JULY 27 — The Chinese community is of late engrossed with developments on the sex bloggers and eating in a school changing room while in Malay society, it’s the beauty pageant involving four Muslim women.

These four young women all hail from Eurasian families, part Malay and part western lineages. Perhaps because of that these four are relatively more open-minded than their peers.

They took part in Miss World Malaysia pageant, and all of them made it to the final 20.

The question is, Malaysia has had a fatwa banning Muslim women from taking part in beauty contests as early as the 1990s.

In Malaysia, a fatwa is a kind of decision or verdict by a mufti enjoying official status on whether certain behaviours are in compliance with Islamic teachings, and the same verdict is legally binding.

These four young women’s behaviour was seen as contravening the religious fatwa, and they could face jail sentence once convicted in a syariah court.

They immediately came under harsh criticisms by religious clerics, and from the reports and analyses in the Malay media, it could be deduced that they are generally censured by Malay society which feels they have acted against the religious teachings and not in conformity with Malay customs.

They were subsequently disqualified by the organisers after the incident came into national limelight. Actions were mulled against them by the religious department.

Only a feeble voice would go against the overwhelming tide to speak up for the women.

The more liberal Sisters in Islam claimed that a fatwa should be a kind of religious view or proposal that should not be made into a law against the public.

The Sisters in Islam instantly found themselves under merciless assault, and the religious department threatened sanctions against the organisation.

The incident has somewhat come to a close with the women now out of the race and having apologised.

As a matter of fact, this incident has allowed the non-Muslim society, in particular the Chinese community, to gain a glimpse into the mainstream value system of Muslims in Malaysia.

Beauty pageants couldn’t have been more commonplace to most Chinese Malaysians, but in Muslim society, they are a taboo.

Although the Miss World Malaysia was done without the glaring bikinis, only sarung covering the body in its stead, and the fact that the Miss World grand final will be held in Indonesia with more than 10 times as many Muslims as here and other countries with predominantly Muslim populations such as Turkey are active participants in the pageant, the Islamic inclination in Malaysia could be more conservative than in many other Muslim countries.

I asked a few Islamic scholars whether the campaign against political Islamisation in Egypt and Turkey could happen in Malaysia, and was given a flat negative answer for the simple reason that Malaysian Muslims are more devout to their religion and they will only demand more Islamisation.

The marriage between nationalism and religious fundamentalism has moulded a unique identity in this country, and such an identity has expanded the political and social forces of Malay society.

The same forms the mainstream ideology of Malay society that penetrates into every aspect from beauty pageants to politics. Understanding this, we should get a deeper insight into Malay society. — mysinchew.com

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malay Mail Online.