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“Muslim Intellectuals in Thailand: Exercises in Reform and Moderation”

by Raymond Scupin, Lindenwood University.

Raymond Scupin (Rscupin@lindenwood.edu) is Director, Center for International and Global

Studies and Professor of Anthropology at Lindenwood University.

I would like to thank John Bowen, Robert Hefner, Judith Nagata, the late Clifford Geertz,

Stanley Tambiah, Soraja Dorairajoo, Alexander Horstmann, Omar Farouk, Dale Eickelman,

Carool Kersten, Donald E. Brown, Richard O‟Connor, Saroja Dorairajoo, Imtiyaz Yusuf, John

Funston, Joseph Chinyong Liow, Ernesto Braam, and Frederic K. Lehman for their comments on

an early version of this paper. In addition, I want to extend my appreciation to all of my

Buddhist and Muslim scholars, friends, and colleagues in Thailand, some of whom are discussed

in this essay who have assisted me immensely in learning about Islam in Thai society for some

30 years.

Various terrorism experts have alleged that since 2002 the al-Qaida linked Jemaah

Islamiah (JI) planned the Bali bombing in Southern Thailand, and media interest in the activities

of Thailand‟s four million Muslims, most located in this region, has been intense. In that year,

2002 the arrest of four Thais with alleged JI connections were arrested by Thai officials between

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June and July 2003, followed by the arrest of JI operational head Hambali on 11 August in

Ayudhya, in Central Thailand. However, violence erupted dramatically in southern Thailand on

January 4, 2004 when over a hundred insurgents raided an arms depot of the 4th

Army Engineers

in Narathiwat province. They killed four Buddhist Thais (after separating them from Muslims)

and seized 380 small arms and 2,000 rounds of ammunition. As diversionary moves they also

torched 20 public schools, and burnt rubber tires and planted fake explosives in neighbouring

Yala.1 On January 22, 2004, two Muslim young men in South Thailand on a motorcycle used a

long knife to slit the throat of a 64 year-old Buddhist monk to death.2 The monk just returned

from his early morning round of thambun (alms-giving extending merit to Buddhist families).

On January 24, three more Buddhist monks were attacked, and two died from the violence. A

young novice Buddhist monk age 13 died in a hospital after being attacked in the head by a youth

wielding a machete on a motorcycle while another 65-year-old monk was killed in the same

manner. A third machete attack put another 25 year-old monk in a hospital with serious injuries.

The January 22 incident occurred in Bacho, Narathiwat while the other took place in different

areas of Yala, both are Thailand‟s Southernmost provinces. On the very same day, there were

other killings in Yala using knives or machetes, two of the victims were non-Muslims, while the

third was a Muslim policeman. Yet, this was the first time in South Thailand that Buddhist

monks had been targeted by the Muslim militants residing there.

Sporadic violence continued for some four months in the southern region until it

resulted in a massive day long siege on April 28, 2004 by the Thai military resulting in 112

Muslim teenage deaths. As then Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra explained to the press,

intelligence sources gave information to the military and police about a series of planned attacks

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on police and army installations in three southern provinces in Thailand. The Thai military

surrounded the Muslim militants who were armed with machetes and cleavers in a predawn raid.

Some of the young Muslims hid in the historic Krue Se mosque in Pattani and it was firebombed

killing some 32 young assailants who were crying out the takbir (Allah is Great and Muhammad

is his Prophet). Islamic countries in ASEAN such as Malaysia and Indonesia criticized the Thai

government‟s handling of this deadly crackdown. Thaksin shrugged off the international and

Islamic criticism of this military and police action and announced that the Thai government had

no choice but to use overwhelming force against these Muslims.3 Some Thai officials such as

Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyut remarked that cold-blooded attacks on Buddhist

monks were too unusual to be the works of locally trained Muslims and that these Muslims were

from foreign countries. The Thai army announced that they were 100 percent sure that seven of

the 32 Muslims killed at the Krue Se mosque were Indonesian and not Thai and connected them

with JI of Indonesia.

As if things could not get worse, on October 26th, some 2,000 Muslim protestors assembled at

a police station demanding the release of six Muslims accused of supplying weapons to insurgents.

The Thai military arrested 1,300 Muslims and as the crowd became “irrational,” security forces fired

bullets, water cannons, and tear gas into the crowd and six protesters were killed. After the arrested

Muslims were packed into army trucks headed for prison, 78 prisoners suffocated to death. Facing

further international outrage and criticism, Thaksin declared that the Muslims were weak from

Ramadan fasting and that was the reason they had suffocated. Despite international criticism, the

Thaksin government tended to blame external influences from radical militant elements such as JI

stirring up problems rather than focus on the emergence of severe difficulties in the relationship

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between government policies and the Muslim communities. Since 2004 there have been over 3,200

deaths of both Buddhist and Muslims in this southern insurgency in Thailand. An enormous

literature in history, political science, international relations, and religious studies has been produced

since that time regarding this southern insurgency (Aphornsuvan 2004, 2007, Askew 2007, 2009,

Funston 2008, Jerryson 2009, Liow 2004, 2007, McCargo 2006, 2008, 2009, Yusuf and Schmidt

2006).

Earlier, in October of 2001 following the U.S.-led strikes in Afghanistan, thousands of

Muslims in Thailand gathered for demonstrations against these actions. Muslim activists in

Thailand have organized boycotts against U.S., Israeli, British, and German products and

businesses to protest the campaign against Afghanistan. Young Muslims have encouraged their

peers to steer clear of McDonalds, Pepsi, Nike, KFC, Citibank, computers, telephones, fax

machines, as well as discount stores owned by European and American allies. Osama bin Laden

T-shirts sold briskly and were worn as a form of symbolic pride among some of the Muslim

protesters. Muslim NGOs collected donations for relief for victims of the war in Afghanistan. A

group calling itself Mujahideen Islam Patani (MIP) in South Thailand distributed leaflets calling

for a “holy war” or jihad against the US and its Western allies. The Chularajmontri, the religious

and government representative of the Muslims in Thailand, and other Muslim leaders spoke out

against the Thai government‟s support of the U.S. “War on Terrorism” and the invasion of

Afghanistan. Stories of American, European, and Israeli massacres are widely distributed within

the Thai Muslim newspapers and circulated weekly as part of the Friday sermons at the mosques.

Muslims are encouraged to pray for their Afghan and Palestinian brothers who are being killed

as a result of U.S.-Western-Israeli war on terrorism (Jinakul 2001, Hutasingh 2001). Following

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the U.S. war in Iraq in 2003, massive demonstrations led by young Muslim activists continued in

Bangkok and South Thailand (Satha-Anand 2004a, 2004b). These activities nurture

stereotypical hostile images of Westerners among Muslims in Thailand, a process that parallels

the developments in many areas of the Islamic world.

These forms of Muslim activism and Islamic discourse tend to reinforce the Huntington

thesis regarding the clash between Islamic and Western civilizations (1996). Huntington‟s thesis

continues to resonate with many in the West and especially since 9/11/01 and the U.S. military

and political “war on terrorism” the thesis appears to be in the process of confirmation in the

minds of many in Asia and the Islamic world. Some Muslims are calling for a united, universal

umma that will confront the Western world of capitalism and democracy. As Huntington‟s

prognostications include ethnic-religious and regional-cultural blocs as fragmenting the world

order and resulting in more conflict and instability between Islam and the West, the aftermath of

9/11 seems to have reaffirmed these primordial-essentializing tendencies in the media and public

sphere in the West and in the Islamic World. Yet, as noted by many anthropologists and other

scholars who have conducted field work in Muslim regions, much more nuanced post-Orientalist

representations regarding the diversity of Islamic discourse and political activities within the

public sphere is recognized. This essay based on ethnographic research and interviews with

Muslim intellectuals in Thailand will demonstrate that the public sphere consists of many

different expressions of Islamic discourse, some of which are overwhelmed by the sensationalist

and essentialized accounts of Muslim activism within the media.

