• Missionary Medicine and Sarawak Malay Proselytisation (1848–1866): The Unfulfilled Mission
  Sharifah S. Ahmad
  
  Abstract: This article discusses the introduction of the Anglican medical mission in 19th- century Sarawak. Missionary medicine was part of the constellation of Western rationality brought to the Malay Archipelago through colonialism. However, far from being a purely scientific enterprise, missionary medicine became a theological tool for the fulfilment of religious duty expected of the spiritually imbued practitioner engaged by the evangelical society. It was believed that in healing the soul through the body, a conversion could follow. In addition to spiritual conversion, medicine was ideologised as civilisational superior to the indigenous form, therefore should be imposed as a means of civilising the native subjects. To explore the effect of theological medicine on Sarawak Malay, the letters of Bishop Francis Thomas McDougall (1817–1886) became the primary source-material in illuminating the early phase of missionary medicine in Sarawak. The reference to letters as historical evidence was unique as personal correspondence often replete with sentiments. By utilising the history of emotion approach, the sentiment was historicised as a product of the precariousness of life in a colonial situation. It was found that the practice of medicine had been frustrated by the excessive imagination of impending violence, causing the subtle attempt at Malay proselytisation to cease. In the end, missionary medicine had a short lifespan and limited effect on the religious and health belief among Sarawak Malay. To them, Christianity and its medicine were uninspiring and ineffectual.
  
  Keywords and phrases: missionary medicine, Francis Thomas McDougall, Anglican missionaries, Sarawak Malay proselytisation, 19th century Sarawak

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• Translation of Pronouns and Deictic Positioning in the Thai Prime Minister’s Weekly Addresses
  Narongdej Phanthaphoommee
  
  Abstract: This study investigates the translation of the weekly Thai prime ministerial addresses, focusing on pronouns and deictic positioning. The English translation is considered a new feature of this political genre, with implications for Thailand’s political situation. The study analyses Prayut Chan-o-cha’s weekly addresses using Munday’s pronouns and deixis categorisation based on the interpersonal concept in systemic functional linguistics. The central concerns are how the premier used Thai pronouns and positioned the addressees in his speeches and if their translation properly represents them. The findings reveal that the prime minister’s (PM) selection of pronouns defines his addressees into distant and proximate, positive and negative groups. However, his pronoun use is ambivalent and slippery. The translation of his pronoun use causes the obligatory shifts in the target text because of the structural differences between Thai and English. There is a tendency for explicitation of the PM’s deictic positioning due to the re-insertion of the missing pronouns. In rendering the PM’s temporal deixis into English, the translator managed to connect his imagined glorious past of Thailand with its hopeful future. These explicit time links evoke a nationalistic image and allude to Thailand’s recent political turmoil.
  
  Keywords and phrases: deictic positioning, pronoun, Thai politics, translation, weekly address

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• Different Faces of Critical Traditionalism in Approaching the Quran in Contemporary Indonesia
  Wardani
  
  Abstract: There has been a dynamic development of Islam in contemporary Indonesia as seen from the approaches to interpreting the Quran. One of the trends of thought is traditionalism, which is commonly perceived as a broad category of the school of thought. There is no single entity called traditionalism since it takes on different faces. With specific references to M. Quraish Shihab, Abd Muin Salim and Nashruddin Baidan, this article aims to study all these traditional Muslim thinkers’ views on Quran interpretation by employing a historical approach. The study mainly focuses on, first, the continuity and changes concerning elements initially derived from some sources and elements developed originally and secondly, on response to modern Western legacies of social sciences and humanities approaches. This article will argue that critical traditionalism constitutes many faces. This trend of a mode of thought is viewed from its followers’ insisting on the sufficiency of traditional sources of interpretation, based on argumentations set up primarily by classical Muslim scholars, rationalising traditional argumentations and critical response and clarification to Western approaches in interpreting the Quran.
  
  Keywords and phrases: critical traditionalism, Quran, philosophy of science of interpretation, reconstruction, thematic unity

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• Pembaharuan Sistem Perundangan Kelantan di bawah Pentadbiran Siam-British, 1902–1915
  Kelantan Legislative System Reforms under the Siam-British Administration, 1902–1915
  Mohamad Roslaily Rosdi, Azmi Arifin and Rasyidah Arshad
  
  Abstract: This study discusses the reforms of the legislative system in Kelantan from the Siamese rule to the British administration between 1902 to 1915. Before the introduction of British law, Sharia law was practiced in Kelantan since the 1880s. However, under the Siamese-British administration which began in 1902, Western law replaced the Sharia law as the British deemed it primitive. This study aims to determine the real objectives of the change and the steps taken by the Siamese-British administrators to change the Kelantan legislative system and whether the implementation of the Western law had helped alleviate criminal problems in Kelantan. This study found that the changes implemented by the British were not to bring prosperity and justice to the natives, but rather aimed at strengthening the British grip and economic exploitation in Kelantan. To this end, the British tried to weaken the sultan’s position as ruler and remove the influence of Islamic legal institutions in the Kelantan administration. They also modified legal institutions, courts and the police to cover up potential indigenous resistance to their intervention.
  
