities
among the Malay Muslims in these southern provinces.
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9. MUSLIM ACCOMMODATION IN THAI SOCIETY 237
A number of Islamic-based factions emerged during the 1960s and
1970s in south Thailand reflecting a diversity of political views and
became engaged in irredentist activities. One early separatist group,
the National Liberation Front of Patani, the LFRP, desired the
re-establishment of Patani to its former glory with a raja or sultan at
its head. Its final objective appeared to be autonomy within the federa-
tion of Malaysia. Thus, it remained connected to traditional Malayan
political groups. The LFRP wanted to establish a republic with a
socialist-revolutionary political framework. It had contacts with com-
munist movements based in Thailand and Malaysia, and had been
involved in bombing and kidnapping throughout the region. The alli-
ance with the communist movements had been counterproductive in
drawing support from either ASEAN nations, such as Malaysia, or
Middle Eastern Islamic countries.
One of the most influential irredentist organizations in south
Thailand, PULO, the Patani United Liberation Organization, was
formed in the late 1960s by Tenku Bira Kotanila and was the best-
known and most effective guerrilla organization and separatist move-
ment in the Patani region. PULO was devoted to preserving 'Malayness'
and the Islamic way of life in south Thailand.8
It had several levels of
organization with its headquarters in Makka. PULO also maintained a
regional headquarters in Kelantan where it co-ordinated its guerrilla
operations. In Thailand itself the military organization of PULO had
been well armed and had received financial support in the past from
Libya and Syria. The political effectiveness of PULO was related to its
extensive international network of supporters. The leadership of PULO
was composed of the young Islamic-educated Muslims with degrees
from universities in the Middle East and South Asia. This education
abroad tended to reinforce traditional Malay Muslim identity and global
Islamic issues. This leadership organized the largest mass demonstration
in Patani in 1975, which resulted in a bombing and Malay Muslim
deaths.9
These militant activities created deeper divisions between the
Malay Muslims and Thai Buddhists associated with central Thai author-
ities. The overall goal of PULO was to create an autonomous Islamic
state. PULO, however, also had internal factions with more modest
aims to improve its political situation vis-a-vis Bangkok.
Although there have been sporadic skirmishes in the recent past, since
1
For a brief overview of PULO see L. Thomas, 'Patani United Liberation
Organization' in J. Esposito (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic
World, vol. 3 (Oxford, 1995).
' A. Suthasasna in Panha Kwam Kad Yaeng Nai Si Changwat Pak Tai (Conflicts in
the four Southern Provinces) (Bangkok, 1976) summarizes the historical and political
events leading to the bombings of 1975.
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10. 238 RAYMOND SCUPIN
the 1990s the Malay Muslim communities of Patani have largely turned
away from the extremist separatist movements such as PULO and
LFRP. Increasingly, they have changed their political strategies, actively
mobilizing their communities and seeking a voice in the Thai political
system. A number of Muslim leaders from the south have organized a
political group known as the Wahda (Unity) Group, and have been
instrumental in influencing government policy stemming from Bangkok.
Wahda has been peacefully agitating Thai government officials to
appoint more Muslims as cabinet ministers. Recognizing that the south-
ern provinces face difficult economic and social problems, and main-
taining their apprehension towards Bangkok authorities who continue
to support cultural assimilation policies, these Malay Muslim leaders
promote their ethnic and religious identity, while pressing for more
pluralism and fair treatment from Bangkok.10
CENTRAL AND NORTHERN THAI MUSLIMS
Because of historical and cultural conditions the experience of Muslims
in central and northern Thailand has been very different from that of
their Islamic affiliates to the south. Historically, these Muslims of the
central and northern corridors of Thailand have migrated, either volun-
tarily or by force, into these regions bringing distinctive ethnic, social,
and religious conventions. Thus, these Muslim communities are much
more heterogeneous than the Muslims of the south. And, unlike their
Islamic brethren to the south, these Muslims are ethnic and religious
minorities residing in the centres of a predominantly Thai Buddhist
cultural environment.11
By far the largest group of Muslims in central Thailand, especially
in the capital city of Bangkok, are descendants of peoples from the
southern provinces of Thailand and parts of Malaysia. Their presence
in Bangkok and surrounding areas resulted from the forced relocation
10
One other ethnic minority group in south Thailand are known as the Sam-Sams,
who are Thai-speaking Muslims who reside in some of the southern provinces and also
further south in Malaysia. Apparently, these Sam-Sams were migrants from Thailand,
who were converted by Muslim merchants from Arabia as early as the tenth or eleventh
century. See K. Suwannathat-Pian, 'The Sam-Sams: A Study of the Historical and Ethnic
Assimilation in Malaysia', Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 9:1 (1994).
11
For insights into the social and economic features of Bangkok Muslim communities
see O. Farouk Bajunid, 'The Other Side of Bangkok: A Survey of Muslim Presence in
Buddhist Thailand's Capital City' in Y. Tsubouchi (ed.), The Formation of Urban
Civilization in Southeast Asia (Supplement) (Kyoto, 1992), and C. Satha-Anand, 'Bangkok
Muslims and the Tourist Trade' in M. Ariff (ed.), The Muslim Private Sector in Southeast
Asia (Singapore, 1991).
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11. MUSLIM ACCOMMODATION IN THAI SOCIETY 2.39
policies of the Thai state as an attempt to integrate the southern Malay
Muslim provinces such as Patani as described above. Part of the state
integrationist policies was to weaken the antagonistic southern Malay
areas by transferring hostage populations from the Malay areas to
central Thailand. Though historical records lack details, the transfer of
this southern Muslim population northwards apparently began in the
thirteenth century when manpower and resources were needed by the
Thais in their warfare with Cambodia. How extensively this policy was
carried out between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries can only
be estimated. It is well known, however, that during the seventeenth
century many inhabitants from the south were transferred to northern
domains. In one historical account of Patani, after the Thai troops
attacked in the seventeenth century, they took back one child from
every family as a hostage. Following the emergence of Bangkok's Chakri
dynasty (1782), and Rama I's subsequent invasion of Patani, families of
Patani who had fought against Thai troops were transported to
Bangkok.12
Later, Rama HI followed the same policy as his predecessors
and abducted a number of hostage populations from the Malay states
and had them brought to the Bangkok area. In 1828 it was estimated
that Bangkok had 3,000 Malay residents, but shortly thereafter this
population tripled, for after the successful suppression of a Patani
rebellion in 1832 many Muslim families were taken to Bangkok and
northern locales. Conservatively, 4,000 to 5,000 captives were rounded
up and taken en masse to Bangkok. The majority of these Muslims
were resettled in the suburban districts running from south to north in
the extreme eastern portion of metropolitan Bangkok. Many of their
descendants still reside in these areas.