ISLAM IN THAILAND

Approximately four million citizens in Thailand profess the Islamic faith and maintain

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over 2,700 mosques, which make Muslims the largest religious minority in Theravada Buddhist

Thailand (Gilquin 2005). 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. The other category of Muslims refer

to themselves as "Thai Muslims" or Thai Isalam and reside in Central, North, and Northeast

Thailand. The Malay Muslims of South Thailand make up over 70 percent 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.

The majority of the Muslims in Thailand are based in South Thailand as a consequence of the

expansion of the Thai state into that region. The four southern provinces of Patani, Narathiwat,

Satul, and Yala bordering on the country of Malaysia have been gradually integrated into the

Thai kingdom (then called Siam) since at least the sixteenth century (Teeuw and Wyatt 1970,

Syukri 1985, Aphornsuvan 2007). As in many other areas of the Malayan-Indonesia region, the

form of Islam was based on the Sunni-Shafii tradition, however, this tradition coexisted with

earlier Hindu-Buddhist-animistic spiritual beliefs and practices. In addition, both Shia and Sufi

elements influenced local forms of the belief system in this area. The majority of the Muslims in

these southern provinces speak 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). For many years

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the Thai Buddhists, or khon Thai, use the ethnic category khaek Musalim to refer to the Malay

Muslims, which is perceived as a pejorative term by some 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 Western 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. Thai authorities were suspicious of the traditional Malay elite and sought to

subvert their power base through the appointment of conscientious Thai Buddhist bureaucrats

throughout these southern Malay regions (Pitsuwan 1985, Forbes 1989, Thomas 1976,

Aphornsuvan 2007). The result of this Thai policy was that it created immediate resentment in

this southern area. In effect, this meant that the Muslim legal code structured by the Sharia and

adat (Malay custom), and administered by the local Qadi (Muslim judge) was to be controlled by

Thai Buddhist officials. These state policies induced conflict between the Malay elite and Thai

authorities, but also with religious leaders, the ulama, who had vital support from the rural

villagers and had served as a legitimating force for Malay authority throughout the history of

Patani, as the spiritual center of the Islamic world in the Malay-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 up through the present.

As Thai compulsory education spread into these southern provinces, the Islamic schools

or pondoks were encouraged to modify the Islamic curriculum to include an emphasis on the

three sacred pillars of the Thai state: the >Nation= (chat), >Religion= (satsana), and Monarchy

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(phramahaksat). And, the Thai government continued to appoint Central Thai Buddhists 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

following the bloodless coup of 1932, the government promoted education as the means of

instilling new democratic values throughout the southern region. This created a dilemma for the

Malay Muslims in the south, because the Thai compulsory education system was based upon

Buddhist values, intimately 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.

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 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 Sharia 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 was to be carried out within the government sponsored

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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 forced assimilationist

policies of the Phibun regime.

After World War II, the Thai state began once again to liberalize and pluralize its policies

toward its southern provinces by establishing governmental machinery to manage the Malay

leadership and draw the ulama into the official bureaucratic network. Through legislation known

as the >Patronage Act of 1945= the ulama, the mosque councils, and the madrasas were

centralized under the authority of the Shaikh al-Islam or Chularajamontri and articulated into the

Thai bureaucracy through the Ministry of Interior (Pitsuwan 1988, Yusuf, 1998). The

Chularajamontri 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 institutions 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 Mecca. The ulama were to be integrated into the state

bureaucracy through Islamic Provincial Committees set up by the Minister of Interior. One

surreptitious clause of the 'Act' allowed the Minister of Interior to appoint and dismiss ulama in

order to insure loyalty and to subvert irredentism. Unfortunately, because of deep suspicions of

Malay Muslims toward 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 began with a succession of

military governments in 1957 up through the recent periods. During this phase a new ideology of

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nation building referred to as patanakarn or 'development' was promoted by Thai authorities for

the southern Malay area. National integration and assimilation was to be approached through

socioeconomic development programs. 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 socioeconomic 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 promulgate this new ideology of development through the

educational institutions in the South, the traditional pondok or religious schools, (madrasa).

What the Thai state did not recognize was the reality of the pondok as the preeminent symbol of

Malay Muslim ideals and cultural resistance to Buddhist authorities in the North (Dulyakasem

1981, Pitsuwan 1985). The pondok tended to reinforce ethnic and religious differences through

symbols and rituals which affected individuals throughout their entire lives. In the process, these

enculturation 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 and cultivate 'Thai' values. The Ministry of Education initiated a plan to regulate and

to 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 program and were renamed Private Schools Teaching

Islam (Liow 2009).

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Though, on the face of it, these Thai administrative and educational policies appeared

somewhat successful, in actuality the ulama were not submitting to Thai authority in this matter,

but were rather practicing, again, a policy of restrained participation. Since the ulama could not

legally operate their own private pondoks, they opted to cooperate 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 policies led some Malay Muslims to send their children abroad to

Islamic countries (Liow 2009). Another result of these secularizing-Buddhist policies

interwoven with the Thai political culture was the development of more overt irredentist

activities among the Malay Muslims in these southern provinces.

A number of Islamic-based factions emerged during the 1960s and 1970s in South

Thailand reflecting a diversity of political views became engaged in activist irredentist activities.

One early separatist group, the National Liberation Front of Patani, the LFRP, desired the

reestablishment of Patani in its former glory with a raja or sultan at its head. Its final objective

appeared to be autonomy within the federation 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 communist movements based in

Thailand and Malaysia, and had been involved in bombings and kidnapping throughout the

region. The alliance 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, emerged in the late 1960s by Tenku Bira Kotanila and was the most

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well known and most effective guerilla organization and separatist movement in the Patani

region. PULO was devoted to preserving AMalayness@ and the Islamic way of life in South

Thailand. It had several levels of organization with its headquarters in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

PULO also maintained a regional headquarters in Kelantan where it coordinated its guerilla

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 (Thomas 1995).

Although there have been sporadic skirmishes in the recent past, throughout the 1980s

and 90s, the Malay Muslim communities of Patani had largely turned away from the extremist

separatist movements such as PULO and LFRP. Recently, however, as mentioned earlier, in

2004 Thailand‟s southern area was disrupted by a series of violent attacks by Muslims of

government officials and the killing of Buddhists including several Buddhist monks. As a result

of these developments Thaksin Shinawatra called for curfews and the closing of schools in the

South Thailand. Although some security officials had suggested this violence may be linked

with Jemaah Islamiah (JI), the proxy of al-Qaeda that carried out the bombing in Bali, Indonesia,

the empirical investigations regarding this violence demonstrates that it is an internal ethnic issue

in South Thailand (Askew 2007, 2009, Funston 2008, Liow 2006, 2007, McCargo 2008, 2009).

Since 2004, a very aggressive campaign of Thai Buddhist nationalism and militarization has

exacerbated Buddhist-Muslim relations in the south since 2004 (McCargo 2009, Jerryson 2009).

Anthropologist Marc Askew has described how Buddhists and Muslims perceive one another

and distrust one another within this new insurgency (Askew 2007, 2009). Despite this current

outbreak of violence, increasingly, the Muslims in South Thailand have changed their political

strategies actively mobilizing their communities and seeking a voice in the Thai political system.

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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 southern provinces face difficult economic

and social problems, and maintaining their apprehension toward Bangkok authorities who

continue to support cultural assimilation policies, these Malay Muslims leaders are continue to

promote their ethnic and religious identity, while pressing for more pluralism and fair treatment

from Bangkok authorities.

CENTRAL, NORTHERN, AND NORTHEASTERN THAI MUSLIMS

Because of historical and cultural conditions the experience of Muslims in Central and

Northern Thailand has been much different than that of their Islamic affiliates to the south.

Historically, these Muslims of the central and northern corridors of Thailand have migrated,

either voluntarily 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 centers of a predominant Thai Buddhist cultural environment.

The largest group of Muslims in Central Thailand concentrated 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

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

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Thailand. 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, four

to five thousand captives were rounded up and taken 'en masse' to Bangkok . The majority of

these Muslims were resettled in Bangkok in the suburban districts running from south to north in

the extreme eastern portion of metropolitan Bangkok. Many of the descendants of these Muslims

still reside in these areas.

