At present, despite the changeover

At present, despite the changeover of the stewardship of government from the Islamic-educated Abdullah Badawi to the Western-educated Najib Razak in April 2009, there seems to be no indication that the centripetal drive of officially defined Islamic education would recede. In fact, in a recent meeting between Deputy Prime Minister-cum-Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, Higher Education Minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Jamil Khir Baharom and officials from the Department of Advancement of Islam of Malaysia (JAKIM, or Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia), it was decided that “a special committee with representatives from several agencies would be set up to streamline Islamic Studies and review several areas, including its curriculum, teachers and their qualifications. The ideal from and practice of an Islamic curriculum, as conceived for instance by Syed Naguib Al-Attas, remains far-fetched in state-sanctioned Islamic education in Malaysia. The outcome in terms of enforcement of narrowly interpreted religious law against Muslim non-conformists is all too obvious in Malaysia. Whereas Al-Attas’ scheme was broad enough to accommodate even Shi’a interpretations of the revealed sciences, Malaysia has been fastidious in instituting pre-emptive action against and punishment of Malay-Muslims who profess the Shi’s variant of Islamic faith deemed to have deviated from the path of Sunni orthodoxy.