  Keywords and phrases: the Siamese Malay states, Kelantan, legislative system, Sharia law
  
  Abstrak: Kajian ini membincangkan pembaharuan sistem perundangan di Kelantan bermula dari zaman pemerintahan Siam sehingga pentadbiran British antara tahun 1902 dan 1915. Sebelum pengenalan undang-undang British, undang-undang syariah telah diamalkan di Kelantan sejak sekitar tahun 1880-an. Namun di bawah pentadbiran Siam-British yang bermula pada tahun 1902, undang-undang Barat telah menggantikan undang-undang syariah kerana British menganggap undang-undang tersebut primitif. Kajian ini bertujuan mengenal pasti matlamat perubahan dan langkah-langkah yang diambil oleh pentadbir Siam-British untuk mengubah sistem perundangan Kelantan dan sama ada pelaksanaan undang-undang Barat telah membantu dalam mengurangkan masalah jenayah di Kelantan atau sebaliknya. Kajian ini menyimpulkan bahawa perubahan yang dilaksanakan oleh British bukan bermatlamat untuk membawa kemakmuran dan keadilan kepada peribumi, sebaliknya untuk mengukuhkan cengkaman British dan eksploitasi mereka di Kelantan. British cuba melemahkan kedudukan sultan sebagai pemerintah dan menghapuskan pengaruh institusi perundangan Islam dalam pentadbiran Kelantan bagi mencapai matlamat tersebut. Mereka juga mengubah suai institusi undang-undang, mahkamah dan polis untuk mengekang potensi penentangan peribumi terhadap campur tangan mereka.
  
  Kata kunci dan frasa: negeri-negeri Melayu, Siam, Kelantan, sistem perundangan, undang-undang syariah

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• Malay Text Reception among Sufi Orders in West Java: A Study on Wawacan Layang Siti Hasanah
  Abdullah Maulani and Munawar Holil
  
  Abstract: The article discusses the active reception of Malay texts among members of the Qadiriyah wa Naqshabandiyah (TQN) Sufi order in West Java. It focuses on the text entitled Wawacan Layang Siti Hasanah. The TQN members adapted the Malay Cerita Siti Hasanah and turned it into a wawacan, a narrative text in Javanese verse specific to West Java, from as early as 1792 up to the early 20th century. This article discusses the various TQN members’ reception of the Malay hikayat (tales) from the end of the 18th century until the 20th century. Using a literary reception and literary anthropology analysis approach to the Wawacan Layang Siti Hasanah, the analysis found that the text functioned as a didactic text to teach women that they must always obey their husbands. It also contains several Sufi values such as ma’rifa (mystical knowledge of the Godhead) and Nūr Muḥammad (the essence of Muhammad). This article will also show that in the process of adapting the story to their wishes, the TQN members in West Java also turned it into a wawacan and changed the way it was used among the members of the Sufi orders and pesantren (Islamic boarding school) communities.
  
  Keywords and phrases: wawacan, literary reception, Qadiriyah wa Naqshabandiyah, Sufi orders, West Java

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• The Philosophy of Happiness: A Comparative Study between Western and Islamic Thought
  Sharif Mohammad Shahidullah and Nor Faridah Abdul Manaf
  
  Abstract: The concept of happiness is an equally important topic of discussion in both Islamic and Western philosophy. This article presents a comparative analysis of happiness concepts from Islamic as well as Western points of view. The article aims at discovering the influence of al-Ghazali (a medieval Muslim scholar of Sufi persuasion) upon Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, a present-day Malaysian Muslim philosopher, concerning the philosophy of happiness. It also focuses on the Aristotelian philosophy of happiness, underscoring the discussion from his seminal book The Nichomachean Ethics, and includes an in-depth study of happiness as discussed by modern Western philosophers like Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant. The study follows a qualitative, non-empirical, textual and contextual analytical approach, which comprises several texts and journal archives composed by the aforementioned scholars and philosophers from the ancient medieval period to the present. The analysis reveals that Islamic philosophy always underscores happiness in this present life and the eternal life after death, while Aristotelian pagan philosophy stresses happiness only in this sublunary life. The study also argues that virtue is a predominant aspect necessary to attain happiness in the worldly life and in the afterlife.
  