These Muslim war captives were organized to provide labour on
major projects for the Thai state. One important project they particip-
ated in was the digging and construction of canals under the patronage
of the Chakri dynasty. Klong (canal) Saen Saeb, which runs from the
centre of Bangkok eastwards, was constructed by corvee labour, most
of which was drafted from the Malay Muslims and their descendants,
residing in the surrounding Muslim communities. Anyone travelling on
this canal will find it punctuated by mosques which have been erected
on both the east and west sides. Of the more than 150 mosques in
Bangkok, over 70 per cent were built by Malay Muslims and their
descendants. Although precise statistics are not available to calculate
the exact number of these descendants, considering demographic factors
12
For historical accounts of the relocation of Malay Muslims from the Patani region
see J. H. Moor, Notices of the Indian Archipelago and Adjacent Countries (London,
1837/1968), W. F. Vella, Siam under Kama III, 1824-1851 (New York, 1957), and
K. Wenk, The Restoration of Thailand under Kama I, 1782-1809 (Tucson, AZ, 1968).
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12. 24O RAYMOND SCUPIN
such as fertility, mortality, migration, and intermarriage, this population
numbers about 250,000.u
Several communities of Muslims in central Thailand, including Cham,
Indonesians, and Iranians, have a long-term history that extends back
into the Ayudhyan period (1351—1767 CE). One of these ethnic groups,
the Cham, settled in Ayudhya in central Thailand, where the Thai
capital was situated. These Cham were from the area of Cambodia,
where they had been living as refugees following the Vietnamese con-
quest over the remnants of the Champa kingdom from the fifteenth to
the eighteenth century. Most of these refugees had settled at Kampong
Thom and Kampong Cham near the Mekong River, about 120 kilo-
metres from present-day Phnom Penh.14
The historical details regarding the Cham presence in Ayudhya are
based on some sketchy royal chronicles. The evidence suggests that the
Cham were attached to the early Thai state under King Narai (1656—88)
in a military capacity, perhaps as mercenaries, but eventually as an
adjunct to the early Royal Naval and Marine force of Ayudhya.
Organized within the Thai military, the Cham defended the capital
against the Burmese, who eventually destroyed the Ayudhyan kingdom
in 1767, precipitating the migration of the Thai state and royalty to
Bangkok, along with many of the Cham. Other Cham settled in
Bangkok after 1782 as a result of both internal and external political
activities of Thailand and Cambodia. The evidence suggests that most
of them came as war captives resulting from Thai-Cambodian conflicts
during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, or as political
refugees following civil disturbances within Cambodia.
As in the earlier capital of Ayudhya, groups of families were resettled
in Bangkok by the Thai state in their own ethnic neighbourhoods,
sometimes referred to as yarn, outside the royal grounds. As a result
of their loyalty in serving the Thai military the royal family gave the
Cham a tract of land in Bangkok known as Ban Krua ('kitchen village')
or Asamak Cham. In Ban Krua most of the Cham were engaged in
agriculture, but some were fishermen and expert boat builders. Rice
paddies and fruit orchards made up Ban Krua, which was an agricultural
u
One demographic study of Thailand that focuses on population trends among the
Muslims and other ethnic groups is S. Prasithrathsint, Ethnicity and Fertility in Thailand
(Singapore, 1985).
14
See A. Cabaton and G. Meillon, 'Indochina (Islam in)', The Encyclopaedia of Islam,
2nd edn., vol.3 (Leiden, 1971), G. Maspero, The Kingdom of Champa (translation of
Ch. 1 of Le Royaume de Champa (New Haven, CT, 1951), and E. Aymonier, Les
Tchames et leurs religions (Paris, 1891), for historical descriptions of the Cham Muslims
of Cambodia and Vietnam. For a recent account of what has happened to the Cham
Muslims of Cambodia see B. Kieman, 'Orphans of Genocide: The Cham Muslims of
Kampuchea under Pol Pot', Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 20:4 (1988).
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13. MUSLIM ACCOMMODATION IN THAI SOCIETY 241
settlement, one of many, on the margins of Bangkok's political-
administrative centre. In addition, the skills of boat building and naval
activities enabled the Cham to utilize the commercial aspects of trans-
portation and marketing on the klongs of Ban Krua. Gradually, as the
process of industrialization and urbanization became more intensive
during the later twentieth century, Ban Krua became another densely
populated sector with many older wooden homes typical of many of
the other inner-city areas of Bangkok.
The Cham were eventually drawn into the economic roles which
developed as a consequence of the transition to an increasingly
diversified and capitalist urban economy. One important economic
development which had a definitive impact on the Cham Muslims of
Ban Krua occurred in the 1950s. The introduction of silk-weaving
techniques for mass production brought about economic changes for
the Muslims of Ban Krua. The Cham, like most agricultural peoples of
South-East Asia, maintained their own household hand looms to weave
textiles for their own uses. The Cham women of Ban Krua maintained
this tradition by weaving aesthetically pleasing symbolic designs into
their traditional textiles, which were used for funerals, weddings, or
other everyday purposes. After World War II an American, Jim
Thompson, surveyed the market and mobilized capital to bring about
mass production of Thai silk for export. Thompson established the
centre of this silk-weaving industry at Ban Krua in the midst of the
Cham settlement.
Like the other Muslim communities of Bangkok, the Cham built their
own mosques, beside the klongs in the Ban Krua area. For example,
the Masjid Salamiyya, one of the community's most important mosques,
has a madrasa for the community, as well as a beautiful lamp presented
to the community over a century ago by Rama V (1868-1910), the
famed King Chulalongkorn. Outside the mosque near the main door
hangs a drum, and the Cham—unique among Muslims—bang the drum
as the signal to call people to prayer with drum-beats. Near the mosques
of Ban Krua are well-tended community cemeteries.15
A recent development has had a dramatic influence on the Cham
community in Bangkok. In March 1988 the Cham community found
u
For an overview of the Cham Muslim communities of Bangkok see
S. Phonsiripongse, P. Usuparat, and D. Kumnoonwat, 'Caracteristiques demographiques
et relations dans la communaute de Ban Khrua Nua', J. Baffie, 'Ban Krua, village de
Bangkok? Question de l'origjne et probleme d'identite de la population Cham',
P. Kalamkaset, 'Recherche sur la communaute de King Phet: la composante religieuse
de la communaute de Ban Khrua Nua', and J. Baffie and C. Ratanasamaharn, 'Families,
pouvoir, espace a Ban Khrua Nua', in S. Ratanakul (ed.), Actes du seminaire franco-
thailandais d'anthropologie culturelle (Bangkok, 1995), and J. Lowira and J. J. Baffie,
'Ban Khrua: A Rich Past but an Empty Future', Sinlapa Wattanatam, 13:10 (1992).
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14. 242. RAYMOND SCUPIN
that the Thai government under the authority of the' Expressway and
Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand (ETA) had developed a plan for
a new expressway that would cut through their community. Part of the
Cham community would be destroyed, some 200—500 families would
be relocated, and cemeteries and mosques would be demolished. Also,
if a section of the expressway was going to be built through Ban Krua
next to the klongs, noise and smoke from passenger boats would
intensify. It was recognized that this would be an unhealthy and unpleas-
ant environment for the Cham Muslim community. The Cham com-
munity mobilized through various Islamic organizations to protest at
these developments proposed by the ETA.
