Patani history

This paper describes the movements, personalities and processes in Thailand’s Malay dominated provinces of Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat that have led to unprecedented diversity within the ummah. Like the rest of Thai/Malay peninsula, although the overwhelming majority of Muslims in Thailand’s far-south are conservative traditionalists, the size and influence reformist Islam continues to increase. This is particularly the case among urban Malays. While the roots of reformism were sown in the 19th century by luminaries such as Syeikh Daud al-Fatani (1769-1847), and Syeikh Ahmed al-Fatani (1856-1908), the most important reformist personality in the early 20th centuries was Haji Sulong (1895-1945). Since his return from Saudi Arabia in the 1990s, Dr Ismail Lutfi Japakiya, the founding of rector of Yala Islamic University (Thailand’s first Islamic university) has emerged as the leader of Saudi style salafism. I conclude by considering the impact of the Tablighi Jama’at, a South Asian revival movement, on Islamic diversity in South Thailand since its arrival in the 1980s. A important point infrequently made in analysis of the Tablighi Jama’at is that both reformists and traditionalists are involved in this important revivalist movement.

บทความชิ้นนี้พยายามบันทึกความทรงจำของผู้ที่มีส่วนร่วมในกิจกรรมทางการเมืองครั้งสำคัญในฐานะที่เป็น “ตัวบท” ของประวัติศาสตร์การต่อรองของคนมลายูมุสลิมในจังหวัดชายแดนภาคใต้ (หรือในอีกแง่หนึ่งคือ “ปาตานี” ในนัยทางประวัติศาสตร์) ด้วยวิธีการที่ไม่ใช้ความรุนแรง ผ่านเหตุการณ์ชุมนุมประท้วงที่จังหวัดยะลาเมื่อปี 2531 เพื่อเรียกร้องให้มีการอนุญาตนักศึกษาสตรีมุสลิมสามารถคลุมฮิญาบขณะกำลังศึกษาอยู่ในวิทยาลัยครูยะลาได้ บทความชิ้นนี้ยังพยายามจะแจกแจงให้เห็นกลยุทธ์ของการใช้วิธีการที่ไม่ใช้ความรุนแรงเข้าต่อรองกับอำนาจรัฐ ตลอดจนวิธีที่ชาวมลายูมุสลิมใช้ต่อรองกันภายในกล่มของพวกเขาเอง รวมไปถึงบรรยากาศทางการเมืองทั้งในระดับท้องถิ่นไปถึงสากลที่เปิดเอื้อต่อการทำงานความคิดต่อคนหนุ่มสาวในยุคสมัยดังกล่าว กระทั่งปรากฏเป็นปฏิบัติการเคลื่อนไหวทางการเมืองครั้งสำคัญที่สุดครั้งหนึ่งของชาวมลายูมุสลิมในประเทศไทย

Résumé : Cet article propose une analyse de la façon dont les gestes sont produits lors d’une séance de massage thérapeutique traditionnel masculin au sein de l’espace villageois dans la minorité jawi de Thaïlande du Sud (provinces de Pattani, Yala et Narathiwat).

Mots-clé : Sud Thaïlande, Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat, Jawi, Malaisie, Singapour, espace villageois, massage, tradition, thérapeutique, guérisseur, bohmo, puissance magique, gestuelle, ethnogestique.

“‘Massaging the blood vessels, feeding the force’. The ethnogestics of a traditional massage session at Kelupè, a Jawi village in Southern Thailand”)

Abstract: This article offers an analysis of how gestures are produced during a session of traditional therapeutical massage for male patients among the Jawi minority of Southern Thailand (Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat provinces).

Key words: Southern Thailand, Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat, Jawi, Malaysia, Singapore, village space, massage, tradition, therapy, healer, bohmo, magical power, gestures, ethnogestic.

Pour lire le texte : https://issuu.com/lacroiseedesroutes/docs/revuelautrevoie11-2015-croiseedesro

Kertas Kerja ini mengkhusus kepada perbincangan kemunculan politik Islah di kalangan masyarakat Melayu Patani di Selatan Thai terutama era pasca revolusi 1932 dimana kesedaran berpolitik dalam tahap yang amat tinggi. Masyarakat Islam Patani melibatkan diri dalam kegiatan politik di pelbagai peringkat yang merangkumi pelbagai bentuk pertubuhan, persatuan demonstrasi dan tuntutan terhadap Kerajaan Thai. Ledakan ini turut dipengaruhi oleh kemunculan politik Islah. Tumpuan turut diberi kepada peranan yang dimainkan orang seorang ulama’ bernama Haji Sulong. Peranan yang beliau mainkan begitu besar hingga mampu menyatukan masyarakat dalam satu wadah sahsiah berteraskan Islam.

