THAILAND. About 90 percent of the Thai population of approximately 54 million adheres to the Theravada Buddhist faith. The second-largest religious affiliation is Islamic. Approximately four million people in Thailand profess the Islamic faith and maintain about 2,300 mosques. The Muslims in Thailand comprise two broad, self-defined categories consisting of Malay Muslims residing primarily in southern Thailand, and Thai Muslims residing in central and northern Thailand.
The approximately three million Malay-speaking Muslims are mostly concentrated in the southern provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani, Satun, and Yala; they were incorporated into the Thai polity during the latter part of the eighteenth century. Despite active assimilationist policies promoted by Thai authorities, the vast majority of Malay Muslims maintain strong ethnic and cultural affinities with neighboring Malaysian Muslims to the south. Thai government assimilationist policies have resulted largely in irredentist and separatist ethnic and religious movements among the Malay Muslims of Thailand.
The Thai Muslim population is a much more heterogeneous group than the Malay Muslim populace of Thailand. The Thai Muslims include descendants of Iranians, Chams, Indonesians, Indians, Pakistanis, Chinese, and Malay Muslims who reside in the predomi nantly Thai Buddhist regions of central and northern Thailand. Though aware of their own distinctive ethnic heritage and retaining their own religious traditions, the vast majority of these Muslims speak Thai and have assimilated into the mainstream of Thai society. Most of the descendants of Iranians, Chams, Indonesians, Indians, Pakistanis, and Malay Muslims reside in Bangkok and surrounding communities of central Thailand. The population of Bangkok Muslims alone is approximately three hundred thousand. Smaller communities of Chinese, Indian, and Pakistani Muslims reside in the northern provinces of Chiangmai, Chiangrai, and Lamphun. All these Thai Muslims in the central and northern provinces have been exposed to uniform socialization processes through education, the media, the marketplace, and other Thai institutions. Generally, aside from religious belief and practice, these Muslims have internalized many Thai cultural norms and practices, have intermarried among the Thai Buddhist population, and have not identified with the separatist or irredentist activities of the Malay Muslims in the south.
With the exception of a small number Iranian descendants who maintain Shi’i traditions, all other Muslims in Thailand are Sunni. However, there have been recent reports of Iranian Shi 1 influence and conversions in southern Thailand. Traditionally Islamic thought, beliefs, and practices in both the Malay Muslim and Thai Muslim communities of Thailand were suffused with Hindu-Buddhist and folk-animistic accretions. Charms, amulets, magical beliefs, and some aspects of HinduBuddhist teachings regarding merit-making were interwoven with Islam in both the rural and urban regions of Thailand.
Beginning in the early part of the twentieth century, a reformist, shari`ah-minded form of Islam stemming from the renowned Salafiyah movement associated with Muhammad `Abduh of Cairo (1849-1905) had influence on the urban Muslim intellectuals, primarily in Bangkok. Islamic reformism reached Bangkok in the 1920S through an Indonesian political refugee, Ahmad Wahab, who had spent considerable time in Mecca imbibing current Islamic orthodoxy and practice. Through Thai Muslim intellectuals, Wahab established organized centers of reformism that encouraged more orthodox Islamic beliefs and campaigned against popular forms of Islam in Thailand. These reformists viewed many of the popular Islamic beliefs as shirk, the association of other beings with the power of Allah, and emphasized the use of akal (Ar., `aql), rational thought, and ijtihad (independent judgment) rather than a reliance upon taqlid (authoritative teachings).
Along with increases in education, printing technology and literacy, urbanization, economic development, and more opportunities to travel to the Middle East, the reformist movement has had a substantial influence on Islamic belief and practice in Thailand. One of the principal leaders of the contemporary reform movement is Ibrahim Qureshi (Direk Kulsriswasd), who has translated the Qur’an, much of the hadith, and many other Islamic texts into Thai. In cooperation with the Ministry of Education, Ibrahim Qureshi has sponsored the education of Muslims and non-Muslims regarding Islamic beliefs and practices. His influence has been significant in the decline of rurally based popular forms of Islam.