Several communities of Muslims in Central Thailand, including Chams, Indonesians, and

Iranians, have a long-term history that extends back into the Ayudhyan period (1351-1767 C.E.).

Many Chams were originally war captives taken from Cambodia where they had sought refuge

from the perils following the Vietnamese conquest of the Champa kingdom (Scupin 2000, Jaffie

and Lowrey 1992). Indonesian Muslims came to Ayudhya as economic opportunities and

business ventures opened in Siam. One of the most influential trading communities in

seventeenth century Ayudhya was comprised of Iranian or Persian Muslims. The first Persian

Muslims mentioned in the Ayudhyan chronicles were two brothers, Shayk Ahmad and

Muhammad Sa-id, who came during the reign of King Naresuan (1590-1605 C.E.). In this area

there are the remains of what is called Kudithong or 'golden Mosque' which is identified with the

personage of Shayk Ahmad (Farouk 1992, Ibrahim 1972, Scupin 1980a, Wyatt 1974). 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 Shia 'community' in this early Ayudhyan kingdom.

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Muslim merchants from South Asia also migrated to Central Thailand during the

Ayudhyan and Bangkok periods. Muslims from India, present day Pakistan, and Bangladesh

have settled in the Bangkok area (Mani 1992, Nakavachara 1992). These Muslim migrants came

form various linguistic and geographical areas of the subcontinent. Punjabi, Sindhi, Gujerati and

Bengali speakers came from North India, as well as Pathans or Pushto speakers came 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 Bowring Treaty of 1855, which opened trade

between the British and Thailand, and also granted extraterritorial privileges to British subjects.

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. The

vast majority of the Muslims who migrated from the South Asian regions to Thailand were

Sunni. There is, however, a small number of Shia from South Asia. The Sunni and Shia South

Asians have established their own distinctive mosques in Bangkok, most of which were

developed in the older inner city area.

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 restaurants and hotels developed to provide for

Muslim Arab visitors and residents. One area of Bangkok has become known as the Arab

quarter and is sometimes referred to as mini-Beirut of the East. Arabic calligraphy, Arabian

music, coffee-houses, belly-dancing, and other signs of Arabic culture became recognizable in

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this evolving cosmopolitan city of Bangkok (Satha-Anand 1992).

Muslim communities were also established in North and Northeast Thailand. Many of

the Muslims in North Thailand came from the Islamicized portion of China. Most authorities

refer to them as Chinese AHaw,@ Cin-Ho, or Hui. (Mote 1967, Moerman 1975, Soonthornpasuch

1977, Forbes 1986, Gladney 1991, Atwill 2003). Most of the Chinese Muslims in Thailand

originate from the southwestern part of Yunnan Historically, this ethnic group operated an

expansive trading network between the Shan states, China, and North Thailand. 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 province. These recent migrants have their own Sunni mosque 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 are the descendants of South Asian Muslims. South Asian Muslims 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 and cities in Northeast Thailand in also received a Pathan Muslim populace

who either migrated directly from their homes in Pakistan or via Burma. They earned their living

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in the cattle-raising and slaughter industries in these areas. The majority of the present

population of North and Northeast Thailand are third and fourth generation descendants of the

settlers of the nineteenth century.

Based on conservative estimates the Bangkok Muslim population is probably near

500,000 people or eight percent of the city's population of approximately 6 million. In North

Thailand there are 24 registered mosques (including four mosques in Northeast Thailand) and the

total population of Muslims in North and Northeast Thailand is approximately 20,000 people.

Though the degree of assimilation of these Muslims in Central, North, and Northeast Thailand

varies among the different ethnic groups, and even within families within the ethnic groups, most

of these Muslims refer to themselves as AThai 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 Malays, South Asian, or Chinese Muslims can speak their native language, it is not used in

everyday affairs in Central and North Thailand.

Other conditions that created conditions for cultural assimilation for the groups of

Muslims in Central, North, and Northeast Thailand included education and intermarriage. These

minority groups were subject to similar educational 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 1920's, 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

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ethnic differences among these early Muslim settlers were, to some extent, partially erased, by a

common system of education and communication. Intermarriage was another element which

played a part in the loss of traditional patterns of ethnicity by Central, North, and Northeast Thai

Muslims. A certain percentage of the Muslim migrants married Thai females, who then

converted to Islam. An aphorism often heard in the Thai Muslim community is that Athe 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.” (Scupin 1986).

One colloquial Thai term of reference for the Muslims in Central and North Thailand is

khaek which was used liberally to refer to South and Southwest Asians, Arabs, Malays,

Indonesians, and Persians. Thus, instead of chat Thai, Muslims in Bangkok are sometimes

referred to as khaek Isalam. or khaek Musalim. Aside from Muslims, Hindus and Tibetans are

also included within the khaek category. Unlike the Muslims in South Thailand, up until recently

this term khaek in Central and North Thailand did not have a pejorative connotation.4 However,

this ethnic designation, khaek, was not used to categorize the children of Muslims in an

essentialist manner. And, historically, despite mutual misunderstandings between Buddhists and

Muslims, up until recently, 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 in their accommodation to residing in a Thai Buddhist environment (Scupin 2001,

forthcoming). Although the Muslim communities in these Buddhist regions are identifiable by

their needs for a halal based diet and mosques, they tend to participate in the same institutions as

their Thai Buddhist neighbors.

Despite the great degree of structural assimilation that has affected the Muslims in

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Central and North Thailand, there have been some tendencies toward traditional ethnic

expression and assertiveness. For example, ethnic expression is observable within the context of

Islamic activities during the celebration of holidays such as Maulid Nabi in Bangkok. During

these events various ethnic groups such as the Pathans or Indonesians will set up booths to serve

their own foods and participate in a combination of ethnic and religious celebration. Most

recently, Cham ethnicity and religious identity was mobilized in a form of political ethnic protest

against the Thai government (Lowira and Baffie 1992, Scupin 2000). 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 neighbors

(Soonthornpasuch 1977). However, until recently in Central and North Thailand, ethnic

assertiveness or cultural expressions 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 some aspects of what is sometimes known as

'folk' or 'popular Islam.(Fraser 1960, Burr 1978, Scupin 1980b, 1988a). For example, a

fundamental feature of 'popular Islam' in Malay villages in South Thailand is the role of the

bomoh or supernatural specialist. The bomoh is recognized as being important in respect to

controlling other types of spirits, and performs exorcistic rituals and other trance-like curative

activities. While conducting these rituals the bomoh regularly utilized the Islamic tradition by

20

chanting passages from the Qur‟an which were considered appropriate. Islamic and non-Islamic

practices were 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 was 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 is 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 Maulid Nabi. Most of the kenduri meals involve chanting ayas from the Qur‟an, especially

the al-Fatihah. These communal rituals were elaborate ceremonies that invoked both Islamic and

non-Islamic spiritual sources in the local rural areas of these Malay southern Thai villages (Fraser

1960).

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

tradition 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

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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 (Scupin 1988).

The modernist Sharia-minded reformist movements of the early twentieth century which

emerged in the Middle East spread throughout the Islamic world in Southeast Asia had major

consequences for the Muslims of Thailand. These modernist trends have been discussed by

many scholars dealing with the predominant Islamic areas of Southeast Asia such as Malaysia

and Indonesia (Bowen 2003, 1999, 1993, Hefner 2000, Noer 1973, Roff 1961). In Southeast

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

centers. The Islamic reformist movement emerged among some members of the 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 reformism, or islah in the

Middle East and South Asia was associated with the renowned Salifiyya movement, Jamal al-Din

Afghani, Muhammad Abduh , Rashid Rida who founded the monthly review Al-manar (Roff

1961, Abdullah 1971). Al-Imam was modeled on Rida's Al-Manar and it inculcated most of the

principles and reformist notions of the Salifiyya modernist movement. Likewise in Indonesia,

though there was an attempt to suppress Abduh's writings by Dutch colonial authorities,

Al-Manar was a direct source of inspiration for the founding of the Muhammadijah

organization, Persatuan Islam, and later Sareket Islam, the major reformist groups in the

22

archipelago (Geertz 1960:124-126, Noer 1972:32, Federspiel 1970:11-46). 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 Salifiyya movement. Wahab had lived in Mecca for some time and eventually

became familiar with modernist Islamic tendencies. In Indonesia Wahab had been connected

with the Muhammadiya movement and its political counterpart Sareket Islam in Indonesia, and

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 1930's 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. Wahab's influence was

most immediately felt in the various Muslim communities of Bangkok, but later Muslims living

in urban centers outside of Bangkok such as Nakorn Sri Thammarat and

Songkhla began to become familiar with these ideas through contacts with his students.