A native of Bruges (now part of Belgium), Jacques de Coutre was a gem trader who spent nearly a decade in Southeast Asia in the early 17th century. In addition to a substantial autobiography written in Spanish and preserved in the National Library of Spain in Madrid, he wrote a series of memorials to the united crown of Spain and Portugal that contain recommendations designed to reverse the decline in the fortunes of the Iberian powers in Southeast Asia, particularly against the backdrop of early Dutch political and commercial penetration into the region. Translated into English for the first time, these materials provide a valuable first-hand account of the bigger issues confronting the early colonial powers in Southeast Asia, and deep insights into the societies De Coutre encountered in the territory that today makes up Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.

Thailand and its armed forces continued to be involved in a non-international armed conflict (NIAC) with, at least, the Patani Malay National Revolutionary Front (BRN) and the coalition of armed groups, the Patani Consultative Council (Mara Patani).

บทความชิ้นนี้จะให้ความสนใจไปที่การเปลี่ยนแปลงของถ้อยคำหรือชื่อเรียกขาน “ดินแดน” ที่เปลี่ยนไปตามห้วงเวลา อันเป็นประเด็นสำคัญที่ก่อรูปความขัดแย้งที่ถึงตายซึ่งปรากฎอยู่ในปัจจุบันที่ดำเนินมาตั้งแต่ปี 2547 เป็นต้นมา ทั้งนี้ก็เนื่องจากว่าความคิดเกี่ยวกับดินแดนนั้นเกี่ยวข้องสัมพันธ์กับอัตลักษณ์ทางการเมืองที่ประชันขันแข่งกันภายใต้ผิวฉาบหน้าของความรุนแรงอย่างใกล้ชิด ทั้งยังเป็นสาระสำคัญของความขัดแย้งที่อ้างอิงกับหลักการสำคัญสองด้านที่ถูกหยิบยกกล่าวถึงตลอดระยะเวลาที่ผ่านมา นั่นคือ หลักการบูรณภาพแห่งดินแดนที่ทางการไทยยึดถือและหลักการสิทธิในการกำหนดชะตากรรมของตนเองที่ขบวนการต่อสู้ปาตานีอ้างอิงถึง คำเรียกขานต่างๆ ที่ถูกบันทึกไว้ในตำราประวัติศาสตร์ เอกสารทางราชการ ข้อคำสั่งทางราชการ ตลอดจนเอกสารต่างๆ ล้วนแล้วแต่สะท้อนข้อกล่าวอ้างที่ปะทะขัดฝืนกันมาโดยตลอด ถ้อยคำต่างๆ เหล่านี้ยังวางตัวเองอยู่ในบริบทในทางประวัติศาสตร์ที่อาจทำให้เข้าใจปรากฎการณ์ของความขัดแย้งที่เกิดขึ้นในปัจจุบันได้เป็นอย่างดี อย่างไรก็ตาม แทนที่จะสนใจเรื่องเล่าหรือคำอธิบายในทางประวัติศาสตร์ที่ต่อเนื่องและอ้างอิงด้วยหลักฐานต่างๆ ประดามี บทความชิ้นนี้จะให้ความสำคัญกับเรื่องเล่าที่บรรจุอยู่ในงานเขียนที่ปรากฎขึ้นมาอีกครั้งหรือนำมาเผยแพร่ซ้ำอีกครั้งในบริบทของความรุนแรงรอบใหม่ เพื่อพิจารณาร่องรอยที่สามารถค้นพบการประชันขันแข่งข้างต้นนั่นเอง

Through a study of over 1,300 previously unanalyzed Malay Islamic manuscripts, this article examines the role of the Patani community in the construction of transoceanic knowledge networks between Mecca and Southeast Asia in the nineteenth century. Set against the backdrop of the destruction of prevailing symbols of authority, as well as the displacement and scattering of the community after 1200/1786, the present study investigates the manner by which scholars established new cultural unities for the community and addressed social concerns by translating and spreading Islamic writings, teachings, and schools. With its spiritual leadership centered now in Mecca, influential members of the community began producing works that were contingent upon political circumstances, but also directed at the problems facing the refugee community. Of foremost importance were the place and definition of the family, and related issues such as inheritance, divorce, and visible social actions, including ritual purity, fasting, almsgiving, and criminal punishments.