The Thai media, including newspapers, television, and radio, began
to report on these developments in the Cham community. Although
many Thai citizens realized that the need to redevelop their expressway
system to alleviate Bangkok's traffic congestion was one of the top
priorities of the ETA and the Thai government, many people began to
sympathize with the plight of the Ban Krua community. In some senses
the Cham Muslim community represented a model of a moral commun-
ity standing together against the forces of modernization, corporate
capitalism, vested interests, and corrupt government-inspired develop-
ment. Many Thai academics and community activists throughout the
nation became involved in various ways with the Cham struggle. In
addition, most of the various Islamic organizations and Muslims in
Thailand from different communities rallied around the Cham cause.
To some extent these developments solidified the Muslim communities
throughout Thailand and became a condensed symbol of the Muslim
minority's struggle against Thai authorities and their sponsorship of
development at any cost. This struggle of the Ban Krua community
continued for eight years against five different governments. Through
primarily peaceful demonstrations and activity throughout the Islamic
organizations, coupled with support from Thai academics and other
sympathetic organizations, the Cham were able to retain their valuable
land and community resources.
As in other parts of South-East Asia, trade was an important factor
determining the migration of some Muslims to central Thailand. One
contingent group of Indonesian Muslims came and established them-
selves in the Ayudhyan capital to become successful traders. Although
no precise population data are available, the French visitor La Loubere
described Indonesian Muslims residing in their own neighbourhood
of Ayudhya in the seventeenth century.16
Later a small percentage of
16
See S. La Loubere, The Kingdom of Siam (Oxford, 1969), for descriptions of the
various ethnic communities of Ayudhya.
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15. MUSLIM ACCOMMODATION IN THAI SOCIETY 243
Indonesian Muslims migrated to Bangkok during the nineteenth
century. There was no mass migration of Indonesians to
Thailand in any particular era; generally they tended to come as
individual traders and established small businesses related to the
Thai-Indonesian trade in cloth, batik products, or molasses. Another
channel for immigrant Indonesians coming to Bangkok was opened up
with the visit of Rama V (Chulalongkorn) to Java and other parts of
Indonesia in the 1870s. Impressed with their agricultural and gardening
techniques, he invited some Javanese gardeners to Thailand to manage
the royal gardens and teach nursery and gardening methods under his
patronage.
Gradually a settlement of Indonesians, most of them Javanese, clus-
tered in an inner-city area of Bangkok, that was referred to as the
Makassan area. A number of SunnT-Shafi'T-based mosques were erected
in the Makassan and Yanawa areas of the city. One important mosque,
Al-Atiq, serves as a central meeting-place for the Muslims of the Yanawa
district. Public lectures on Islamic themes are given in this mosque
following Ramadan and other important religious events.
One of the most influential trading communities in seventeenth-
century Ayudhya was composed of Iranian or Persian Muslims. The
first Persian Muslims mentioned in the Ayudhyan chronicles were two
brothers, Shaykh Ahmad and Muhammad Sa'Id, who came during the
reign of King Naresuan (1590-1605). In this area there are the remains
of what is called the Kudithong or 'Golden Mosque' which is identified
with the personage of Shaykh Ahmad.17
Many of the Iranians were
descendants of the aristocratic or upper classes of Iranian society. The
community included not only merchants but also a fair number of other
educated people, such as architects, artisans, scholars, and poets. Thus,
in effect, the Iranian migrants comprised a fully developed ethnic
'community' in this early Ayudhyan kingdom.
In Ayudhya the Iranians had their own quarter of the city, or baan,
headed by a political leader, or Nai, appointed by the king to manage
the affairs of the community. Shaykh Ahmad was appointed as the
Praklang, the minister in charge of all foreign residents. This gave the
Iranian community a great deal of political leverage in dealings with
17
For historical details regarding this early Persian community in Ayudhya see
K. Pramoj, Khwaampentnaa Khong Isalaam nat PrathedThai (A History of Islam in
Thailand) (Bangkok, 1971), D. Kulsiriswasd (Ibrahim Qureyshi), Khwaamsamphan
Khong Muslim thaang prawadtisaad W wanna khadii thaj (The Historical and Literary
Relations of Muslims in Siam) (Bangkok, 1972), and O. Farouk Shaeik Ahmad, 'Muslims
in the Kingdom of Ayutthaya' in JEBAT, Journal of the History Deparment, Universiri
Kebangsaan, Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur, 1980/1). In addition, a full narration of a voyage
to Thailand by M. Ibrahim, The Ship of Sulaiman (translated by J. O'Kane, London,
1972), gives a comprehensive account of the early Persian community in Ayudhya.
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16. 244 RAYMOND SCUPIN
the royal authorities. The Muslim community was governed by its own
religious judges in accordance with customary Sharfa practice. As the
Iranians were SliTa, important ShTa rituals such as the Muharram to
honour 'All, the son-in-law of the Prophet, and his descendants were
instituted in Ayudhya. Apparently, the Thai royalty was tolerant and
even supportive of the Muslim religious rites in this era. For example,
several mosques were established at royal expense and the Thai kings
contributed lavishly towards the Muharram and other Muslim rites.
A number of the families related to the Iranian Muslims from
Ayudhya have settled near Klong Bangkok-Noi and Klong Bangkok-
Yai in Dhonburi, just across the Chao Phraya River from Bangkok.
Though historically Dhonburi was a separate city and a previous site
of the Thai capital, in 1971 it was eventually incorporated into the
Bangkok metropolitan area. Some of these Iranian Muslim families had
moved to the Dhonburi area when it was a frontier capital from 1767
to 1782, following the sack of Ayudhya by the Burmese. The descendants
of these Iranian Muslims who settled among other Muslims and
Buddhists represent the oldest ethnic group of the Islamic community
in Bangkok. They continued to play an important role in early Thai
politics and intermarried among the royal and noble families. Some of
the leading aristocratic families of Bangkok, including the Bunnags and
Pramojs, are descendants of these Iranian Muslims.
Because of the settlement of these early Iranian Muslims along the
riverbanks in Dhonburi, it remains as the centre of ShI'a activities in
Thailand. The oldest ShI'a mosque in Dhonburi is referred to as Kudi
Chao-Sen, the name derived from Hussein, the son of 'All and Fatima,
and it provides the community with the major annual rituals such as
the celebration of Muharram. There is a SliTa religious school, now
known as Imam Khomeini School, and a large old cemetery maintained
by the community.
Muslim merchants from South Asia also migrated to central Thailand
during the Ayudhyan and Bangkok periods.18
Muslims from India,
present-day Pakistan, and Bangladesh have settled in the Bangkok area.
These Muslim migrants came from various linguistic and geographical
areas of the subcontinent. Punjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati, and Bengali
speakers came from north India, as well as Pathans or Pushto speakers
from Peshawar. From south India came Tamils, Madrasis, and others
from the Malabar Coast. Many of the South Asian migrants came as a
result of the Bowring Treaty of 1855, which opened up trade between
1B
See T. N. Dubey, India and Thailand: A Brief History (New Delhi, 1990), and
A. Mani, 'Indians in Thailand', in K. S. Sandhu and A. Mani (eds.), Indian Communities
in Southeast Asia (Singapore, 1993), for specific descriptions of the Indian migrants and
settlements in Thailand.
