feel like i’ve been a little less active here. tbh i really just have been so excited about getting a conditional offer to cambridge that i couldn’t bring myself back to the ground for a bit. it’s just such a big deal for me you know? i never thought that i would have such potential to be considered for an opportunity like this. i feel like it must be a long road because for the longest time, i never felt that i was any good in spite of spending so many hours studying and doing things that i am passionate about.

the biggest improvement i have seen so far is my sense of identity and confidence levels. i feel like i am able to acknowledge and own that my struggles were worth it, and that i can assure myself that i conquered whatever that crossed my path.

usually, i am pretty goon during seminar discussions for sites of asian interaction (probably because of the brain fog i was dealing with) but it seems to be going away… and possibly returning. the only way to deal with it is to sleep it off. so i guess i should take my friday slow and do what i can. i really need to finish the draft of the introductory chapter to my dissertation. the last two chapters are just too intense and i probably need to dedicate a lot of time in order to submit them on time!

anyway, back to the seminars, i actually noticed that i am able to tease out and articulate what i find interesting about the readings and lectures again. we recently looked at ronit ricci’s paper about how citations in islamic manuscripts are a site of literary networks in what she calls, ‘the arabic cosmopolis’.

Ricci, R. (2012). Citing as a Site: Translation and circulation in Muslim South and Southeast Asia. Modern Asian Studies, 46(2), 331-353.

when i was preparing for the cambridge workshop in kuala lumpur, my supervisor recommended me to read ricci’s book, islam translated, so that i had a more nuanced idea about the circulation of islamic texts and its role in conversion of maritime southeast asian polities.

ever since i read this book, i fell completely in love with the way in which manuscripts play such an important role in this part of the world. this paper is a more compressed version of the book, but still brilliant nonetheless.

i really like how meticulously she draws comparisons between various translation styles in different literary traditions. for example, she points out how the phrase bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim as what she calls, a paratext, is adapted to suit tamil, javanese and malay linguistic structures. the javanese example is pretty unique because of all the cases she looked at, the javanese text is the only one to translate the words into localized vocabulary, and basically paraphrases this sacred phrase rather than keeping it as it is.

essentially, ricci’s contemplations on the emergence of islamic literary tradition in southeast asia sheds light on the complexities in understanding what it means to undergo “arabization”. in fact, the term itself has become incredibly loaded in malaysia. especially after a particular prime minister’s daughter described the rising islamic conservatism as “arab colonization” or “arabization”. during a panel session of which she spoke about this topic, i somewhat challenged her to think about how uncritical and potentially, xenophobic such a remark comes across. and that it does not necessarily capture the wider imagination of malay muslims. she was pretty upset with me so i didn’t really get a good conversation at the end.

what i despise most about conversations about how malaysia is so “arabized” is basically for several reasons, as discussed during class the other day.

one, it operations on the assumption that there is a “real” and “pure” malay identity that is tolerant and inclusive. this essentialist concept of malays gallivanting in figure hugging kebayas and dancing to western music, drinking wine and gambling is mostly captured by the liberal malays that often make up the elite class. this is not to say that they are wrong about what it means to be malay. i just don’t think that this is the only way malayness has been expressed in the very long history of plurality that we are in. what more when you think about the presence of hadrami arabs and their tremendous influence on cultural, social and political practices of malay muslims.

two, it assumes that malays have no responsibility and agency in taking on trendier performative gestures of their piety. like, why blame everything on a community that exists outside of your own (taking this in the context of alienation produced by the modern nation-state)? ricci’s paper demonstrates that without interlocutors that are locally bred and based, such versions of faith and religion that we know of today wouldn’t be so widely embraced. so i think such a narrative is merely a trope of fear among the more liberal factions of the country, and not so much a genuine address of issues like political extremism.

is there some kind of communication breakdown in the society we are in today? ricci’s paper also make me ponder upon the whole “allah” drama-o-rama that happened a few years ago. basically, we had one of the most racially tensed court cases in the history of this country. all because there were many muslims that got upset with the usage of allah in reference to god in a malay translation of the holy bible.

apparently it caused great offense because the muslims concerned felt that allah was a specific signifier for god in an islamic context. and so to use it in a christian context was painted as being an insidious trick to seduce muslims into christianity. can’t help but to wonder how true this really is. after all, the arrival of christianity to the malay world was a LOT later than islam.

if we apply ricci’s analysis, allah was one of those words that authoritatively superseded”tuhan” in the malay language, especially in the advent of islamization. i guess this is what she meant by these processes being referred to “arabicized” rather than “arabized” because local languages were influenced by arabic in a way that encouraged combinations rather than replacements. perhaps more than anything, these issues are mostly deeply embedded by the severity of our racialized politics, rather than islamic discourse.

i don’t think i will be able to come up with a final opinion on these issues, but i am certainly on the side that we should abandon a blanket term like arabization to describe the slippery slope towards theocratic tendencies in malaysia. it’s a lot more complicated than that! but that doesn’t mean we don’t have the language for it. we just need to spend more time pondering and searching for pluralities that we can be at peace with.