Although historically Sufi orders (turuq, sg. tariqa) have been an important element of Thailand’s Islamic traditionalist majority, these regrettably have received almost no scholarly attention. The reasons for this neglect are complicated. Beyond (non-negligible) methodological constraints and difficulties in attaining access to some orders not open to outsiders, a double marginalization is observable. In addition to being located at the periphery of Southeast Asia’s “Islamic arc” (Tagliacozzo 2013), those studying Islam in Thailand have focused on but more has been written on religiously motivated violence, and the (revivalist) Tablighi Jama’at and (reformist) Salafiyyah which developed mass followings during the twentieth century, than the turuq they replaced. These range from those violently resisting Bangkok’s project of assimilation in the far-south since 2014, to the revivalist Tablighi Jama’at and reformist Salafiyyah that are now found throughout the country. This paper redresses such neglect by presenting a historical anthropology of Thai tariqa based on fieldwork among sufi orders in Thailand since late 2012. I begin by introducing some of the most important sufi personalities who, during the twentieth century, returned from educational sojourns in the Middle East, Java, and Kelantan, with permission (ijazah) to initiate or revive a range of sufi orders in Central Thailand (Ayutthaya and Bangkok), the Southern Thai-speaking upper south (Pang-nga Bay and Songkhla), and parts of the Malay-speaking far-south (Narathiwat). I describe ways in which orders widely distributed throughout the Muslim World such as the Qadriyyah, Shadhiliyyah, and Ahmadiyyah-Idrisiyyah, have been localized by Muslim communities in Thailand. I argue that successful doctrinal and ritual innovations are frequently championed by familiar people advocating and embodying something strange. The variety of localized global turuq that I present, challenge a number of assumptions about the cultural geography of Islamic diversity in contemporary Thailand.

This chapter describes Patani’s Indic, Islamic and Thai pasts. The argu- ment is that the Malay kerajaan of Patani was similar to—rather than distinct from—other port city-states on the peninsula and islands of Southeast Asia where a Sanskrit cosmopolis existed for a millennium before the earliest chapters of Islam’s Southeast Asian expansion. Islam also circulated east and west of Patani through trade between the Middle East and China via the Indian Ocean. This created a range of Indian/Arab/Malay creole communities whose members played key roles in the adoption of, or adhesion to, Islam in Southeast Asian port city-states like Patani. India’s importance to the arrival of Islam to the Thai/Malay peninsula relates to what Islam came to, where Islam initially came from, and who Islam came through. Rather than refer to conversion, I refer to an adhesion to, or adoption of, Islam. The impact of Thai and Islamic influences in Patani/Pattani following its defeat in 1785 is described. The details of the process through which the Malay Kingdom (SM. kerajaan) of  became the Thai Province of Pattani, including Bangkok’s legislative and administrative initiatives are also provided. A central con- cern of this chapter is to highlight the fact that these developments coincided with a period of revolution and reform in the Hijaz. I describe how these developments impacted local religious life and thought through local luminaries such as Shaykh Daud Al-Fatani, Shaykh Ahmad Al-Fatani and Haji Sulong. The methodologies and contributions of present-day reformist revivalist movements are also described.

'Kingdom's Edge' is a collection of photographs by photo-journalist Richard Humphries, focusing on Thailand's troubled deep South. The collection was compiled over a ten-year period.

The introduction to the collection is by Gerard McDermott.

'The collection captures the colourful and, at times, clashing identities and traditions of different peoples living together, yet separately; their histories and cultures sometimes overlapping, and sometimes conflicting. Some of the photos use allusions, symbolism and subtle references, while others make a virtue of plainness and immediacy. Richard's work maintains either a respectful intimacy or a sympathetic distance: at times, raw and immediate; at other times, detached.' - Gerard McDermott

Kertas kerja yang dibentangkan dalam Seminar Antarabangsa Budaya dan Sejarah Kelantan-Patani bertempat di Kompleks Islam Jubli Perak, Kelantan , Malaysia, anjuran Peradaban pada 6-7 Oktober 2018. Kertas ini menyentuh latar belakang sejarah perjuangan orang Melayu Patani yang berterusa sehingga hari ini, dan bagaimana konsep 'syahid' ditanggapi oleh rakyat tempatan, sekali gus tentang peranannnya yang dimainkan oleh konsep tersebut dalam meneruskan perjuangan. Selain itu, percanggahan pendapat tentang kosenp syahid serta kategori kematian yang kemungkinan dianggap sebagai syahid di Patani juga dibincangkan.

