Iza Hussin is an academic at the University of Cambridge, who writes on Islamic law in colonial and post-colonial states. Hussin is an Associate Professor in Asian Politics at the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) and Mohamed Noah Fellow at Pembroke College, Cambridge. She is a series editor for the Cambridge University Press Series Asian Connections, and on the editorial boards of the Social Science Research Council’s The Immanent Frame, andIndonesia and the Malay World.
Hussin gained an AM and AB from Harvard University before studying for her MA at Georgetown University and gaining a PhD at the University of Washington. She was a member of the political science faculty at the University of Chicago before moving to Cambridge. [1]
For Hussin, Islamic law has been continuously re-invented as a 'problem-space' for the modern state. [2] Her 2016 book The Politics of Islamic Law examinined the way in which the colonial encounter in British Malaya, India and Egypt simultaneously marginalized and centralized Islamic law. The final two chapters used two Malay apostasy cases – that of Lina Joy and Nyonya Tahir – to pursue changing relations between sharia, society and the post-colonial nation-state. [3] One reviewer praised it as "a work of unique critical sensibilities, setting the scene for future interdisciplinary research of colonial and postcolonial Islamic law". [4]
In 2015, she spoke at the Cambridge Union on colonialism and fundamentalism. [5]
Hussin has participated in campaigns defending academic freedom. In 2018 she was one of 300 academics who signed an open letter to Singapore's Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods, objecting to the committee's efforts to discredit historian P J Thum. [6] In 2019 she defended the poet Alfian Sa’at after he was attacked by Singapore's Education Minister Ong Ye Kung. [7] In 2021 she signed an joint letter in solidarity with students at Boğaziçi University protesting against the Turkish government. [8] In August 2020 she joined the Cambridge University Libraries Decolonisation Working Group (DWG). [9]
Politics of Malaysia takes place in the framework of a federal representative democratic constitutional monarchy, in which the Yang di-Pertuan Agong is head of state and the Prime Minister of Malaysia is the head of government. Executive power is exercised by the federal government and the 13 state governments. Legislative power is vested in the federal parliament and the 13 state assemblies. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature, though the executive maintains a certain level of influence in the appointment of judges to the courts.
The Grand Mufti is the head of regional muftis, Islamic jurisconsults, of a state. The office originated in the early modern era in the Ottoman empire and has been later adopted in a number of modern countries.
The International Islamic University Malaysia, also known as IIUM, is a public university in Malaysia. Headquartered in Gombak, Selangor, IIUM has six other campuses all over Malaysia: two medical-centric campuses and a Centre for Foundation Studies in Gambang, Pahang, two city campuses in Kuala Lumpur, and a language and tourism campus in Pagoh, Johor.
Operation Coldstore was the code name for a covert security operation executed in Singapore on 2 February 1963 which led to the arrest of 113 people, who were detained without trial pursuant to the Preservation of Public Service Security Ordinance (PSSO). In official accounts, the operation was a security operation "aimed at crippling the Communist open front organisation," which threatened Singapore's internal security. The operation was authorised by the Internal Security Council which was composed of representatives from the British government, Singaporean government, and the Malayan Federal government.
The Sedition Act 1948 was a Singaporean statute law which prohibited seditious acts and speech; and the printing, publication, sale, distribution, reproduction and importation of seditious publications. The essential ingredient of any offence under the Act was the finding of a "seditious tendency", and the intention of the offender is irrelevant. The Act also listed several examples of what is not a seditious tendency, and provides defences for accused persons in a limited number of situations.
Thum Ping Tjin, also known as PJ Thum, is a Singaporean historian, journalist, podcaster, activist and former swimmer. Thum was a national swimmer who participated in the 1996 Summer Olympics, and was the first Singaporean to swim the English Channel.
The Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) is a national examination in Singapore that is administered by the Ministry of Education and taken by all students near the end of their sixth year in primary school before they move on to secondary school. The examination test students' proficiency in the English language, their respective mother tongue languages, mathematics and science. Students have not more than two hours to complete each subject paper except for certain components of language subjects. Students answering multiple choice questions by shading their responses on a standardised optical answer sheet (OAS) that uses optical mark recognition to detect answers or by writing their workings and/or answers on the question booklet itself for certain sections of the paper.
Ketuanan Melayu is a political concept that emphasises Malay preeminence in present-day Malaysia. The Malays of Malaysia have claimed a special position and exceptional rights owing to their longer history in the area and the fact that the present Malaysian state itself evolved from a Malay polity. The oldest political institution in Malaysia is the system of Malay rulers of the nine Malay states. The British colonial authorities transformed the system and turned it first into a system of indirect rule, then in 1948, using this culturally based institution, they incorporated the Malay monarchy into the blueprints for the independent Federation of Malaya.