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17. MUSLIM ACCOMMODATION IN THAI SOCIETY 245
the British and Thailand and also granted extraterritorial privileges to
British subjects. Under Article IV of the Anglo-Siamese treaty, the
Indians, as British subjects, were permitted to trade freely in Thailand.
As Thailand moved towards a globally based market economy, South
Asian merchants and migrants settled into specialized occupations for
which indigenous Thais were not trained. For example, some Indian
Muslims were hired as postal agents, that is, to read, sort, and deliver
incoming foreign mail. They could read Hindi, or Urdu, or sometimes
English, enabling them to fulfil this function. Opportunities for dealing
in textiles, sundries, and other newly introduced luxury goods from
Western sources were grasped by these Indian Muslims.
South Asian Muslims began to prosper in the import-export busi-
nesses in central Thailand. For example, A. E. Nana, a Bengali Muslim
with British citizenship, was a major property developer in Bangkok.
Nana moved from trade in rice and sugar, and was linked to the Thai
aristocracy. He acquired extensive land holdings throughout central
Thailand. One of the oldest communities of Indian Muslims in Thailand
is the Dawoodi Bohra Muslims. They established the A. T. E. Maskate
company in 1856. The Dawoodi Bohra Muslims came from Ahmedabad
in the Surat and developed an extensive business importing Indian
textiles and other British goods and exporting local Thai goods. Tamil
Muslims from Pondicherry and Karikal, under the patronage of the
M. T. S. Marican family, were also early businessmen in Thailand,
opening precious-stone and textile stores. These Tamil Muslims have
become dominant in the precious-gem trade in Bangkok. The Dawoodi
Bohra and Tamil Muslims often intermarried within each other's group.
The vast majority of the Muslims who migrated from the South
Asian regions to Thailand were Sunnl. There is, however, a small
number of Shi*a from South Asia. The Sunn! and Shfa South Asians
have established their own distinctive mosques in Bangkok, most of
which were developed in the older inner-city area. In 1975 the 200 or
so Tamil Muslims imported a Tamil-speaking imam from south India
to deliver the khutba in Tamil. The original Dawoodi Bohra Muslim
mosque is still controlled by the amir in India.
South Asian Muslims were responsible for the founding of an import-
ant Islamic organization in Bangkok, the Jam' I-yatul-Islam. This was
modelled along the lines of the Jama'at-i Islam! of the subcontinent,
which played an important role in Indian and Pakistani religious and
political life. Originally the organization was established by the South
Asian Muslim community, but after the 1950s it opened its ranks to all
Muslims in Thailand. Another religious-based development among the
South Asian community was the establishment of some tablTgh Islamic
activities associated with the tablTgh movement founded by Indian
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18. 246 RAYMOND SCUPIN
Muslims in the 1920s. From time to time, various tablTgh leaders
founded small groups within the Muslim communities of Bangkok, and
later throughout Thailand, to attempt to strengthen moral and spiritual
qualities associated with Islam. The tablTgh movement in Thailand has
deliberately maintained its distance from any political activity.
Since the late 1970s and 1980s many Muslims have migrated to
Bangkok from the Middle East. Initially some came as tourists, but
eventually decided to remain for business, trade, or religious purposes.
As bilateral trade between Thailand and the Middle East increased,
especially during the 1980s, a number of Muslims from Lebanon, Yemen,
Egypt, and other Arab areas arrived in Bangkok. Middle Eastern restaur-
ants and hotels opened to provide for Muslim Arab visitors and resid-
ents. One area of Bangkok has become known as the Arab quarter and
is sometimes referred to as the mini-Beirut of the East. Arabic calli-
graphy, Arabian music, coffee-houses, belly-dancing, etc. became recog-
nizable in this evolving cosmopolitan city.
Muslim communities were also established in north Thailand. Many
of the Muslims there came from the Islamicized portion of China. Most
authorities refer to them as Chinese Haw, Cin-Ho, or Hui.19
Most of
the Chinese Muslims in Thailand originate from the south-western part
of Yunnan. Historically, this ethnic group operated an expansive trading
network between the Shan states, China, and north Thailand. For
example, they carried Chinese silk and metal products into north
Thailand and returned to China with cotton. Although some of these
Chinese Muslims gradually settled in the northern provinces of
Chiangmai, Chiangrai, Mae Hong Sorn, and Lamphun, it appears that
they were a transient population until the nineteenth century. After the
nineteenth century the Chinese Muslims began to establish themselves
as permanent residents in north Thailand. Then in the 1950s, as a
consequence of the Chinese revolution, another wave of Yunnanese
refugees fled into northern Thailand, many settling in Chiangmai prov-
ince. These recent Yunnanese migrants or refugees had first fled to
Burma. However, in 1954 the Burmese government directed a campaign
to drive them out. These recent migrants have their own SunnT mosque
" Sec M. Moerman, 'Chiangkham's Trade in the "Old Days"', in G. W. Skinner and
A. T. Kirsch (eds.), Change and Persistence in Thai Society: Essays in Honor of Launston
Sharp (Ithaca, NY, 1975), and F. W. Mote, 'The Rural "Haw" (Yunnanese Chinese) of
Northern Thailand' in P. Kunstadter (ed.), Southeast Asian Tribes, Minorities and
Nations (Princeton, NJ, 1967), and A. W. D. Forbes, 'The "Cin-Ho" (Yunnanese
Chinese) Muslims of North Thailand', Journal of the Institute of Muslim Minority
Affairs, 7:2 (1986), for historical details regarding the trade of Chinese Muslims through-
out northern Thailand. For a full ethnographic account of Muslims in north Thailand
see S. Soonthornpasuch, 'Islamic Identity in Chiengmai City' (unpublished PhD thesis,
University of California, Berkeley, 1977).
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19. MUSLIM ACCOMMODATION IN THAI SOCIETY 2.47
and a modern religious school, both built in the early 1970s. Although
Yunnanese Muslims are involved in a wide variety of occupations in
Chiangmai, traditionally they were primarily engaged in wholesale or
retailing activities.
Another group of Muslims that settled in north Thailand is the
descendants of South Asian Muslims who came from Calcutta during
the second half of the nineteenth century. Later, after 1947, with Indian
independence and partition, there was a continuous flow of migrants
from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) who first settled in Burma, but
gradually moved into northern Thailand and Chiangmai city. These
Chiangmai quarters also received a small Pathan Muslim populace who
migrated either directly from their homes in Pakistan or via Burma.
The majority of the present population of these two quarters are third-
and fourth-generation descendants of the nineteenth-century settlers.