Although Ahmad Wahab was responsible for the introduction of the Middle Eastern and

Southeast Asian versions of Islamic modernism to Bangkok, it was through his Thai Muslim

students and followers that these ideas were galvanized and translated into a bona fide religious

movement. One of the individuals deeply influenced 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

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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 acquainted 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 his native

language was Thai, and he was able to present reformist ideas to the Thai Muslims in a more

persuasive format within their own idiom.

By 1949, Qureyshi had completed his first of 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 hadith literature, he completed a massive four

volume Thai translation of the Qur‟an.5

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 Southeast Asian urban areas, steady improvements in communications, especially

printing, brought Thai Muslims into closer touch with centers of Islamic reformism in the Middle

24

East, South Asia, and other Islamic areas of Southeast 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, the sunnah, including authentic hadith. 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 taqlid or blind reverence to tradition (Scupin 1980b, 1980c,

Liow 2009, Yusuf 2007).

During the early twentieth century the reformist influence came to South Thailand

through Haji Sulong who received his early education in Kampung Sungei, Patani and then in

Mecca. He was exposed to the reformist ideas circulating within the Middle East through the

literature associated with Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida (Liow 2009). When Haji Sulong

returned to Patani he became very well-known for his reformist outlook and had a tremendous

influence on the Muslim communities. He was instrumental in reforming much of the

curriculum within the pondoks in South Thailand. Another reformist teacher from Indonesia

known by the name of Haji Abdullah who found 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 in South Thailand came from India

25

through Abdullah Chinarong who studied at Deoband, the famed Islamic religious academy that

initiated Islamic revivalism in British India and became a missionary group known as Tablighi

Jamaat. Abdullah Chinarong formed his own pondok in Yala, about twenty kilometers from

Patani. The reformist activities of Tablighi Jamaat in South Thailand has currently been

described by German anthropologist Alexander Horstmann (2007) and Dutch Islamic Studies

scholar Ernesto Braam (2006). A more recent form of Islamic reformism has developed in the

southern province of Yala by the charismatic leader Ismail Lutfi Japakiya, rector of the Yala

Islamic University. Born in Mecca, his family brought him to Thailand when he was six years

old. Lutfi learned Arabic and Islam through his father who had taught in Mecca. His father was

a tok guru in a private pondok in Pattani province. Provided with a scholarship to Madinah

University in Saudi Arabia, Lutfi completed a B.A., M.A. and PhD in Islamic Studies.

Returning to Thailand, he founded the Yala Islamic University. Although sometimes described

as a „Wahhabist,‟ Joseph Liow analyzed his corpus of writings carefully to demonstrate that he is

not a fundamentalist, Wahhabist, or radical-militant Muslim, but rather a reformist Muslim

(2009).

Within Thailand, with the growth of the reform movement, there developed two different

major 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 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 ritual feasts and the influences of animism,

26

Brahministic or Hindu-Buddhist merit-making rituals on Muslims. They differed with the

traditionalists over a variety of issues including the use of amulets, saint worship, death rites, and

other religious practices.

These factional alignments between the reformist and traditionalists have persisted in

articulating different forms of Islamic discourse, however, as education and alternative forms of

media have increased, and as more Muslims from Thailand have traveled to other Islamic areas

for education and jobs, the reformist-modernist movement has continued to have a definitive and

sometimes subtle influences on the Islamic tradition in Thailand. Gradually, forms of popular

Islam and commitment to communalistic rituals have been eroding as villages have 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 major sources of the new

Islamic movements stem from what has been referred to as the dawah religious trends which

have been growing in Thailand. At times, the dawah movement has often been described as a

form of Islamic fundamentalism. In actuality, the dawah movement represents multiple strands

of recent Islamic discourse within Thai society, some of which represent fundamentalist

tendencies. The major dawah movement, however, is an extended continuation of the earlier

reformist, or islah revivalist tendencies (Yusuf 1993, Scupin 1987, 2001). The dawah movement

has been conjoined with the reformist cause to spread what is believed to be the truly revealed

knowledge of Islam. Aside from the basic Qur‟anic meaning of dawah (a call to prayer or to

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preach), or an individual=s invocation of God for a special purpose, or a missionary intention,

the concept of dawah in the reformist or modernist Islamic discourse in Thailand refers to a

process of >interiorization. In this reformist notion, instead of reaching out to convert others

such as Buddhists, dawah 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 dawah leaders refer to the

Westernization of society or >Westoxification= as the adversarial aspects of modernity in Thai

society. In the

dawah movement in Thailand, Muslims are called on to devote their lives to improving the social

welfare of Muslims, rather than pursuing narrow self-interests. Dawah leaders are active in many

of the Islamic associations throughout Thailand. They promote the revitalization of Islamic

cultural and religious values and sponsor community activities. In addition, often the dawah

leadership calls for a Muslim-Buddhist dialogue and cooperation 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 dawah leadership read, translate, and interpret the

works of Sayyid Qutb, Muhammad Iqbal, Abdul Ala Maududi, Ali Shariati, Muhammad Asad,

and Hasan al-Turabi as well as other Southeast Asian Muslim leaders such as Anwar Ibrahim of

Malaysia and Abduhrahman Wahid of Indonesia to inspire themselves and their local

communities. Stimulated by these religious-political works, the dawah leadership has been

emphasizing human rights, justice and ethnic and religious dignity, and are attempting to

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mobilize their communities for economic and social development. In most respects the dawah

movement can be viewed as a perpetuation of Islamic reformist ideals and discourse in the

context of political developments among Muslims in Thailand.

CONTEMPORARY MUSLIM INTELLECTUALS IN THAILAND

A number of Muslim intellectuals have emerged since the 1980s and have had an

enormous influence on Islamic discourse and political activism within the public sphere in

Thailand. These Muslim intellectuals are situated within the development of new national and

transnational media and increasingly accessible forms of communication which include the

internet, fax, telephone, periodicals, magazines, audio-cassettes, radio and satellite television,

and a greater ease of travel that have played a significant role in fragmenting and contesting

political and religious authority throughout the Islamic world (Eickelman and Piscatori 2004). In

addition, to the new media and accessibility of communications, these Muslim intellectuals are

involved in governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), human rights groups,

Muslim women‟s rights groups, peace studies groups, and a wealth of other private Islamic

religious organizations that are budding along with „civil society‟ in Thailand. As these

contemporary Muslim intellectuals involve themselves in these local, national, and international

activities they stimulate new forms of Islamic discourse alongside Buddhist and secular discourse

in Thailand.

One influential Muslim intellectual who has contributed significantly to the public

sphere in Thailand is Chaiwat Satha-Anand, (Abdul Qadir Muheideen), an associate professor of

political science at Thammasat University in Bangkok. Chaiwat was born on January 25, 1955 in

the Bangrak district on Silom Road in Bangkok. Silom Road is associated with the Indian

29

community in Thailand. Chaiwat‟s father was involved as a merchant in the cloth and textile

trade between Surat, India and Thailand and settled in Thailand in the 1920s. His father was a

serious practitioner of the Indian Sufi tradition and because of his extensive travels he learned to

speak some 13 different languages including Chinese, Arabic, and English. Chaiwat‟s father

died when he was 12 years old. Chaiwat‟s mother was a native Thai Muslim woman whose

grandparents were from India and had married within the Thai community for generations.

