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Some Characteristics of Singapore Law by Greg Alms
Lessons in Class: High School Seniors
Many see Malaysia as a moderate Islamic country that has found a unique and harmonious balance between religion, secularism and multiculturalism. Zan Azlee decides to learn and find out more about Islam and his own identity as a Malay Muslim. He embarks on a journey to the heartland of Islam, the Middle-East, with nothing but his video camera and a bag full of instant noodles. He meets a brutal heavy metal band in Iran, discovers a Syrian version of Low Yat Plaza in Damascus, hangs out with a couple of Palestinian dudes in a refugee camp in Beirut and learns about sex from a bunch of artists in Jordan.
Lesson Plans
- Introduction to Southeast Asia: Lifestyle, Livelihood, and Subsistence
- The Arrival of Islam in Southeast Asia
- The Impact of Localization on the Practice of Islam in Indonesia and Malaysia
- “The Third Notch” and Traditions of Mourning: A Malaysian Short Story
- Hajj and Local Indonesian Pilgrimage
- ‘Finishing the Koran’ and Rites of Passage: Local Perspectives on Islamic Religious Observance
- The Senses and the Sacred: Islam and Contemporary Indonesian Popular Music
- Indonesian Wooden Puppet Theater of West Java, the Amir Hamzah Stories and the Localization of Islam
- Islamic Motifs in Contemporary Indonesian Painting and Calligraphy
- Women, Education, and the Veil in Contemporary Indonesia
Malaysia is considered the epicenter for Islamic-style financial services, which are becoming popular internationally. (Malaysian government census figures place the country’s Islamic population at around 59 percent.) Sharia, or Islamic law, considers interest payments a form of usury because depositors and lenders earn a profit without providing labor or sharing in the risks involved. Islamic banking has circumvented that restriction with a provision that allows those players to share in the bank’s profits. The bank then pools deposits to invest in construction, commodities trading and other businesses that do not generate interest payments. This means that commercial banks and their depositors do not technically receive any interest. Because losses are also possible, this arrangement involves some risk, and thereby gets around the Sharia’s prohibition.
This lesson is intended to introduce students to the country of Malaysia and its religiously diverse culture. Roughly sixty percent of Malaysians are Muslim, and the remaining forty percent practice religions such as Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Christianity, Sikhism, and Shamanism. Students will learn about the open nature of Malaysian society regarding religion, and in particular, they will learn basic information about Islam and the unique way it is practiced in Malaysia. Students will go on to learn about the role Islam plays in women’s lives and the intersection between Islam, other religions, and Malaysian society.
Islamic Unit Studies 