'Securing' Islam in a Time of Turbulence

This chapter explores expressions of Muslim militancy and extremism as they have emerged in Malaysia. While small in numbers and increasingly enervated as an ideology, militant extremism is nevertheless an important expression of Islamism that has occasionally surfaced in Malaysia and influenced thinking on trends and patterns. The chapter scrutinizes the Malaysian government’s confrontation with Islamic militancy in its domestic political sphere by investigating its operational and ideological countermeasures against the backdrop of an escalating Islamist political discourse. The chapter further discusses the Islamic factor in Malaysian foreign policy as another means by which the UMNO-led government bolsters its Islamic credentials, and it looks at how PAS has developed its own foreign policy agenda for similar purposes.