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Preface
Hard
cover, 444 pages, this work is a major contribution not only to our
knowledge of the Malays as Muslims but to our knowledge of how a
society can contain and assimilate apparently contradictory systems.
The Malay converted to Islam, but through that Islamic Law which
was first spoken in ‘Arabic to an ‘Arab people, he reasserted his
Malay self, and gave to that distinct self a legal recognition of
right under the term Malay Adat or Malay Customary Law. Thus what is
Islamic Law in Malaya, is in fact a ‘Malayized’ Islamic Law. Indeed
to approach Islam in Malaya from a ‘pure’ Islamic point of view,
would be to attack not one, but many, elements of what constitutes
this distinctly Malay Folk Culture. |
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