Chaiwat‟s family was associated with the major Indian Muslim mosque in the Silom Road area,

Haroun mosque. However, Chaiwat attended a Catholic school, the prestigious Assumption

College for his primary and secondary education. His Islamic education was received part-time

through special tutors and he was introduced to Arabic, but also to the translation of the Qur‟an

into Thai. During his high school years at Assumption College, Chaiwat read Gandhi and also

some Buddhist intellectual writing of Sulak Sivaraksa and others. His views on non-violent

activism were kindled by these readings and he knew many members of the student association

for non-violence known as the Ahimsa group. After secondary school Chaiwat took his entrance

examinations for the university and scored among the top one percent of his graduating class. He

received a scholarship to attend Thammasat University in 1972.

At Thammasat University Chaiwat became recognized as an important student

intellectual. After October 14,1973 in which a massive popular uprising led by Thammasat

University students among others ousted the long-entrenched military dictatorship in Thailand

and inaugurated a civilian-led national government, Chaiwat became an activist student leader

and from 1974-75 he was the Vice-Chairman of the Student Council. These political activities

dovetailed with his studies of political philosophy with Professor Sombat Chantoronvong.

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Sombat introduced Chaiwat to the writings of the Plato, early Marx, as well as many other

political thinkers including the American conservative political philosopher Leo Strauss with

whom he had studied with in the U.S. Chaiwat began to translate the work of such thinkers such

as Mao Zedong and other political philosophers from English sources into Thai for students and

other interested parties. He graduated from Thammasat with a B.A. in Politics and Government

with first class honors in 1975. Chaiwat received the King Bhumiphol award for his excellence

in study at Thammasat.

The trajectory of Chaiwat‟s life changed dramatically when on October 6, 1976 a

bloody military coup occurred that overthrew the civilian government and resulted in gruesome

attacks at Thammasat University. The Thai military and other right wing groups launched a

frenzied invasion of the Thammasat University campus resulting in the beating, killing, and

burning of a number of university students. Some students were shot while others were doused

with gasoline and set on fire. Thousands of students fled into the countryside and rain forest to

escape the brutalities of this military takeover. Many others were arrested and spent considerable

time in prison for their political activism and opposition to the Thai military during the 1973-76

democratic period. Chaiwat was not arrested, but went through a considerable personal

transformation and crisis during the period of this turmoil. His non-violent philosophical

orientation was challenged dramatically by these horrific acts of cruelty towards his fellow

students and colleagues. Faced with increasing political criticism from rightist elements and his

own personal crisis, Chaiwat made a decision to study aboard for an advanced degree. He

applied for and received a scholarship from the East-West Center, which funded his study at the

University of Hawaii at Manoa where he spent 1977-1981 working toward his PhD in political

31

science.

At the University of Hawaii Chaiwat studied with Glenn D. Paige, a professor of

political science and Asian studies. Paige had been trained at Princeton and was well-known for

his work on the Korean War, but was also interested non-violent political alternatives. In a

critique of his own book The Korean Decision, June 24-30, 1950 in an essay called “On Value

and Science” published in the American Political Science Review, Paige argued that the war

might have been avoided with more peaceful negotiations. He had been a Korea War veteran

who had taken it upon himself to build his career campaigning for non-violent, peaceful

strategies in international affairs.vi This was a perfect intellectual match for Chaiwat‟s personal

and political sensibilities. Through Paige and other professors at University of Hawaii, Chaiwat

continued his studies of political philosophy. In addition, Chaiwat studied with the German

political scientist Manfred Henningsen, a student of Eric Voeglin and was exposed to Voeglin‟s

political thought and his intellectual relationship with Leo Strauss (Strauss 1994, McAllister

1996).

However, during this period in Hawaii, international political events in the Islamic

world stimulated a revitalization of Chaiwat‟s Muslim background. The Iranian revolution had

developed in 1978-79 and the seizure of the American embassy and the U.S. hostage crisis was a

topic of considerable discussion and debate among the students in Hawaii. Amidst these

discussions Chaiwat found that many of the American students maintained Orientalist

stereotypes of the Islamic world. He began to meet with other Muslim students on campus as a

means to help correct these misrepresentations. Chaiwat joined the Muslim Student Association

and eventually became the secretary of this organization. Through reading groups in this

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organization, Chaiwat began to become more familiar with Ali Shariati, the Iranian sociologist

who combined Marxist approaches such as Franz Fanon‟s work with the Shia tradition, along

with Syed Qutb, Ali Maududi, Muhammad Arkoun, Syed Hossein Nasr, and other contemporary

Islamic political philosophers. Chaiwat studied Arabic with a Libyan student and also re-read the

classical Islamic philosophers such as Al-Ghazali. Other students including Palestinians,

Sudanese, and Afghans were part of this association. Chaiwat synthesized this renewal of his

Islamic religious sensibilities along with his Gandhian and post-Gandhian non-violent

philosophical orientation while in Hawaii. Eventually, he developed a remarkably unique

philosophical standpoint which was expressed in his PhD dissertation entitled The Nonviolent

Prince, an original interpretation of the non-violent aspects of Machiavelli‟s political philosophy.

His dissertation was nominated by the Department of Political Science for consideration for the

International Dissertation Award

Chaiwat experiences in U.S. society had an effect on his personal and political life. In

the winter of 1981 he took a month long Greyhound bus trip from Anaheim across the country to

New York where he stayed with a Thai professor at Cornell University. He met many

Americans from all walks of life on this journey. Unlike many other contemporary Muslim

thinkers who resided in America during the tumultuous 1960s, 70s, and 80s he did not think that

the U.S. was in a state of moral decline. Instead, Chaiwat reflected on the political conditions

that had created a representative democracy that emphasized personal freedom and how it

contrasted strongly with his experience of Thai politics especially in respect to the violence and

repression of the military coup of 1976.

While at the University of Hawaii Chaiwat met and later married fellow student

33

Suwanna Wongwaisayawan who has become an internationally known scholar of Asian

philosophy and professor at Chulalongkorn University. Chaiwat was appointed as an assistant

professor at Thammasat University in 1982. From that base he has been both an active scholar

and a political activist who is involved in applying his principles of non-violent strategies in

many aspects of both domestic and international affairs in Thailand. As a scholar, Chaiwat has

produced an enormous body of scholarly works in both Thai and English including the

translation of The Federalist Papers, and the authored books Islam and Violence: A Case Study

of Violent Events in the Four Southern Provinces of, Thailand, 1976-81, and Islam and the

Quest of Social Science. He co-authored the book Islam and Nonviolence with his former

professor Glenn Paige and co-authored another with his wife, Suwanna Satha-Anand entitled

Struggling Dove and Plastic Lotus: Peacemaking in Thai Society. In a book entitled Islam and

Violence: A Case Study of Violent Events in the Four Southern Provinces, Thailand, 1976-1981

published by the Department of Religious Studies at the University of South Florida in 1987,

Chaiwat draws on the French theorist Michel Foucault and the sociological tradition of Schutz,

Berger, and Luckman to combine an “archaeological” and “phenomenological” study of violence

in South Thailand. This theoretical work marked the emergence of a distinctive merger between

the continental philosophical developments and the indigenous Muslim and post-Gandhian

traditions espoused by Chaiwat (Scupin 1990). Chaiwat has published many recent essays and

chapters in books on non-violence such as “Crossing the Enemy‟s Line: Helping the Others in

Violent Situations as Nonviolent Action” and “9/11, 9/20 and Gandhi‟s Puzzle: Fighting

Postmodern Terror/Modern Warfare with Peaceful Alternatives.” He has also written

extensively on Islamic issues and ethnicity in Thailand. Chaiwat is also adjunct professor at the

34

International University of People‟s Institutions for Peace, Rovereto, Italy. Throughout all of his

scholarly works and teaching he has emphasized his non-violent orientation along with his

Islamic cultural and religious experience (Kersten 2005, Scupin 2005).