This paper considers the role of Malay language loyalty and loss in South Thailand. The ethnographic material presented is based on the author’s ten years living and working among bilingual urban Malays, and a year making regular visits to rural communities in Narathiwat. One of the few things that informed analysts of South Thailand agree on is that a range of factors contributed to the resumption of violence in 2004. In addition to the role of political legitimacy, there is consensus that progress towards peace is complicated by the involvement of uncivil constituencies from two highly ethnicised religious communities. Despite the importance of ethnoreligious issues this paper argues that ethnolinguistic dynamics⎯specifically language loyalty, loss, and angst⎯have much to contribute to the return of peaceful co-existence and reconciliation. Although religious freedom in Thailand is promised and present, few minority languages in Thailand are strong now than they were before policies promulgated in the 1930s. I introduce the range of positions on the role of language and multi-lingualism in the construction of difference and the achievement of peaceful co-existence. I describe the range mono-lingual and bilingual communities in South Thailand. I also recount the variety of ways that Southern Malays have responded to the decline of Malay and the importance of Thai for those wishing to engage in Thai modernity. There is a need to as informed by ethno-linguistic angst as ethno-religious rebellion.

As is well known, historians and religious studies have studied the haj, an element of Islam’s globally normative ritual repertoire widely dismissed by anthropologist as ethnographically insignificant. Anthropologists in Southeast Asia, particularly influenced by the anthropology of Islam, have complimented traditional interest in local ritual performances with how haj has impacted Southeast Asian Muslims and Muslim societies. This paper describes the effects of the the haj and umrah on individual salvation and social change. While the empirical data introduced in this paper is based on extensive enthnographic fieldwork undertaken in the overwhelmingly Muslim context of Pattani town (amphur muang Pattani), this paper suggests areas of continuity and disjuncture with other cosmopolitan Southeast Asian port city-states such as Penang. I argue that despite their geographical proximity, significant differences in the economic, ethnic, linguistic, and religious dynamics of these cosmopolitan centres should not be overlooked. Penang might have been the closest port of departure to Mecca for Muslims resided in the western coast of Thailand’s upper south that before the Anglo-Siamese treaty of 1909 was part of the Kedah Kerajaan, but many Malays from Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat left for Mecca from ports on the east coast. This paper argues that a significant similarities between Patani/Pattani and Penang the absence that has has been inadequately dealt with my scholars who shares the authors interest in the Thai/Malay Peninsula is the marginalization of Malay rajas by Siamese and British colonial expansion. Given the importance of these institutions in the patronage and administering of Islam, pilgrims returning to Penang and Patani/Pattani faced different obstacles to disseminating reformist agendas encountered in the Haramyn to than those returning to contexts still within the control of the palace. Whether from Penang and Patani/Pattani, pilgrims enjoyed the personal benefits of fulfilling the fifth and final pillar of Islam and the merit received from pious performances in Mecca’s potent centre, the details of which I delineate and discuss.

Places are social constructs. They become individuated and significant when imbued with meaning through people’s lived experience, usage, and imagery. This paper discusses the construction of Patanian places in Thailand’s Deep South, a region consisting of the provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat, and Yala, where the Malays constitute the ethnic majority. Using the Krisek Mosque, the Tomb of Sultan Ismail Shah, and the former home of Haji Sulong as examples, the paper shows how Patanian Malay narratives about these places illustrate their sorrow about the demise of the historical Malay kingdom of Patani and their community’s strained political relationship with the Thai state and nation. Viewed collectively, these places constitute a landscape of grief for the Patanian Malays.

