Full Description
How do Islamic courts work? What sorts of cultural understandings inform judicial process and litigants' strategies? How do women's claims fare? Do these courts promote social tolerance? And how do states use them to consolidate power, build nations and shape a modern citizenry? These are among the questions addressed in this book, which not only enhances our understanding of diversity among and within the world's Muslim communities, but also provides ethnographic, historical and transnational perspectives on contemporary Islam in the shifting landscape of a strategically important region of the world. Focusing on Malaysia, which has sustained more rapid development than probably any other Muslim nation, Michael Peletz explores the culture, political economy and history of Islamic courts. He demonstrates that they are centrally involved in the creation and policing of new Malay-Muslim identities (such as middle-class urban dwellers) that the state sees as the basis for a national polity that will be highly competitive. He also shows how and why Islamic courts are key sites in struggles involving ethnic and religious groups, social classes, political parties, and others with a major
Contents
LIST OF MAPS ix LIST OF TABLES xi FOREWORD xiii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xv NOTE ON SPELLING, TERMINOLOGY, AND CURRENCY xix INTRODUCTION 1 Background and Context Methods PART ONE: THE CULTURE, POLITICAL ECONOMY, AND HISTORY OF THE ISLAMIC COURTS 23 CHAPTER ONE: Locating Islamic Magistrates and Their Courts in History 25 Islamic Magistrates, Islamic Courts, and Islamic Law through the 1830s Colonial Representations of Islamic Magistrates and Their Courts, 1840s-1880s The Reorganization and Rationalization of the Courts, 1890s-1980s CHAPTER TWO: The Work of the Courts 64 Background and Setting Domains and Jurisdictions Operations The Cultural Logic of Judicial Process CHAPTER THREE: Litigant Strategies and Patterns of Resistance 128 Women's Strategies and Experiences Men's Strategies and Experiences Patterns of Resistance and Oppositional Discourses PART TWO: MODERNITY AND GOVERNMENTALITY IN ISLAMIC COURTS AND OTHER DOMAINS 193 CHAPTER FOUR: Reinscribing Authenticity and Identity 195 What's There and What's Not: The Said, the Unsaid, and the Unwritten Reinscribing Authenticity and Identity Rationalization and Resistance Revisited CHAPTER FIVE: Producing Good Subjects, "Asian Values," and New Types of Criminality 239 A Note on Gender Pluralism, Transgender Practices, and the Long Duree Narratives of "Asian Values" and the Rise of Social Intolerance New Types of Criminality: Azizah, Anwar, and Beyond CONCLUSION: Islam, Modernity, and Civil Society 277 Kinship Matters in the Dialectics of Civil Society and the State Back to the Malaysian Future NOTES 291 GLOSSARY OF FREQUENTLY USED MALAY TERMS 305 BIBLIOGRAPHY 307 INDEX 327
