Hybrid Pathways to Orthodoxy in Brunei Darussalam: Bureaucratised Exorcism, Scientisation and the Mainstreaming of Deviant-Declared Practices

Abstract

This article investigates the bureaucratisation of Islam in Brunei and its interlinkages with socio-cultural changes. It elucidates how realisations of state-enforced Islamic orthodoxy and purification produce locally unique meanings, while simultaneously reflecting much broader characteristics of the contemporary global condition. The article first introduces a theoretical perspective on the bureaucratisation of Islam as a social phenomenon that is intimately intertwined with the state's exercise of classificatory power and related popular processes of co-producing, and sometimes appropriating symbolic state power. Second, it outlines the historical trajectory of empowering Brunei's national ideology, Melayu Islam Beraja (MIB). It then explores social imaginaries and bureaucratic representations of “deviant”-declared practices, before illustrating how these practices become reinvented within the parameters of state power as “Sharia-compliant” services to the nation state. Simultaneously, national-religious protectionism is paradoxically expressed in thoroughly globalised terms and shaped by forces the state cannot (entirely) control. Newly established Sharia-serving practices become culturally re-embedded, while also flexibly drawing upon multiple transnational cultural registers. In the main ethnographic example, bureaucratised exorcism, Japanese water-crystal photography and scientisation fuse behind the “firewall” of MIB. These hybrid pathways to orthodoxy complicate the narratives through which they are commonly framed.

Negotiating Statist Islam: Fatwa and State Policy in Singapore

“…The conception of Statist Islam also resonates with what Sloane-White calls "Corporate Islam", which depicts how companies and businesses interpret state-sanctioned Islamisation projects. This also mimics Müller's thesis on "hybrid pathways to orthodoxy" when he analysed how social actors interpret state-led Islamisation projects to fit their own narratives (Müller 2018). The difference here is that Statist Islam focuses on how the religious bureaucracy negotiates with the state to contest and affect statist religious projects, and how it exploits this close proximity to the state to both shape and circumvent statist characterisation of religious praxis.…”

“…The making of fatwa is an interesting topic because religion and religious institutions remain central to nation-building projects in postcolonial states of Muslim-majority countries (Hefner 1997;Liow 2009;Nasr 2001;Al-Kandari and Dashti 2014). Yet, as some have argued, Islamisation projects through the bureaucratisation of Islamic institutions are not simply a top-down process but might result in unintended consequences for the state as religious symbolisms and meanings get appropriated by social actors (Sloane-White 2017; Müller 2015Müller , 2018. Fatwas are central to these projects because they can define or at least inform the authoritative normative position of Islamic religious practices for Muslims (Skovgaard-Petersen 1997;Masud, Messick, and Powers 1996;Kaptein 2004;Robet 2010;Müller 2015).…”

Risky Appearances, Skillful Performances: Female Islamic Preachers and Professional Style in Malaysia

“…Apabila Ustazah Merawat drew on the popularity, and productive blending, of religious guidance, Quranic healing, self‐help discourse, and globalized psycho‐social therapeutic techniques (see Hoesterey 2015; Jamil 2016; Müller 2018; Suhr 2019; Vinea 2018). At the same time, it reflected the affordances of a professional style.…”

“…The desire to cultivate a professional persona is reinforced by the tendency, found especially among the urban middle class, to see the figure of the ustaz/ah as backward and out of touch with developments in science, technology, and the modern economy. Popular preachers need to respond to the “scientization of the social,” the growing impact of scientific knowledge on a variety of social and institutional contexts (Raphael 1996), including contexts pertaining to religion (see, e.g., Müller 2018). This is one of the main reasons why university programs like “Islamic psychology,” a field in which Norhafizah Musa obtained her PhD, are so popular.…”

“…Today, the organization has branches in other parts of the country and even abroad. Focusing on Brunei, Dominik Müller (2018) provides the best analysis of Darussyifa’ practices.…”