FRANCE CULTURE - Émission « Culture Monde » produite par Florian Delorme ~ L'Asie du Sud-Est : le nouveau carrefour du monde 4/4) : « Des Jawi aux Kachin : les minorités culturelles face aux identités nationales », avec Pierre Le Roux ~ du lundi au vendredi de 11h à 11h55 - 58 mn (jeudi 21 juin 2018) ~ Résumé : En Thaïlande et en Birmanie, l’intégration des populations malaises, hindouistes, animistes ou musulmanes ne se fait pas sans heurts et montre les difficultés auxquelles se confrontent les Etats-nations en contexte post-colonial. Alors quelles sont les aspirations de ces peuples minoritaires ? L'intégration des minorités dans la région de Patani se fait au prix d’une guérilla sans fin qui verse dans l’intégrisme religieux ou le gangstérisme mafieux. ~ Le sud de la Thaïlande, la partie péninsulaire du royaume, est peuplée de populations très diverses culturellement, parmi lesquelles les Jawi, descendants du Sultanat de Patani – annexé par le royaume du Siam, l’ancien nom de la Thaïlande, avant d’être carrément divisé par le traité anglo-siamois de 1909. Depuis, l’intégration de ces populations malaises, hindouistes, animistes ou musulmanes dans le royaume thaï – et majoritairement bouddhiste – ne se fait pas sans heurts, avec une guérilla qui persiste depuis lors, puisant tour à tour dans l’ethno-nationalisme, l’idéologie communiste, l’intégrisme religieux, ou le simple gangstérisme mafieux. Une mondialisation galopante qui explose les cadres traditionnels. Plus au nord, les peuples des montagnes et leur environnement sont aux prises avec une mondialisation galopante qui explose les cadres traditionnels d’une vie longtemps restée en marge de l’action des pouvoirs publics tandis que la Birmanie se déchire sur fonds de tensions ethniques et confessionnelles. Autant d’exemples qui montrent les difficultés et les contradictions auxquelles se confrontent les Etats-nations en contexte post-colonial et en contexte de mondialisation, alors que certaines zones et certaines populations sont longtemps restées à l’écart des réseaux mondiaux d’information et de circulation. Quelles sont les aspirations de ces peuples minoritaires ? Alors comment se sont historiquement constitués ces particularismes ? Quelles sont les aspirations de ces peuples minoritaires ? Et quelles voies pacifiques et respectueuses peuvent être trouvées par les différents acteurs ? ~ Une émission préparée par Samuel Bernard ~ Intervenants : Pierre Le Roux, ethnologue, professeur à l’université de Strasbourg ~ Bernard Formoso, professeur d’ethnologie à l’université Paris Ouest-Nanterre, membre de l’Institut de recherches asiatiques (CNRS, Aix-Marseille Université), Marseille ~ Alexandra de Mersan, anthropologue, maître de conférences à l'Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO). ~ Pour écouter l'émission : https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/cultures-monde/culturesmonde-du-jeudi-21-juin-2018

The history of talks with former-separatists since 2004 and recent government attempts at building trust with the local population have yet to achieve any noticeable results in troubled southern Thailand. Discussions surrounding autonomy or devolution for the south are hampered by political taboos and an inflexible Bangkok-based political elite. Certain local and external factors also shape the conflict, such as the role of Malaysia as a safe-haven for insurgents and the role of the black-economy in the region. A lack of communication, the inflexibility of the Thai political elite and the above-mentioned local and external factors all serve as barriers toward peace.

This article takes clues from Mark Juergensmeyer’s comparative study of religious violence and develops Imtiyaz Yusuf’s proposal that the southern violence represents a conflict between the competing exclusive ethno-religious worldviews of Thai satsanaa and Malay agama. It moves beyond the routine rounding up and interrogation of the “usual suspects” in two ways: first, by including a range of uncivil elements of Thai Buddhism, and second, by examining often ill-conceived Thai interference in Islamic matters. The article also poses questions about the “usual suspects”, beginning with a description of Islamic movements which contribute to an increasingly divided Islamic community less able to prevent and limit Islamic violence. The paper investigates the Islamic credentials of the insurgency and distinguishes between the presence of jihadi rhetoric with a developed jihadi rationale, a recent development in southern Thailand. The article argues for the localization of the global, a process which features local actors and agents that are informed by parochial and highly ethnocized version of Islam that is countering occasionally uncivil Buddhist opponents, as an approach for studying violence in the Thai south.

In this paper, which is very much a work in process, I revisit the Dusun Nyoir rebellion of April 1948. Studies by scholars Chaiwat Satha-Anand (2006) and Nidhi Aeusrivongse (2006) make it difficult to imagine that anyone even superficially interested in South Thailand’s geography of violence being ignorant about the details of this 3-day altercation. My motivations for writing this paper are two concerns about the project of peace research. The first  – which I will labour least  – is that despite the difficulties of access to suspicious, rural communities, there is no substitute for fieldwork. Some of the new insights provided below might be the fruit of fieldwork, but others have been in the public domain for decades. This relates to my second concern. The lack of interaction with the secondary literature capable of contextualizing the range of personalities and processes involved in past conflicts is difficult to explain, and even harder to excuse. I relate how labouring in both the field and library led to new insights about connections between Haji Mat Karae (who led the Dusun Nyoir rebellion) with Kyai Salleh of Batu Pahat. I point out similarities between these movements, in which invulnerability magic (ilum kebal) and swords (rather than guns) were employed during a time of unprecedented geo-political chaos. Although mention has been made about how political chaos in Bangkok impacted the Malay-dominated far-south, I show that these dynamics existed throughout the Thai/Malay Peninsula.