Originally, these Muslims from the subcontinent were involved primar-
ily in cattle breeding, butchering, dairying, or other retail or trading
activities. In Changklam quarter a Sunn! mosque, established in 1880
by the South Asians, is the oldest mosque in north Thailand. In addition
to the Chinese and South Asian Muslims and their descendants, a small
community of Malay Muslim refugees from south Thailand was relo-
cated by the Thai government into north Thailand during the nineteenth
century. These Malay Muslim refugees were known by their descendants
as the chao nai (the leading elite) because of their superior knowledge
of Arabic and Islamic texts.
ASSIMILATION OF MUSLIMS IN CENTRAL AND
NORTHERN THAILAND
Based on conservative estimates, the Bangkok Muslim population is
probably near 280,000 or 8 per cent of the city's population. In north
Thailand there are twenty-four registered mosques (including four in
north-east Thailand) and the total population of Muslims in north
Thailand is approximately 16,000. Though the degree of assimilation
of these Muslims in central and north Thailand varies between the
different ethnic groups, and even between families within the ethnic
groups, most of these Muslims refer to themselves as 'Thai Muslims'.
Most of these Muslims have not taught their native languages to their
children. Thai has become the first language and native language of
most Muslims in central and north Thailand. Although some of the
descendants of the Malay, South Asian, or Chinese Muslims can speak
their native language, it is not used in everyday affairs in central and
north Thailand.
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20. 2.48 RAYMOND SCUPIN
Other factors that created conditions for assimilation for the groups
of Muslims in central and north Thailand included education and
intermarriage. These minority groups were subject to similar educa-
tional patterns that were characteristic of the majority of the Thai
population. The descendants of these early settlers became involved in
the same educational processes which were being institutionalized by
the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. By the 1920s mandatory
education for children between the ages of seven and fourteen was
enacted by royal decree. This meant that Muslim children attended
Thai schools and were exposed to reading and writing Thai at a very
early age. Thus the traditional ethnic differences among these early
Muslim settlers were partially erased by a common system of education
and communication. Intermarriage was another factor which played a
part in the loss of traditional patterns of ethnicity among central and
north Thai Muslims. A certain percentage of the male Muslim migrants
married Thai females, who then converted to Islam. An aphorism often
heard in the Thai Muslim community is that 'the children of these
mixed marriages would adhere to the dress, manners, and language of
their Thai mothers, but to the religion of their Muslim fathers.'
One colloquial Thai term of reference for the Muslims in central and
north Thailand is kbaek which was used liberally to refer to South and
south-west Asians, Arabs, Malays, Indonesians, and Persians. Thus,
instead of chat Thai, Muslims in Bangkok are sometimes referred to as
khaek lsalam or kbaek Musalam. Aside from Muslims, Hindus and
Tibetans are also included within the khaek category. Unlike the situ-
ation in south Thailand, up until recently this term khaek did not have
a pejorative connotation in central and north Thailand.20
However, this
ethnic designation, kbaek, was not used to categorize the children of
Muslims in a rigid manner. And historically, despite mutual misunder-
standings between Buddhists and Muslims, there has been no aggressive
anti-Muslim hostility in central or north Thailand. Consequently, a
good deal of structural assimilation has occurred among these Muslims
20
The term khaek is discussed in C. Prachuabmoh, 'The Role of Women in
Maintaining Ethnic Identity and Boundaries: A Case of Thai-Muslims (The Malay
Speaking Group) in Southern Thailand' (Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of
Hawaii, Honolulu, 1980). Prachuabmoh found that the term khaek did have a very
negative, pejorative meaning for Muslims in south Thailand. For an etymological under-
standing of the term khaek, see A. V. N. Diller, 'Islam and Southern Thai Ethnic
Reference', in A. D. W. Forbes (ed.), The Muslims of Thailand: Historical and Cultural
Studies, vol. 1 (Bihar, 1988). A more comparative essay that draws on the conditions
among the Muslims in the Philippines and the Muslims of south Thailand is P. Gowing,
'Moros and Khaek: The Position of the Muslim Minorities in the Philippines and
Thailand', in A. Ibrahim and S. Siddiqui (eds.), Readings in Southeast Asian Islam
(Singapore, 1985).
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21. MUSLIM ACCOMMODATION IN THAI SOCIETY 249
in their accommodation to residing in a Thai Buddhist environment.
Although the Muslim communities in these Buddhist regions are identi-
fiable by their needs for a halal-bascd diet and by their mosques, they
tend to participate in the same institutions as their Thai Buddhist
neighbours.
Despite the great degree of structural assimilation that has affected
the Muslims in central and north Thailand, there have been some
tendencies towards traditional ethnic expression and assertiveness. For
example, ethnic expression is observable within the context of Islamic
activities during the celebration of holidays such as Mawlid al-Nabl in
Bangkok. During these events various ethnic groups such as the Pathans
or Indonesians will set up booths to serve their own foods and particip-
ate in a combination of ethnic and religious celebrations. In the case of
the Cham crisis in Bangkok, noted above, Cham ethnicity and religious
identity were mobilized in a form of political ethnic protest against the
Thai government. In north Thailand, beginning during the 1950s,
Muslims from Yunnan and South Asia began to assert their ethnic and
religious identities in certain contexts when dealing with their Buddhist
neighbours. However, in general, in both central and north Thailand
ethnic assertiveness or cultural expression of one's religious or ethnic
identity has usually not been mobilized towards political ends.
ISLAMIC REFORM IN THAILAND
Prior to the early twentieth century the form of Islam in south, central,
and north Thailand was a heterogeneous complex of indigenous Hindu-
Brahminist-Buddhist-animist and Islamic spiritualistic conceptions and
practices. From ethnographic studies of rural Muslim villages in
Thailand it is possible to characterize what is sometimes known as
'folk' or 'popular' Islam.21
For example, a fundamental feature of 'pop-
ular Islam' in Malay villages in south Thailand is the role of the bomoh
or supernatural specialist. The bomoh is recognized as being important
with respect to controlling other types of spirits, and performs exorcistic
rituals and other trance-like curative activities. While conducting these
rituals the bomoh regularly utilizes the Islamic tradition by chanting
21
Ethnographic studies of popular Islam in Thailand include T. Fraser, Kusembilan:
A Malay Fishing Village (Ithaca, NY, 1960), A. Burr, 'Religious Institutional Diversity—
Social Structural and Conceptual Unity: Islam and Buddhism in a Southern Thai Coastal
Fishing Village', journal of the Siam Society, 60, (1992), and R. Scupin, 'Popular Islam
in Thailand', in A. Forbes (ed.)> The Muslims of Thailand: Historical and Cultural
Studies, vol. 1 (Bihar, 1988).
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22. 250 RAYMOND SCUPIN
passages from the Qur'an which are considered appropriate. Islamic
and non-Islamic practices are conjoined to induce a valid religious
atmosphere for these paranormal undertakings in the rural Malay
villages in south Thailand.
Another major characteristic of popular Islam in rural south Thailand
is the communally based ritual meals known as the kenduri (also known
as the slametan in Indonesia) or informally known as the makan pulot
(to eat rice), which are found throughout rural Indonesia and Malaysia.