  Keywords and phrases: Islamic philosophy of happiness, Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, al-Ghazali, Aristotle, Western concept of happiness

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• Learning Chinese Characters: Academic vs Dynamic Approach
  Xiao Liang Li
  
  Abstract: This study aims to study the comparative results of the application of the classical academic and modern dynamic types of studying Chinese writing in its pragmatic aspect. Chinese language and writing are among the most difficult to learn as a second language, requiring advanced teaching methods with wider use of elements of the digital environment and the student’s independent active use of web services for active language learning. This aspect is also important when using more and more mass distance learning. The study involved 90 students aged 23 years old to 35 years old, who were equally divided into experimental and control groups. The experimental group used active learning methods and the control group used the usual academic methods of teaching Chinese writing, in accordance with the university course. The training was allocated four hours per week for remote training (using the Google Meet platform). The results demonstrated that the dynamic approach is effective in teaching hieroglyphics and pragmatic aspects of the language (reading, typing on a computer, listening comprehension, recognising words and written hieroglyphs). The academic classroom method is more suitable for the formation of correct pronunciation, taking into account the tonal type of Chinese phonetics.
  
  Keywords and phrases: Chinese, ancient characters, dynamic learning, language teaching, memorisation

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• The Identity Dilemma of Arab Descendants in Indonesia
  Ainur Rofiq Al Amin and Fikri Mahzumi
  
  Abstract: This study discusses the identity dilemma and internal dynamics experienced by the Arab ethnic group in Indonesia. As part of the migrant community, they were often faced with identity duality, as the inheritors of Arab genes and cultures and as multicultural Indonesian citizens. Applying qualitative methods and historical approaches, the current study analyses academic sources paying attention to the turmoil of identity that caused identity dilemmas and internal dynamics. The results show that Arab descendants in Indonesia experienced identity dilemmas from the pre-independence era until the post- reform era. This dilemma impacted internal dynamics among them, which include nationalism, socio-culture and religion. The identity dilemma of Arab descendants in Indonesia will probably continue, and this calls for the right formula to balance the Arab identity and the Indonesian identity. Integration and assimilation are key for Arab descendants in Indonesia to overcome the identity dilemma and gain important positions in the socio-religious order of Indonesia.
  
  Keywords and phrases: identity dilemma, Arab descendants, sayyid, Hadrami, Indonesia

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• Perkembangan Industri Minyak dan Gas Sabah (1881–1980): Penelitian Terhadap Eksplorasi di Laut China Selatan
  The Development of the Oil and Gas Industry in Sabah (1881– 1980): An Examination of the Exploration in the South China Sea
  Amy Azuan Abdullah and Yew Meng Lai
  
  Abstract: This study focuses on oil and gas exploration in the South China Sea (SCS) from the period of the British North Borneo Company’s (BNBC) administration of North Borneo in 1881 until the introduction of the National Cabotage Policy (Malaysia) on 1st January 1980. The interesting history of Sabah’s oil and gas exploration needs to be revisited especially following the establishment of Petroliam Nasional Berhad or Petronas in 1974 which has enabled Sabah to be supplied with oil and gas resources produced from the offshore wells in 1980. This analysis relies heavily on primary sources in the form of official documents, reports and newspapers obtained from the Sabah State Archives (SSA), Malaysia. The study found that, although oil exploration of North Borneo or Sabah was initially carried out by BNBC since 1881, it was only strengthened after the end of the Japanese occupation. This development became more pronounced following the changes in the rule-based international system, notably the introduction of maritime law starting from the 1950s, which provided opportunities to both the British and Sabah governments through various companies, to conduct offshore oil exploration in the SCS. Oil exploration activities in the SCS area have proven to be lucrative, especially in terms of its contribution to the Malaysian economy.
  
  Keywords and phrases: British North Borneo Company (BNBC), North Borneo oil and gas, Sabah, South China Sea, oil exploration
  
