SHARIAH COMPLIANCE EFFORTS AND APPROACHES IN MALAYSIAN ARMED FORCES ORGANISATION BY KOR AGAMA ANGKATAN TENTERA (KAGAT)

Abstract

The inculcation of Islamic values in administration was a policy introduced by the Government of Malaysia by the then Prime Minister, Dato Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad. This policy was a continuation of undertaken government efforts such as establishment of various Islam-based organisations and fortification of the then Division of Islamic Affairs in The Prime Ministers Department. In line with that, organisations under the Malaysian Armed Forces or Angkatan Tentera Malaysia (ATM) also undertook efforts towards inculcation of Islamic values in their respective organisations to erode influences of British army which are in contradiction to Malay and Islamic traditions. Establishment of Kor Agama Angkatan Tentera Malaysia (KAGAT or the Malaysian Armed Forces Religious Corps) in 1985 was one of the efforts towards conformance to shariah in the Malaysian Armed Forces. The objective of this study is to explore KAGATs efforts to fulfil the requirements of shariah compliance in organisations under ATM. Apart from that, it is an objective of this research to study undertaken approaches to implement conformance to shariah in ATM. This qualitative study employed a bibliographic research method and document reviews as a method for data accumulation while a thematic analysis method was used to analyse the data. Findings showed that efforts of shariah conformance were effectively implemented using suitable approaches. Shariah compliance had increased bringing about good impacts towards the success of KAGAT in dakwah in a continuous and more holistic manner in building a credible Malaysian Armed Forces which have a strong fighting capability as well as formidable spirituality. This study fills a gap in the literature on the aspects of shariah compliance and methods used by ATM as such studies have not been much explored by previous researchers.