SPEAKING IN THE NAME OF ISLAM: A DISCURSIVE STUDY OF THE CONTESTATIONS OVER POLYGYNY AND CHILD MARRIAGE IN CONTEMPORARY MALAYSIA AND SINGAPORE

Abstract

Among the contestations over Islamic knowledge in Muslim communities of Malaysia and Singapore between elites and civil society since the 1940s to the present day concern the local rules, laws, and expectations placed on Muslim girls and women, especially on matters of marriage and divorce. This thesis explores the contestations over polygyny and child marriage in contemporary Muslim Malaysia and Singapore to shed light on the hierarchies and exercises of power maintained by Muslim elites. Drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis and discourse-historical analysis, this thesis intends to show how discursive contestations demonstrate the power dynamics which govern the processes of public Islamic knowledge production and consumption. In examining the arguments and justifications offered by social groups supportive of and opposed to the laws and practices of polygyny and child marriage, the thesis illuminates the religious traditionalism and authoritarianism of Muslim elites, as well as their ascendancy over the constitutions of religious legitimacy and interpretive authority.