These communal ritual meals are held in conjunction with various life-
cycle rites including birth, puberty, marriage, pregnancy, and death. In
addition, the communal meals are an important basis in celebrating the
two 'Id festivals, and other traditional Islamic holy days such as the
Mawlid al-Nabl. Most of the kenduri meals involve chanting ayas from
the Qur'an, especially the Fatiha. These communal rituals are elaborate
ceremonies that invoke both Islamic and non-Islamic spiritual sources
in the local rural areas of these Malay southern Thai villages.
In contrast to the rural villages of south Thailand, the form of
popular Islam in the rural and urban areas of central and north Thailand
has been influenced by the cultural and religious traditions of the
dominant Buddhist majority. Theravada Buddhist cosmology permits
the existence of a multiplicity of spirits. Most Thai Buddhists accept
the existence of spirits known as phi that can influence the physical and
mental well-being of individuals. Muslims in rural villages in central
and north Thailand combined various animistic beliefs and other
Buddhist concepts with popular Islamic traditions. These rural Muslims
in Buddhist environments relied on spiritual practitioners called mau
phi to help them solve physical and mental problems. Spirit worship,
the belief in spiritual practitioners, the use of amulets for spiritual
protection, saint worship, communal ritual feasts called thambun (to
make merit), or colloquially known as kinbun feasts, and other ritual
activities and beliefs coexisted in conjunction with the Islamic tradition.
The modernist Shart*a-minded reformist movements of the early
twentieth century, which emerged in the Middle East and spread
throughout Islamic South-East Asia, had major consequences for the
Muslims of Thailand. These trends have been discussed by many
scholars dealing with the Muslim-majority areas of South-East Asia
such as Malaysia and Indonesia. In South-East Asia, as in the Middle
East, these Islamic modernist trends corresponded with the global
impact of Western capitalism, colonialism, and what is sometimes
referred to as modernization, including increases in print journalism
and improvements in literacy, especially in the urban centres. The
Islamic reformist movement emerged among some members of the
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23. MUSLIM ACCOMMODATION IN THAI SOCIETY 2JI
urban Thai Muslim community and developed in the context of
this Islamic modernism that emanated from the Middle East and
South Asia.
As is well known, the early impetus for Islamic modernism or reform-
ism or islah in the Middle East and South Asia was associated with the
Salafiyya movement of Jamal al-DTn Afghani, Muhammad 'Abduh, and
RashTd Rida who founded the monthly review Al-Mandr. In the early
1900s a political refugee from the Minangkabau community in
Indonesia, Ahmad Wahab, settled in Bangkok and began to teach urban
Thai Muslims reformist Islamic ideas stemming from 'Abduh, Rida,
and the Salafiyya movement. Wahab had lived in Makka for some time
and eventually became familiar with modernist Islamic tendencies. In
Indonesia Wahab had been connected with the Muhammadiya move-
ment and its political counterpart Sareket Islam in Indonesia, and the
Dutch authorities exiled him and forced him to become a political
refugee. After attracting many followers and students in Bangkok,
Wahab set up informal study groups; and he and his family were
supported by his students. From this base in the 1930s he eventually
established the first two Islamic reformist associations in Thailand
known as Jamiyatyl al-Islah and Jamiyatul al-Salafiyah. Eventually these
groups issued a monthly periodical, edited by Wahab, and financially
supported by some members of the Muslim community in Bangkok.
Although Ahmad Wahab was responsible for the introduction of the
Middle Eastern and South-East Asian versions of Islamic modernism to
Bangkok, it was through his students and followers that these ideas
were galvanized and translated into a bona fide religious movement.
One of the individuals affected by Wahab's teaching was Direk
Kulsiriswasd (Ibrahim Qureyshi), a central figure in contemporary
reformist Muslim theology in Thailand. Qureyshi was born in Ban Krua
in 1922. His father was a migrant from Haripur, India, now located in
Pakistan. His mother was a descendant of Cham Muslims residing in
the Ban Krua area. Aside from Thai, his father taught him Urdu, as
well as some Arabic, Hindi, and English, which enabled him to read a
wide range of Islamic literature. Qureyshi's father had become acquain-
ted with Wahab's reformist teaching, and eventually Qureyshi himself
was introduced to him. Qureyshi became convinced of the necessity for
Islamic reform in Thailand. He became an avid spokesman and writer
promulgating the same ideas that Ahmad Wahab had introduced into
Bangkok. Ultimately Qureyshi was to have a more profound effect on
the development of the reformist movement than Wahab. This was due
to the fact that, since his native language was Thai, he was able to
present reformist ideas to the Thai Muslims in a more persuasive format
within their own idiom.
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24. 252 RAYMOND SCUPIN
By 1949 Qureyshi had completed the first of his many books on
Islam, entitled Swasdipab Sangkhom (Social Welfare). Throughout his
career as a very successful businessman in the silk-screen-printing trade
he was simultaneously writing tracts on Islamic religious and cultural
affairs. He wrote treatises on such topics as Islamic marriage customs,
prohibitions on eating pork, fasting, the hajj, and Islam and science. In
his attempts at reforming Islam in Thailand he wrote essays on 'folk'
or 'popular' Islamic beliefs, a scholastic treatise on the history of Thai
Muslims, and one on the influence of Muslim literary style on Thai
literature. In addition to many periodical articles, and translations of
the hadlth literature, he completed a massive four-volume Thai transla-
tion of the Qur'an.22
The urbanization of Bangkok provided the social conditions for the
Islamic reform movement in Thailand. The movement attracted a
young, educated, urban-based social clientele. As in other South-East
Asian urban areas, steady improvements in communications, especially
printing, brought Thai Muslims into closer touch with centres of Islamic
reformism in the Middle East, South Asia, and other Islamic areas of
South-East Asia. The Islamic reformists attempted to purify the form
of Islam as it existed within the Muslim communities of Thailand. They
criticized what they perceived as the syncretistic beliefs and practices
of the popular forms of Islam that were influenced by animistic and
Buddhist conceptions. The Thai Muslim reformers, like most other
Islamic modernists, were opposed to taqlid, the uncritical acceptance
of textual sources, or traditional religious teachings. They maintained
that the only sources for religious beliefs and practices were the Qur'an
and the Sunna, including authentic hadlth. They contended that humans
should strive to attain truth by utilizing akal (reasoning), through the
process known as ijtihad, or independent judgement. Ijtihad and akal
became the rallying theme of the Muslim reformist proponents in their
dialogue and struggle with more traditionally inclined Muslims, who
were accused of promoting taqtid or blind reverence to tradition.
During the 1960s the reformist influence came to south Thailand
through another Indonesian known by the name of Haji Abdullah who
founded a pondok where he began to teach Islamic modernism and
criticized the widespread popular forms of Islam, bomohs, and other
animistic beliefs and practices. One other source of Islamic reformism
22
At present there are four Thai translations of the Qur'an, all written by Thai
Muslims. Aside from Ibrahim Qureyshi's, another translation was completed by a former
Chularajmontri, Tuan Suannarsard. The latter was supported and financed by the Thai
royal family. Another translation was completed by Marwan Sama Oon and Barlcat
Siamwalla. And a recent translation was" done by a group called 'The Committee of the
Former Thai Students of the Islamic Seminaries in the Arab World'.