The political activism of Chaiwat is demonstrated by his participation in wide-ranging

NGOs and memberships in many associations dealing with non-violent strategies. Currently, he

is the director of Peace Information Center, the Vice President of the Foundation for Child

Development, which does work on behalf of poor children in the Northeast of Thailand, the Vice

President of the National Commission on Non-Violence Strategy for the National Security

Council of Thailand, and was an interlocutor in a highly popular talk show TV program as well

as radio programs. Formerly, Chaiwat was a member of the Subcommittee on Peace and Human

Rights for the Ministry of Education, in addition to membership on various governmentally

sponsored committees that attempted to resolve conflict between the Burmese and Thais over gas

pipeline constructions and conflicts between the poor and the Electricity Generating Authority of

Thailand. Aside from these political activist organizations, Chaiwat was also the Associate

Director of the prestigious Thai Khadai Research Insitute at Thammasat that oversaw the

publication of many books and the President of the Social Science Association of Thailand in the

from 1995-1997. From 1994-1995 he was appointed Vice President for Academic Affairs at

Thammasat. All of these scholarly and political activities have enabled him to participate

directly in an influential manner in the public sphere in Thailand.

Another influential Muslim intellectual and activist participating in the public sphere

in contemporary Thailand is Surin Pitsuwan (Abdul Halim bin Ismail). Surin was born on

October 28,1949 in a rural area in Nakorn Sri Thammarat, a province located in South Thailand

35

that contains a population of 1.5 million people with approximately a seven percent Muslim

minority. His grandfather on his mother‟s side went to Mecca to study for some ten years. He

was forced to return to Thailand because of the outbreak of World War II. At about the same

time, Surin‟s father had to abandon his studies in Patani because of the Japanese invasion of

South Thailand. His grandfather and father met in Nakorn Sri Thammarat and established a new

pondok. Tok Guru Haji Ya‟kob bin Abdul Ra‟uf Pitsuwan and a novice Ismail bin Haji Kasim

formed the nucleus of this pondok, which became a famed Muslim school in Nakorn Sri

Thammarat. Surin‟s mother was the eldest daughter of Haji Ya‟kob. His father was adopted

into the Tok Guru’s family and took the name Pitsuwan. When Surin was two years old his

father was sent by Haji Ya‟kob to study the Islamic sciences in Mecca for some 16 years. His

mother left for Mecca in 1957 and spent nine years studying along side his father. While his

parents were abroad, Surin was cared for by his grandfather and other relatives. During his

primary education Surin was exposed to both the Islamic and Buddhist curricula. He attended a

government primary school located in a Buddhist temple. Surin would wake up for morning

prayers and rituals within the Muslim tradition and later in the day attend schools where he

learned the Buddhist rituals and religious ideals. While he attended secondary school there were

U.S. Peace Corp volunteers teaching English near Nakorn Sri Thammarat. At that time, Surin

aspired to become a District Officer in his region in order to help stimulate economic

development in Nakorn Sri Thammarat. As widely understood in Thailand, the study of English

was one of the most practical means to gain access to higher education in Thailand. The

religious experiences and education in both Islamic and Buddhist traditions and the study of

English opened up avenues for opportunities to Surin that were highly unusual for Muslims of

36

his age in the outlying rural provinces in Thailand.

With the outbreak of the Vietnam War, Surin developed a strong personal desire to

study abroad to gain a global perspective on international politics. An educational opportunity

was offered for him to participate in the AFS program to attend high school in the U.S. In 1967

he left Thailand to attend high school in the small town of Rushford, Minnesota. Surin lived

with a Lutheran family and attended Lutheran services every Sunday becoming familiar with the

Christian tradition. He attended the Lutheran Sunday School studies group and furthered his

knowledge regarding the Christian interpretations of Isa (Jesus). While attending high school

Surin became involved in public speaking and the debate club. He participated in various debate

tournaments and in 1968 won gold medals at local, district, and regional, competitions and won a

silver medal at the statewide competitions in the Twin Cities with a speech combining John

Donne‟s “No Man is an Island” with political reflections on the Vietnam War. The challenges

within these debate tournaments suited Surin‟s inclinations for developing his intellectual and

rhetorical capacities.

After completing his high school education in the U.S. Surin returned to Thailand to

attend Thammasat University. He studied with political scientist Saneh Chamarik who

introduced him to human rights research in Thailand. Saneh is now Chair of the National Human

Rights Commission in Thailand. Through Saneh Surin was exposed to classical political

philosophy and modern political theory. With Saneh‟s support he won the Frank Bell Appleby

fellowship to complete his junior and senior years at Claremont Men‟s College in California.

During 1970-72 he studied at Claremont and received his B.A. (Cum Laude). While at

Claremont he studied with Harry Jaffa, a student of Leo Strauss, and was introduced to the

37

Straussian tradition of political theory. For his senior thesis Surin compared Islamic political

theory with different aspects of Western political theory. Jaffa encouraged Surin to apply to

Harvard‟s graduate program to study with an Iraqi intellectual, Muhsin Mahdi, a friend of Jaffa‟s,

who was using a Straussian approach to study Islamic classical political theory. Prior to

attending Harvard, Surin toured Europe to explore what he had read about in his years at

Claremont. In addition, he toured the Middle East including a trip to Jerusalem, Amman, Cairo,

and also to Mecca to experience first hand what had inspired his parents and to examine his own

spiritual roots.

At Harvard from 1972-78 Surin studied with a number of political theorists such as the

liberal Michael Walzer and the conservative Straussians such as Mahdi and Harvey Mansfield.

However he also became connected with anthropologists Nur Yalman who did ethnography on

Muslim populations in Turkey and Stanley Tambiah who was working on Buddhist issues and

Thai culture. During this period, he also spent two years at the American University in Cairo on

a Rockefeller fellowship in the Institute of Higher Council for Islamic Affairs to further his

knowledge of Islamic political theory and to study Arabic. Eventually, Surin decided to write his

PhD thesis on Islam in South Thailand. He noted that no one up to that time period had

completed a sufficient understanding of this important region of Thailand. He selected

Tambiah, Yalman, and Mahdi for his PhD committee, as well as the outside reader Benedict

Anderson at Cornell. From 1977 until 1980 he was a researcher for the Human Rights Studies

Program, Thai Studies Institute and the Ford Foundation at Thammasat University. Surin

returned to Thammasat University to lecture and work on his thesis. Surin‟s PhD thesis entitled

Islam and Malay Nationalism: A Case Study of the Malay-Muslims of Southern Thailand was

38

eventually published by Thai Khadi Research Institute at Thammasat University in 1985 and has

been recognized as a seminal contribution to a cultural and historical understanding of the

Muslims of South Thailand (Scupin 1988b 1988c). The book has been translated into Indonesian

and has been widely read and consulted on the subject of Islam in the Malay archipelago.

While lecturing at Thammasat Surin became a correspondent and political analyst for the

journal, ASEAN Forecast, a columnist for the Nation Review, and an advisor for the United

Nations Funds for Population Activities. After completing his PhD in 1982, he married his wife

Alisa in 1983. Shortly thereafter, Surin was invited by the American Political Science

Association in Washington D.C. to work as a legislative assistant to congresswoman Geraldine

Ferraro from 1983-84. In 1984, Ferraro joined the Democratic ticket as the Vice Presidential

candidate and Surin was heavily involved in helping prepare analyses and presentations to

various ethnic groups in New York and elsewhere based on polling. He drew on the information

from the data bases from Ferraro‟s Washington Congressional office and was exposed to the

state-of-the-art technology for political campaigning. The excitement of the political process and

campaigning led Surin in the direction of furthering his own political career in Thailand. When

he returned to Thailand he became active in the Democrat Party (Prachthipat) and served first as

an advisor to the Minister of Education. The Democrat Party was one of the oldest political

parties in Thailand with roots in the royalist factions after World War II. However, the party had

a strong base in southern Thailand, especially among the Muslim population.

Eventually, in the 1980s and 90s southerners led by Chuan Leekpai began to dominate the

Democrat Party. From that southern political base, in 1986 Surin was elected to the Thai

parliament as the Democrat Party candidate from Nakorn Sri Thammarat. The Democrat Party

39

was recognized as the political party of the young educated technocrats, cosmopolitans, and

neoliberals who wanted to reform the traditionally corrupt chao pho (patronage) politics of

Thailand. A political transformation was taking place in Thailand with these new reformist

leaders beginning to displace the conservative bureaucratic patronage networks of an older

regime (Phongpaichit and Baker, 2000).