  Abstrak: Kajian ini memfokuskan tentang eksplorasi minyak dan gas di Laut China Selatan (LCS) dari tahun 1881 ketika British North Borneo Company (BNBC) mentadbir Borneo Utara dan terbatas sehingga pengenalan Dasar Kabotaj Negara (Malaysia) pada 1 Januari 1980. Rentetan sejarah yang menarik berkenaan eksplorasi minyak dan gas Sabah perlu diamati semula khususnya setelah Petroliam Nasional Berhad atau Petronas ditubuhkan pada tahun 1974 yang membolehkan Sabah dibekalkan dengan sumber minyak dan gas yang dihasilkan dari telaga luar pantai Sabah pada tahun 1980. Kajian ini banyak bergantung kepada sumber primer dalam bentuk dokumen rasmi, laporan dan akhbar yang diperolehi dari Arkib Negeri Sabah (ANS), Malaysia. Kajian mendapati bahawa walaupun percubaan eksplorasi minyak Borneo Utara atau Sabah kemudiannya telah dilaksanakan oleh BNBC semenjak tahun 1881, kegiatan tersebut hanya diperkukuh selepas tamat tempoh pendudukan Jepun. Perkembangan ini semakin ketara apabila berlaku perubahan dalam sistem antarabangsa yang bersifat rule-based yakni pengenalan undang-undang kelautan bermula dari tahun 1950-an yang telah memberi peluang kepada British dan kerajaan Sabah, melalui pelbagai syarikat yang dilantik, untuk menjalankan eksplorasi minyak ke kawasan luar pantai di LCS. Kegiatan cari gali minyak sehingga ke kawasan LCS terbukti membuahkan hasil khususnya dalam memakmurkan ekonomi Malaysia.
  
  Kata kunci dan frasa: British North Borneo Company (BNBC), minyak dan gas Borneo Utara, Sabah, Laut China Selatan, eksplorasi minyak

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• Ritual Muinsamung Etnik Tombonuo: Perubahan dan Pemeliharaan Secara Kreatif
  Muinsamung Ritual of the Tombonuo: Changes and Creative Conservation
  Cheng Jia Min and Low Kok On
  
  Abstract: Muinsamung is a traditional ritual of the Tombonuo people residing in the Pitas district of Sabah. Before the North Borneo (British) Charted Company took over the administration of the North Borneo (Sabah) government in the late 19th century, it was associated with the headhunting practices of the Tombonuo. The focus of this article is on the changes in the muinsamung ritual based on the theory of ritual changes. The formation of the modern Sumanggak dance by Suana Kabora in 1983 as a creative conservation of the old ritual is also given due emphasis. Two field trips in three Tombonuo villages of Pitas district were made to collect data based on interviews and observations. This study found that the function of muinsamung has changed from headhunting ritual to monginsamung (funeral ritual) due to political and social changes. Due to the desire to conserve the old ritual, parts of the old ritual performance have been creatively incorporated into a form of dance, which are deemed as changes from a sacred ritual to a secular aesthetic performance.
  
  Keywords and phrases: Tombonuo, muinsamung ritual, headhunting practices, creative conservation, North Borneo
  
  Abstrak: Muinsamung ialah ritual turun-temurun etnik Tombonuo, yang menetap di daerah Pitas, Sabah. Ritual ini pada asalnya berkait rapat dengan aktiviti mengayau sebelum Syarikat Berpiagam (British) Borneo Utara mentadbir Borneo Utara (Sabah) pada akhir kurun ke-19. Makalah ini bertujuan menganalisis aspek perubahan ritual muinsamung berasaskan teori perubahan ritual. Selain itu, pengolahan tarian Sumanggak oleh Suana Kabora pada tahun 1983 sebagai satu usaha kreatif bagi memulihara ritual silam Tombonuo turut diteliti. Bagi mengumpul data kajian, dua siri kerja lapangan yang menggunakan kaedah temu bual dan pemerhatian telah dilakukan di tiga buah kampung Tombonuo di daerah Pitas. Kajian ini mendapati fungsi ritual muinsamung yang berkait dengan aktiviti mengayau telah berubah menjadi ritual monginsamung, yang dikendalikan untuk upacara pengebumian disebabkan perubahan politik dan kehendak sosial. Disebabkan wujudnya keinginan untuk memastikan agar ritual turun-temurun etniknya terus dikekalkan, sebahagian daripada persembahan ritual lama ini telah diolah secara kreatif oleh anggota masyarakat menjadi satu bentuk tarian lantas dianggap sebagai satu perubahan daripada ritual yang sakral kepada persembahan estetik yang sekular.
  
  Kata kunci dan frasa: etnik Tombonuo, ritual muinsamung, aktiviti mengayau, pemeliharaan secara kreatif, Borneo Utara

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Book Review

• Pengajian Tinggi: Pendemokrasian, Pengkomersialan dan Pengantarabangsaan, by Qasim Ahmad. Kuala Lumpur: Penerbit Universiti Malaya, 2022, 607 pp. ISBN 978-967-488-163-4.
  Doria Abdullah
  

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• Disability in Translation: The Indian Experience, by Someshwar Sati and G.J.V. Prasad (eds.). London: Routledge, 2020. 262 pp. ISBN 978-0-8153-6984-4
  Shivanee
  

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