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25. MUSLIM ACCOMMODATION IN THAI SOCIETY 253
in south Thailand came from India through Abdullah Chinarong who
studied at Deoband, the famed Islamic religious academy that initiated
Islamic revivalism in British India. Abdullah Chinarong formed his own
potudok in Yala, about 20 kilometres from Patani.
Within Thailand, with the growth of the reform movement, there
developed two different factional alignments known as the kaum tua
(Malay) or the khana kau (Thai), the traditionalists, and the kaum
muda (Malay) or the khana mai (Thai), the modernists or reformists.
These contending factions have offered different interpretations of the
Islamic tradition within the Muslim communities of Thailand. The
traditionalists and reformists have differed over various issues regarding
Islamic ritual and practice. The modernists criticized the rural-based
popular forms of ritual such as the communal feasts and the influences
of animist, Brahministic, or Hindu-Buddhist merit-making rituals on
Muslims. They differed from the traditionalists on a variety of issues
including the use of amulets, saint worship, death rites, and other
religious practices.
These factional alignments between the reformists and the traditional-
ists have persisted. To some extent, however, as education and urbaniza-
tion have increased, and as more Muslims from Thailand have travelled
to other Islamic areas for education and jobs, the reformist-modernist
movement has exercised a definitive and sometimes subtle influence on
the Islamic tradition in Thailand. Gradually, forms of popular Islam
and commitment to communalistic rituals have been eroded as villages
have had increasing exposure to national and international media such
as radio, television, and printed Islamic texts and pamphlets, as well as
more contact with the urban forms of Islamic reformism.
More recently, since the emergence of Islamic resurgence movements
in the Middle East and elsewhere, some Muslims in Thailand have
participated in contemporary Islamic movements similar to those that
have influenced Malaysia and Indonesia. The new Islamic movements
stem mostly from what has been referred to as the da'wa religious
trends which have been growing in Thailand. The da'wa movement
has often been described as a form of Islamic fundamentalism. In
actuality, the da'wa movement represents multiple strands of recent
Islamic developments within Thai society, some of which exhibit funda-
mentalist tendencies. The major da'wa movement, however, is a con-
tinuation of the earlier reformist or tslah revivalist tendencies. The
da'wa movement has been linked with the reformist cause to spread
the truly revealed knowledge of Islam. Aside from the basic Qur'anic
meaning of da'wa (a call to prayer or to preach), or an individual's
invocation of God for a special purpose or a missionary intention, the
concept of da'wa in the reformist or modernist Islamic discourse in
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26. 254 RAYMOND SCUPIN
Thailand refers to a process of 'interiorization'.23
In this reformist
notion, instead of reaching out to convert others such as Buddhists,
da'wa is aimed at reducing the materialist and secularist processes
influencing modern Muslim life in Thai society. Excessive consumerism,
materialism, corporate capitalist and political greed, and status-seeking
are viewed as dehumanizing processes antithetical to Islamic spiritual
and moral traditions. Modern da'wa leaders refer to the Westernization
of society or 'Westoxification' as the adversarial aspects of modernity
in Thai society. In the da'wa movement in Thailand, Muslims are called
on to devote their lives to improving the social welfare of their fellow
Muslims, rather than pursuing narrow self-interests. Da'wa leaders are
active in many of the Islamic associations throughout Thailand. They
promote the revitalization of Islamic cultural and religious values and
sponsor community-based social programmes.24
In addition, the da'wa
leadership often calls for a Muslim-Buddhist dialogue and co-operation
to help bring about mutual understanding and social and economic
improvements throughout Thailand.
As the older generation of reformists relied on the religious-political
tracts of 'Abduh, Rida, and Afghani, the younger-generation da'wa
leadership read, translate, and interpret the works of Sayyid Qutb,
Muhammad Iqbal, MawdudT, 'All Shari'atT, Muhammad Asad, and
Hasan al-Turabl as well as other South-East Asian Muslim leaders such
as Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia to inspire themselves and their local
communities. Stimulated by these religious-political works, the da'wa
leadership have been emphasizing human rights, justice, and ethnic and
religious dignity, and are attempting to mobilize their communities for
economic and social development.
In south Thailand the da'wa movement has also become a means of
enhancing the struggle for religious and cultural autonomy and emphas-
izing Malay Muslim ethnic-identity issues. To some extent the da'wa
23
I. Yusuf, in an essay entitled 'Islamic Da Wah in Thailand: The Cultural and
Human Dimensions of Dialogue between Islam and Buddhism' read at the International
Conference on Islamic Da Wah Southeast Asia: Cultural and Human Dimensions (Kuala
Lumpur, 1993), explicates the meanings of da'wa as interpreted within modern Thai
Islamic discourse. Yusuf suggests that at times the term is misunderstood in the Thai
context to refer to tabttgh missionary activities (personal communication, I. Yusuf,
July 1997).
24
The best-known da'wa organization in Bangkok is the Santichon (People of Peace),
established in 1988. Santichon organizes regular classes for new converts and other
Muslims who desire a more informed approach to Islam. Other organizations that have
been influenced by da'wa activities are the Thai Muslim Women's Foundation of
Thailand for the Welfare of Orphans, the Muslim Medical Association, the Parent-
Teacher Association of the Islamic College of Thailand, and the Muslim Welfare
Organization of Thailand.
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27. MUSLIM ACCOMMODATION IN THAI SOCIETY 255
movement countered the overt government secularization and assimila-
tion programmes for the pondoks in these southern Thai regions. The
government-sponsored education was perceived by the Malay Muslims
as a means of eroding traditional ethnic and religious values. The da'wa
movement was seen as an alternative means of instilling Islamic values
without government interference. Thai authorities, fearful of this resur-
gent Islamic movement, actively sought the support of 'ulama' who
were perceived as loyal to the Thai government in order to control the
movement. For some time this resulted in an official da'wa movement
monitored closely by Thai authorities as well as an unofficial one.
In many respects the da'wa movement can be viewed as a perpetu-
ation of Islamic reformist ideals and discourse in the context of political
developments among Muslims in Thailand. As indicated above,
Muslims in south Thailand have tended to renounce their affinities to
the militant irredentist activities of the 1960s and 1970s. Generally,
Muslims throughout Thailand have accommodated to their status as
minorities within a non-Islamic society. Instead of initiating a military
and political struggle against the Thai Buddhist state, more Muslims
have strengthened their religious ties and are involved in revitalizing
their Islamic identity. As education increases among the Muslim
communities, more leaders have been recruited to participate in the
semi-democratic process in Thailand as a means of promoting a more
pluralistic nation. The da'wa Islamic reform movement enhances this
process. The founding of the Wahda party was a direct outgrowth of
Islamic reformism in Thailand. The leadership of this political group,
including Den Tohmeena, the son of Haji Sulong, a well-known south
Thailand Muslim leader who became a political martyr, has been
recruited from reformist organizations. Wahda has been actively pro-
moting religious and political reform in Muslim institutions throughout
Thailand.