As one of the rising stars of the Democrat Party, Surin‟s adept political style and

communication abilities led him to quickly become the Secretary of the Speaker of the House. In

1988 he became Assistant Secretary to the Minster of Interior and a member of the House

Committee on Foreign Affairs. From 1992-95 he was Deputy Foreign Minister and when

Chuan‟s government returned to power in late 1997, he was appointed Minister of Foreign

Affairs. Prior to this appointment, Surin continued with his political analysis in columns in the

Thai press and the English edition of the Bangkok Post, and also published a number of scholarly

articles regarding Islamic issues within Thailand. As Minister of Foreign Affairs Surin was able

to reach out and establish friendships with Arab and Muslim leaders in many Islamic countries,

something that may have been more difficult to do for many politicians in Thailand with a

Buddhist background. However, his Islamic, Buddhist, and Western education proved to be

highly beneficial in his political negotiations with foreign leaders from many different regions of

the world. Surin‟s renowned leadership skills were put to good use when he assumed the

Chairmanship of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) between1999-2000.

Following the election of Taksin Shinawatra‟s Thai Rak Party in 2001 Surin was active as

a member of the Commission on Human Security, a member of the Advisory Board of the

International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, and a member of the World

40

Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization all connected with the United Nations.

Despite being linked with the Democrat Party, the major political opposition to Thaksin‟s Thai

Rak Party, Surin was supported by Taksin in his nomination to become the Human Rights

Commissioner for the United Nations. He was also being promoted as the successor of Kofi

Annan at the UN. His ability to gain respect across party lines has made him an extremely

influential Thai politician in the formation of international policies. Surin has been actively

speaking in many international forums around the world. One of the most important topics

addressed since the events of 9/11 and the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq is whether

there is a democratic future in the Islamic world. Surin draws on his background as a Muslim in

a Buddhist majority country to address this issue. He argues that the history of the Islamic

tradition that is rooted within the Judaeo-Christian world view that translated the Greek

philosophers and produced texts on medicine, astronomy, and philosophy which flowed into the

Renaissance, the industrial revolution and the age of the Enlightenment can indeed be

democratic. Surin advances the thesis that the Southeast Asian form of Islam in Malaysia and

Indonesia is more open to democracy and modernity than the Middle East which is dominated by

those who prefer Wahhabism or other forms of authoritarian Islam ( Pitsuwan 2003). Southeast

Asian Islam had to become more flexible, adaptable, and moderate because of the earlier forms

of Hinduism, Buddhism, and indigenous spiritual and cultural beliefs and practices such as

freedom and equality for women that preceded Islam. Surin advocates the development of

Islamic centers of democratic studies that can yoke together the best ideals and practices from the

West along with moderate and democratic forms of Islam in Southeast Asia to serve as a model

for the rest of the Islamic world in this era of globalization (2003, 2008). He emphasized these

41

positions as a trustee of the Asia Foundation, a member of the board of the International Crisis

Group (ICG), a member of the Advisory Board of the UNDP‟s Human Development Report for

2003 and 2005, and as a member of the International Advisory Board of the Oxford Centre for

Islamic Studies, Oxford University.

Because of his enormous political popularity and ability to work with many different

factions within Thailand and in Southeast Asia, in June 2007 Surin was nominated by the Thai

cabinet to be the Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). He

was confirmed by the ASEAN foreign ministers in July 2007 and succeeded Ong Keng Yong

from Singapore. Normally, ASEAN Secretary-Generals are senior regional officials who are

appointed from non-political circles. In contrast, Surin has been a prominent politician and

human rights activist in Southeast Asia. In his role as Secretary-General of ASEAN he is

described as a bridge to the West and the East and also a bridge between Islam and Buddhism in

Southeast Asia.

One of the intriguing aspects of both Surin and Chaiwat‟s political and intellectual

developments is the role of the Straussian intellectuals in their educational background. Leo

Strauss is considered a thinker who produced many disciples who developed the ideals that

shaped the emergence of the neo-conservative movement associated with Irving Kristol of the

1980s of the Reagan administration and Paul Wolfowitz of the past Bush administration. Neo-

conservative intellectuals such as the late Allan Bloom have espoused Straussian philosophical

and political ideals. Harry Jaffa with whom Surin studied under at Claremont was a student of

Strauss and as mentioned above the Thai political scientist Sombat Chantoronvong, who

influenced both Chaiwat and Surin was a Straussian. Yet, Chaiwat and Surin are linked with a

42

more “liberal” orientation within the Thai political scenario. Both explain that Strauss and

Jaffa‟s philosophical premises were important in forging their democratic ideals within the

context of the domination of the military and rightist authoritarian politics in Thailand. The

Straussians are adamant about the expansion of liberal and democratic regimes throughout the

world. In their interpretative reading of Strauss, Surin and Chaiwat have both encouraged these

democratic, liberal ideals and institutions within Thailand and other areas of the world.

In addition to the liberal democratic ideals of Strauss, Surin and Chaiwat were also

influenced by the religious and spiritual aspects of the Straussian tradition that were prominent

within the writings of Harry Jaffa and Muhsin Mahdi, the Iraqi intellectual and friend of Jaffa. In

their writings all of these thinkers emphasized the role of both reason and revelation in their

political philosophy. In their view absolute faith and modern rationalism had both resulted in

negative consequences for humanity. Absolute faith had led to the union of altar and throne and

the Inquisition, whereas modern rationalism, with its rejection of biblical faith resulted in the

Jacobins, the Bolsheviks, the Nazis, and other ills of modernity (Jaffa 1994, 1999, Strauss 1953).

Both Athens as a representation of critical inquiry in the Socratic tradition and Jerusalem

expressing the moral corpus of monotheism had to become the basis of constitutional

democracies that shaped the character of their citizens by the free and un-coerced dissemination

of ideals and virtues. This merger of religious and political ideals appealed to these intellectuals

inspired by their Islamic faith. In addition, the radical critique of moral and cultural relativism

which is at the heart of the Straussian program inspired these Muslim intellectuals in their

criticism of moral nihilism that was sometimes engendered by the process of modernization and

secularism (Khan 2003).

43

Hasan Madmarn is another intellectual who has a much different background and cultural

experience than Chaiwat and Surin, but has had widespread influence within the Muslim political

and religious sphere especially within South Thailand. Hasan was born on June 9, 1941 in the

province of Phattalung is the kampong Ban Ta Keng, a rural community which is about two

hours from the nearest town of Songkla. Hasan‟s parents and grandparents were pious Muslims

who wanted him to pursue a full-scale Islamic education. His grandmother and parents taught

him to read the Qur‟an in Arabic. Although his early education was in the Thai language-based

elementary schools until the fifth grade, later Hasan attended the pondok school under the

influence of the well-known Tok Guru Abdul Ghani, a leading Islamic scholar trained in

Kelantan, Malaysia. Abdul Ghani was well-versed in the Arabic language and Hasan learned the

language of the Qur‟an in addition to Malay, Jawi (the Malay written script for religious and

historical texts), and Thai. For high school, he attended a private Islamic school where he

continued his Muslim studies along with the study of English. Through his studies Hasan

developed a deep appreciation of literary forms in Arabic, Malay, and English. In 1965 Hasan

received a scholarship to study at the well known Al Azhar University in Cairo. He focused on

the study of literature in both Arabic and English. Hasan found that the textual analysis of

Arabic literature enabled him to transfer his literary analysis of Western poetry, literature, and

drama found in English texts. When he returned to Thailand in 1970, Hasan began to learn how

to translate both Arabic and English texts into Thai and Malay. He joined the Faculty of

Education at the University based in Pattani to continue teaching Arabic and English to Thai,

Chinese, and Malay students. From 1982-83 he lectured in a university in Indonesia teaching

both Arabic and Malay literature. However, Hasan believed that he needed much more exposure

44

to the literature in English. In 1984 he was accepted into the Islamic Studies program at Temple

University. Yet, he found that he could not pursue his interests in literature, drama, and poetry

there. Therefore, he transferred to the University of Utah where he became a student of Lois

Giffen, an expert in Arabic literature in the Department of Languages and Literature. Though

Hasan continued with his literary studies, he (like Surin), believed that he could make an

innovative contribution to understanding his own understudied community by focusing on the

development of Islamic education in South Thailand. He produced his 1990 PhD dissertation

entitled “Traditional Muslim Institutions in Southern Thailand: A Critical Study of Islamic

Education and Arabic Influence in the Pondok and Madrasah Systems of Pattani under the

guidance of Giffen.

