Singapore Muslims: The Quest for Identity in a Modern City-State

Abstract

The plight of ethno-religious minorities the world over can be meaningfully appraised by reference to the political context and circumstances within which such minorities operate. These include factors such as a country's history and religious demography, the state of majority-minority relations, geo-politics, the extent of development and modernization, and governmental policies. Thus, when one studies the case of Singapore's principal religious minority group, the Muslims, these imperatives need to be understood, if not appreciated. Studying the state of affairs of Singapore's Muslim community (the majority of whom are ethnic Malays) can perhaps also offer some insights about the relative impact of modernization and globalization upon ethno-religious, particularistic tendancies, and how modern multi-ethnic states today go about balancing competing minority ethno-religious pulls on the one hand, and forging a common national identity and consciousness, on the other. This paper highlights some salient features of Singapore's Muslim minority, including their socio-economic challenges and goes on to discuss their autonomous attempts to preserve and promote their ethno-religious identity in secular, modern Singapore. In spite of constituting only about a quarter of the total population, the case of the Muslim Malays receives added significance given their constitutional position as the indigenous people of Singapore, and the Republic's location in the Malay-Muslim world of South-east Asia.