The concept of race or ethnicity in contemporary Singapore emerged from the attitudes of the colonial authorities towards race and ethnicity. Before the early 2000s, the four major races in Singapore were the Chinese, Malays, Indians and Eurasians. Today, the Chinese-Malay-Indian-Others (CMIO) model is the dominant organising framework of race in Singapore. Race informs government policies on a variety of issues such as political participation, public housing and education. However, the state's management of race, as well as the relevance of the CMIO model, has been a point of contention amongst some in recent years.
Farish Ahmad Noor is Professor at the Department of History, Faculty of the Arts and Social Sciences, University of Malaya.
Anthony Crothers MilnerAM, FASSA, FAIIA, FRHistS is an Australian historian of Southeast Asia – concerned primarily with the history of ideas – and a commentator on Australia-Asia relationships. His writings on Malay history and society – and the history of Islam in Southeast Asia – include Kerajaan: Malay Political Culture on the Eve of Colonial Rule (1982), an interdisciplinary (history/anthropology) study, published in a new edition in 2016. He is also co-editor of the series of volumes, Australia in Asia, which examine the role of culture and values in Australia-Asia relationships; and of the Asialink report on Australia-ASEAN relations, Our Place in the Asian Century: Southeast Asia as the Third Way (2012). Milner is professorial fellow and international director at Asialink, The University of Melbourne, and visiting professor at the Asia-Europe Institute, Universiti Malaya. He was dean of Asian studies at the Australian National University (1996–2005), and Basham Professor of Asian History (1994–2013). He is now emeritus professor of the Australian National University.
Dato Maharaja Lela was a Malay nationalist from Perak.
Ong Ye Kung is a Singaporean politician and former civil servant who has been serving as Minister for Health since 2021. A member of the governing People's Action Party (PAP), he has been the Member of Parliament (MP) representing the Sembawang Central division of Sembawang GRC since 2015.
Wasatiyyah Institute Malaysia was an idea conjured by the former Malaysian Prime Minister YAB Dato' Sri Mohd. Najib Bn Tun Abdul Razak to fend off extremism in the religion of Islam. The institute will stand as one of the main platforms to promote moderation and harmony in Islam and to ensure modern Muslims adhere to the real message of Muhammad The Prophet as to spread love and peace throughout the world.
The feminist movement in Malaysia is a multicultural coalition of women's organisations committed to the end of gender-based discrimination, harassment and violence against women. Having first emerged as women's shelters in the mid 1980s, feminist women's organisations in Malaysia later developed alliances with other social justice movements. Today, the feminist movement in Malaysia is one of the most active actors in the country's civil society.
Madrasahs in Singapore are full-time, religious institutions that offer a pedagogical mix of Islamic religious education and secular education in their curricula. While the Arabic term 'madrasah' literally translates to 'school', whether religious or secular, the term 'madrasah' is legally and colloquially defined in Singapore today as an 'Islamic religious school'. There are currently six madrasahs in Singapore offering primary to tertiary education, namely, Aljunied Al-Islamiah, Irsyad Zuhri Al-Islamiah, Al-Maarif Al-Islamiah, Alsagoff Al-Arabiah, Al-Arabiah Al-Islamiah, and Wak Tanjong Al-Islamiah. Four of them are co-educational, while the other two offer madrasah education exclusively to girls.
The Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods is a select committee of the Parliament of Singapore that was formed on 11 January 2018 to examine and report on the problem of deliberate online falsehoods and to recommend strategies to deal with them.
Priyamvada Gopal is an Indian-born academic, writer and public intellectual who is Professor of Postcolonial Studies at the University of Cambridge. Her primary teaching and research interests are in colonial and postcolonial studies, South Asian literature, critical race studies, and the politics and cultures of empire and globalisation. She has written three books engaging these subjects: Literary Radicalism in India (2005), The Indian English Novel (2009) and Insurgent Empire (2019). Her third book, Insurgent Empire, was shortlisted for the 2020 Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding.
Warta Malaya, also known as Warta Melayu was a Singaporean and Malayan Malay-language daily newspaper. Written in Jawi script, the newspaper released its first issue in 1930. It later emerged as one of the highest circulating Malay newspapers of the 1930s. The newspaper was politically involved in the early stages of Malay nationalism, and became a paper for the Kesatuan Melayu Muda, an early Malayan left-wing political party. The final issue of the newspaper was published in 1942.