In 1986 a crisis, known as the hijab crisis, mobilized the various
da'wa Islamic organizations throughout Thailand. A Muslim teacher
in Nonthaburi, who was dressed in a blouse with long sleeves, an ankle-
length skirt, and a head covering, or hijab, was fired for disturbing the
'normality' of school. In the same year in Patani another Muslim woman
walked into a government building to report for work wearing the
hijab and was asked to leave. Later in 1987, in Yala province, instead
of dressing in their Thai college uniforms, a number of Muslim students
went to school dressed in their hijab. These students were barred from
their classrooms. Muslims from da'wa organizations throughout the
country mobilized to protest at the treatment of these women.
Eventually mass demonstrations were organized by da'wa leaders, and
the Ministry of Education was forced to amend its policies to accom-
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28. 256 RAYMOND SCUPIN
modate Islamic dress and to respea the cultural and religious traditions
of the Muslim communities.25
Another example of this new form of Muslim political involvement
that reflects the influence of da'wa and Islamic reformism is the Islamic
Administrative Act, the most dramatic piece of legislation passed by
the Thai parliament for Muslims since the Patronage Act of 1945.2
*
Wahda had actively supported the Islamic Administrative Act which is
aimed at reforming the administrative framework for Muslims within
the Thai government. The reformist leadership and da'wa organizations
lobbied the Thai government to vote for this legislation. Though delayed
within the Thai parliament for five years, it was finally passed along
with the enactment of a new 'People's Constitution' in Thailand in
October 1997.
One aspect of the new Islamic Administrative Act has a bearing on
the office of the Chularajmontri. In contrast to the past, when the
Chularajmontri was elected by a small number of representatives from
the Muslim communities, under the new legislation he is to be elected
by some 384 members of the 29 Provincial Islamic Committees, a much
more democratic and broader representation of the Muslim communit-
ies. The fourteenth Chularajmontri, Prasert Mahamad, passed away in
August 1997. On 16 October, under the new election guidelines of the
Islamic Administration legislation, Sawasdi Sumlayasak, an Islamic
scholar and politician, who was twice a member of the Thai parliament,
was elected as the new Chularajmontri. Sawasdi appears to have broad
support from within the Islamic and Thai political system.
PERIPHERAL DEVELOPMENTS
In addition to the development of da'wa religious movements in
Thailand, some Muslim leaders in the 1980s were influenced by the
Iranian ShT'a religious and political movement. Some of these leaders
have endorsed the Shi*a tradition as a means of restoring what they
perceive as a more authentic religious and political liberation for
Muslims in Thailand. These converts to the ShT'a tradition have been
25
See C. Satha-Anand, 'Hijab and Moments of Legitimation: Islamic Resurgence in
Thai Society', in C. Keyes, C. L. Kendall, and H. Hardacre (eds.), Asian Visions of
Authority: Religion and the Modem States of East and Southeast Asia (Honolulu, HI,
1994), for an elegant analysis of the hijab crisis and its consequences for the Muslims
in Thailand.
u
An insightful analysis of the Islamic Administrative Act is made by I. Yusuf in his
paper, 'Islam and Democracy in Thailand: The Case of the 1992 Islamic Administrative
Bill', read at the International Conference on Islam and the 21st Century, Leiden, 1996.
See below, pp. 277-98.
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29. MUSLIM ACCOMMODATION IN THAI SOCIETY 157
publishing and translating the works of Shi*a leaders such as the late
Ayatullah Khomeini and 'All Shari'atT. These Shfa writings and teach-
ings have had some influence on the Muslim communities throughout
Thailand. A number of Muslims in Thailand have converted to the
ShTa movement. It remains to be seen whether this movement will
emerge as a significant political force in Thai society.
One other Islamic movement has had a marginal influence in
Thailand. In 1968 an Islamic movement called Darul Arqam was
founded by Ashaari Muhammad. Darul Arqam established some forty-
three communes and economic enterprises throughout Malaysia. The
movement is estimated to have some 100,000 members. Emphasizing
Sufi traditions integrated with practical economic activities and some
unorthodox practices, Darul Arqam was viewed as a deviation from
more mainstream Islamic traditions in Malaysia. The Malaysian Islamic
Affairs department banned al-Arqam from interfering in any govern-
ment affairs, and eventually in 1994 the National Fatwa Council banned
al-Arqam. Many of its members were arrested in Malaysia for distribut-
ing literature. Ashaari migrated to Thailand and developed his com-
munes in both south and north Thailand. Although very few Thai
Muslims converted to the Darul Arqam movement, at first Thai author-
ities supported their activities as they initiated positive economic devel-
opments in various communities. However, rumours spread about the
stockpiling of arms by the Darul Arqam communes. In addition, inter-
governmental relations were strained between Malaysia and Thailand
regarding the toleration of Ashaari's movement by Thai authorities. In
general, Muslim intellectuals in Thailand tended to view the movement
as harmless and even emphasized the positive aspects of its activities,
especially the innovative economic developments within the communes.
Eventually, however, in 1994, because of Malaysian government pres-
sures, Ashaari was deported back to Malaysia.27
CONCLUSION
The major challenge facing the Muslim minority in Thailand is the
same one currently facing many other nations—the transformation
from a society based on an imaginative, homogeneous communal order
to one based on a more heterogeneous, pluralistic civil order. There are
some indicators of a more pluralistic civil order becoming more accept-
able to Thai citizens. For example, in 1997 there were some demonstra-
27
For an excellent overview of the Darul Arqam movement throughout South-East
Asia see J. H. Meuleman, 'Reactions and Attitudes towards the Darul Arqam Movement
in Southeast Asia', Studia lslamika, 3:1 (1996).
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30. 258 • RAYMOND SCUPIN
tions led by Thai Buddhist monks to demand that Buddhism be made
the official national religion under the new constitution. However, most
Thai citizens rejected that demand, and the Thai legislature also opposed
this policy believing that it would fuel ethnic and religious divisiveness.
It would appear that most Thai citizens tend to support an open social
structure with room for a diversity of people and traditions, rather than
a narrow one with reinforced walls creating barriers to so-called alien
or minority influences. This pluralistic view represents an encouraging
development for the Muslim minority in Thailand. The Thai govern-
ment has helped to initiate the development of some positive policies
affecting the Muslim communities such as the recognition of Islamic
holidays as official holidays and the legitimation of Shan*a courts in
personal Islamic legal matters in Muslim regions. The Muslim commu-
nities in Thailand are actively striving to work for the development of
a tolerant and pluralistic society that recognizes the significance of their
contributions to Thai culture and society. Generally, the Muslim com-
munity in Thailand has acknowledged the need to move away from
rigid ethnic and religious exclusive tendencies in favour of co-operation
and political integration. Though there are still tensions and conflicts
between Muslims and Buddhists in Thai society, the prospect of greater
ethnic and religious harmony in a pluralistic civil society seems to be a
predominant trend.
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