Is
Malaysia
An
Islamic Nation?
By Mohd Nazim Ganti Shaari, Lecturer of Law, Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM)
Many writers argue that Malaysia
is not an Islamic State. The premise of
their argument rests on the Reid Commision Report of 1957 which stated
that the Malay Rulers themselves were
not in favour of inserting a provision in
the Constitution to declare Islam as the
religion of the Federation. While the
historical basis of this argument is correct, it is certainly strange to extend it
by saying, “therefore this Federation
can never be an Islamic State” since a
Constitution must reflect the current
wishes of its people rather than be dictated by the wishes of the people in its
past. On the other hand, there are also
many writers who argue that Malaysia
is an Islamic State since the Constitution
expressly states that Islam is the religion
of the Federation. This is also problematic since the meaning and scope of an
“Islamic state” is non-existent in the
Constitution. There is therefore conflict
between these two arguments.
A related problem is that Article 4
of the Federal Constitution states that
the Constitution is “the supreme law of
the Federation” and any law