Thai public service grants leave for this purpose. Thai Buddhist temples also func- tion as local schools, hospitals and community centres (Government of Thailand 2008). National holidays are celebrated on all Buddhist holydays (Mahidol l()0(i'i
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Islam came to Thailand from the fourteenth century when Muslims from places like Persia, China and India arrived to conduct business or escape persecu- tion. Yusuf (2007) classifies Thai1and’s Muslims according to three categories with respect to region, language and ethnicity. In Yusuf’s first category are the ethnic Malay Muslims from Thailand’s southern-most provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat. With part of Songkhla these provinces were jointly the former Malay Sultanate of Patani - spelt with a ‘single t’. Their first language is Malay and they comprise about 80% of all Muslims in Thailand.