More recently, since the emergence of Islamic resurgence movements in the Middle East and elsewhere, some Muslims in Thailand have participated in dakwah (Ar., dakwah) movements similar to those that have influenced Malaysia and Indonesia. The dakwah movement is a response to secularizing processes that have had an effect on Islamic culture and institutions. Many of the dakwah leaders are former reformists such as Ibrahim Qureshi who support the reinforcement of Islamic values and institutions in an era of rapid secularization and change. Although the dakwah leadership maintains that the movement is apolitical, many Thai government officials view this movement as divisive. Thai officials have therefore actively tried to manage the resources and direction of the dakwah movement through certain Islamic leaders. [See also Da`wah.]
The Muslim communities of Thailand interact with the Thai government through a religious bureaucracy headed by the Office of the Chularajmontri, the Central Islamic Committee, and the representatives of the Provincial Islamic Committee that is constitutionally established within the Ministry of the Interior. These representative institutions regulate and manage mosque and educational affairs at the local level. The mosque and Islamic school (pondok), are the key institutions of socialization in Muslim communities. They are the center of Ramadan activities, `Id prayers, weekly khutbdh sermons, Qur’anic recitations, and other religious activities. A mosque committee manages its wag, or endowed property, and acquires legal recognition and government subsidies through the Islamic bureaucracy and Ministry of Interior.
A major challenge facing both the Buddhist majority and Muslim minority population in Thailand is whether the nation can become a truly pluralistic society that recognizes the equality of all religious faiths and ethnic minorities. If that outcome is not foreseen, BuddhistMuslim tensions will undoubtedly increase. Muslims increasingly participate in the political, educational, and cultural activities of Thailand to help develop the basis for a more open, tolerant, and pluralistic society.
[See also Islam, article on Islam in Southeast Asia and the Pacific; Patani United Liberation Organization.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Che Man, W. K. Muslim Separatism: The Moros of Southern Philippines and the Malays of Southern Thailand. Singapore and New York, 1990. Comprehensive comparative analysis of the cultural, political, and religious movements of the minority Muslims of the southern Philippines and Malay-speaking Muslims of South Thailand in a broad international context.
Forbes, Andrew D. W., ed. “The Muslims of Thailand: Historical and Cultural Studies.” South East Asian Review 13.1-2 (JanuaryDecember 1988): t-167; and “The Muslims of Thailand: Politics of the Malay-Speaking South.” South East Asian Review 14.1-2 (January-December 1989): 1-200. These two volumes contain thorough essays by all Western and non-Westem authorities on Muslims in Thailand.
Fraser, Thomas. Fisherman of Southern Thailand. New York, 1966. Classic ethnography of a coastal Malay Muslim population residing in southern Thailand.
Golomb, Louis. An Anthropology of Curing in Multiethnic Thailand. Urbana and Chicago, 1985. Ethnographic account of popular religious beliefs and magical healing practices that have been an aspect of both Buddhist and Islamic communities in Thailand.
Pitsuwan, Surin. Islam and Malay Nationalism: A Case Study of the Malay-Muslims of Southern Thailand. Bangkok, 1985. The most comprehensive treatment of the Malay-Muslim condition in southern Thailand; written by an insider.
Scupin, Raymond, ed. Aspects of Development: Education and Political Integration for Muslims in Thailand and Malaysia. Selangor, 1989. Collection of essays focusing on the relationship between education and political development within the various Muslim communities in Thailand and Malaysia.
Suhrke, Astri, and Lela Garner Noble, eds. Ethnic Conflict in International Relations. New York, 1977. Essays devoted to the examination of ethnic relations and politics in an international context. Suhrke is a well-known specialist of southern Thailand Muslims. Thomas, Ladd. Political Violence in the Muslim Provinces of Southern Thailand. Singapore, 1975. Thorough monograph depicting the political situation of the Muslim minority in southern Thailand in the 1970s.
Wyatt, David K., and Andries Teeuw. Hikayat Patani. The Hague, 1970. Translation and account of the early indigenous narratives regarding the religious center of Pattani in southern Thailand.
RAYMOND SCUPIN