Upon returning to Pattani Hasan had the prerequisite intellectual experience and language

skills to become the director of the newly developed College of Islamic Studies at the Prince of

Songkla University in 1989. The College of Islamic Studies offers the Bachelor of Arts in

Islamic Law, Islamic Studies and Arabic, Islamic Education and a Masters of Arts in Islamic

Studies, which provides students with the necessary background to teach in the pondoks or for

further doctoral study in Arab, Western, or other Southeast Asian countries. Hasan describes

himself as a product of South Thailand‟s educational program and as a conservative who wants

to retain the local Jawi literature and Islamic traditions while simultaneously reforming and

adapting the Muslim educational institutions to the globalizing process (Horstmann 2002). He

wants to ensure that the evolution of the old-style pondok to a more modernized reformist form

of the Madrasah is in line with the educational and religious developments within the Islamic

world. Hasan has been active in the politics and religious-intellectual developments within

45

South Thailand‟s dakwah movement and is the one of the major contacts between Malaysia and

Indonesian Islamic intellectuals, and religious and political leaders and Thailand. His role as an

important cultural broker between the Thai government and Muslims in South Thailand and

Southeast Asian Muslims is widely recognized. He has published widely in Malay, Thai, and

English. His major book in English, The Pondok & Madrasah in Patani published in 2002 is

recognized as a seminal contribution to understanding the historical change and developments in

education among Muslims in South Thailand.

Aside from these three key Muslim intellectual leaders, there are a number of others

who play a significant role in the public sphere in Thailand. One Muslim woman, Professor

Sawvanee Jitmoud, is an intellectual and political activist widely known throughout Thailand.

She was born and resides in the same house near the Nurulmubin mosque in the Bangkok Noi

area in Dhonburi, across the Chao Phraya river from Bangkok. The Bangkok Noi area is a well-

known area where many Indian and Iranian Muslims live, some of whom are members of the

Shia tradition. However, Sawvanee is from the Thai Muslim community whose ancestors came

with the relocation of Malay Muslims to the Bangkok area during the nineteenth century. A

graduate of Chulalongkorn University she is a member of the Faculty of Anthropology and

Sociology at Rajabhat Institute based in Dhonburi. Sawanee has authored some 16 books in Thai

dealing with the history, ethnicity, and religion of Muslims in Thailand. In addition to her

historical and anthropological studies of Islam in Thailand, she is very active in promoting

economic, social, and health developments especially among Muslim women in Bangkok and

elsewhere in Thailand. For example, she is the chair of the committee that promotes the

education about and prevention of AIDs among Muslim women. Recently, since 9/11 and the

46

rise of distorted images about Islam throughout the world and in Thailand, Sawanee has been

involved in the study of the Thai media and has consulted with the Religious Committee of the

National Assembly to promote more accurate information about Islam in the media.

The former Professor of Sociology at Chulalongkorn University and Director of the

Center for Islamic Studies Arong Suthasasna (Muslim name, Harun Kahond) is also widely

regarded as an important Muslim intellectual in Thailand. Arong was born into a humble family

with nine siblings in a small village near Pattani in 1941. Although his native language is Malay,

he attended the Thai language-based elementary schools in Pattani. Later, Arong studied Arabic

and Jawi in the pondok schools. He was the first in his family to go to Bangkok for education

and attended a pre-university and eventually was accepted into Thammasat University in the

Social Welfare department. While at Thammasat, Arong lived in the Muslim community of Ban

Krua in Bangkok and was active in the Muslim Students Association. He read the works of

classical and contemporary Islamic philosophers and religious thinkers. Through a Rockefeller

Foundation grant Arong went to Indiana University for his M.A. degree in Sociology and then to

the University of Illinois to study for his doctorate with sociologist Norman Jacobs who had just

completed his neo-Weberian study of Thailand called Modernization Without Development:

Thailand as an Asian Case Study in 1971. Under Jacob‟s supervision, Arong‟s PhD thesis

focused on the elite, education, and development in Thai society. After returning to Thailand in

1973 to become a professor of sociology at Chulalongkorn University, Arong concentrated his

scholarly activities on understanding the Muslims in South Thailand and the political problems

they have had with the Thai government. Prior to his establishment of the Center for Islamic and

Middle Eastern studies at Chulalongkorn, he spent two years at the Institute of Southeast Asian

47

Studies in Singapore doing research on Islamic issues. Because of his unique background as a

Muslim from South Thailand, Arong became an influential advisor and educator on Islamic

issues for the Thai military and police.

All of these contemporary Muslim intellectuals discussed above and many others have

been committed to the reformist, moderate forms of Islamic discourse in Thailand. They have all

expressed their concerns over the more radical, extremist, and militant forms of Islamic discourse

that is sometimes heard within the public sphere in Thailand and elsewhere in the Islamic world.

As is indicated in the beginning of this essay, Islam in Thailand has not completely escaped the

forms of militant anti-Western, Wahhabi-inspired, and anti-Semitic attitudes that has penetrated

global Muslim discourse and ideology. For example, recently Henry Ford‟s 1920 discussions

about the “The International Jew” and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion have been translated

into Thai and are circulated among some of the Muslim activists. Yet, the contemporary

Muslim intellectuals and activists discussed above have courageously opposed these atavistic

tendencies and continue to express their dissent and publicly distancing themselves from these

extremist forms of discourse. These scholar-activists have employed their media-savvy skills to

educate, moderate, reform, and openly challenge militant expressions of Islamic discourse within

the Muslim communities and attempt to correct the essentialist portrayals of Muslims by the

mainstream media in Thailand. As they continue to enhance the democratic processes in

Thailand, and deconstruct the facile stereotypes of Islam, these Muslim intellectuals will

undoubtedly be competing with other local sources of authority. One can only hope that their

voices and aspirations will not be smothered by less thoughtful, superficial understandings of

Islam and the West.

48

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1 John Funston Southern Thailand: The Dynamics of Conflict. Policy Studies 50. Washington

D.C.: East-West Center Washington, 2008.

2. Chaiwat Satha-Anand “FACING THE DEMON WITHIN:

Fighting Violence Southern Thailand with Peace Cultures,” Peace Information Center,

Foundation for Democracy and Development Studies, Thammasat University. Bangkok Post

January, 2004.

3 “Southern Unrest: Thaksin tells the world to back off.” The Nation, May 2, 2004.

4 The term khaek is discussed in Chavivun Prachuabmoh‟s The Role of Women in Maintaining

Ethnic Identity and Boundaries: A Case of Thai-Muslims (The Malay Speaking Group) in

Southern Thailand. PhD dissertation, University of Hawaii, 1980. Prachuabmoh found that the

term khaek did have a very negative, pejorative meaning for Muslims in South Thailand. For an

etymological understanding of the term khaek, see A.V.N. Diller AIslam and Southern Thai

Ethnic Reference,@ in A.D.W. Forbes (ed.) The Muslims of Thailand: Historical and Cultural

Studies, Vol. 1 Bihar, India, 1988.

5 Presently there are four Thai translations of the Qur‟an, all written by Thai Muslims. Aside

from Ibrahim Qureyshi=s translation, another translation was completed by a former

Chularajmontri, Tuan Suannarsard. The translation by the former Chularajmontri was supported

and financed by the Thai royal family. Another translation was completed by Marwan Sama Oon

and Barkat Siamwalla. And a recent translation was done by a group called AThe Committee of

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the Former Thai Students of the Islamic seminaries in the Arab World.@

vi Glenn D. Paige‟s most recent book is entitled Nonkilling Global Political Science,

Philadelphia: Xlibris Corporation, 2002, which emphasizes the use of non-violent political

strategies in international politics.