Patani, Tayland’ın Malezya’ya sınır olan güney bölgesinde, çoğunlukla Müslüman olan Malayların yaşadığı, Yala, Narativat, Satun, Patani ve Songkhla olmak üzere beş vilayeti kapsayan bölgeye verilen isimdir.
Patani Müslümanları; başta Malezya, Singapur, Endonezya, Brunei, Filipinler ve Sri Lanka olmak üzere Madagaskar ve Güney Afrika’ya
kadar uzanan Malay Dünyası’nın bir parçasıdır.
Tayland’da 68 milyonluk nüfusun %95’i Budistlerden oluşurken, çoğunlukla Patani bölgesinde yaşayan Müslümanlar 3 milyonluk
nüfuslarıyla %4’lük dilime tekabül ederler. Bazı kaynaklara göre başkent Bangkok ve diğer şehirlerde yaşayan Müslümanlarla birlikte 6-7 milyona ulaşan bu rakam, %8,5’lik dilime karşılık gelmektedir.

This chapter describes how ethnic identifications, language and religion in present-day Cabetigo have been affected by the Thai and Islamic influences described in previous chapters. While the Muslims in Cabetigo are comfortably bilingual ethnic Malays who adhere to traditionalist expressions of Islam, significant religious, linguistic and ethnic diversity exists. The chapter begins by describing how reformist and revivalist movements dealt with in the previous chapter have increased religious diversity—even division—in Cabetigo. I delineate the various ways in which Muslims identify themselves, but also the factors that affect which strategic identity is chosen at any given time and place. This chapter concludes with an account of how the bilingualism in Cabetigo brought about the widespread adoption of Thai by urban Malays.

This paper is an attempt to analyse the political situation surrounding the bloody civil war in “Patani-Southern Thailand” from the perspective of those who seek freedom, justice and self-determination. Unlike most academic papers or books on the subject, this paper is not aimed at top politicians, military generals or officials of foreign powers, all of whom seek to maintain their own class interests by stressing “stability” or measures to “contain” the situation without any regard to the wishes of ordinary people.
    According to the internal security organisation of the Thai state, since 1st January 2004, 5,105 people have been killed and 9,372 injured in the civil war in the South . More than half of those killed were local ethnic Malays, which indicates that Thai security forces, in and out of uniform, are doing most of the killing.
    In this paper, I refer to “Patani” or “Patani-Southern Thailand” as an historical unit covering the 3 most southern provinces which the Thai state created out of the destruction of the Patani sultanate. These are the provinces of Pattani, Yala and Naratiwart. The majority of the population in these provinces are Malay Muslims with their own language and culture.

This article describes changes in the 'religious geography' of Thailand's Malay-dominated southern provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat since the 1960s. These have been led by a range of religious entrepreneurs returning to these parts of southern Thailand from the Middle East and South Asia. We begin by conceptualizing local Islamic diversity in ways that move beyond binaries such as the new and old schools (kaum muda-kaum tua) and accept that the vast majority of Malays in southern Thailand remain conservative, rural traditionalists. We provide relevant details about the background, overseas educational influences and the forms of religious activism pursued by leaders of local modernist, reformist and revivalist religious franchises. We also point out the different strategies pursued by these religious entrepreneurs and that the operational centres for many of these movements are located in Yala. This article argues that Middle Eastern influences in southern Thailand have been exaggerated, while South Asian influences have been overlooked, and that the Malaysian State of Kelantan has played an important role in diversifying the religious geography of these southern provinces.

In this seminar, I present some of my findings from a recently completed multi-sited study of Sufism in Thailand. I summarise the range of personalities and historical processes involved in the introduction of the Ahmadiya-Idrisiyya from the Hijaz, to Kelantan and Patani. I point out how this case-study differs from that of the Qaddriya wa Naqshabandiya introduced to Ayutthaya (late 1890s), and the Ahmadiyya-Shadhiliya whose founding sheikh arrived in Bangkok, in 1927. Few studies of Sufism are complete without details of the silsilah of influential Murshid (Ar. Sufi guides). While these will be included, my interests are in what the arrival of the Ahmadiya-Idrisiyya tells us about the Mecca-based “Patani School”, and their agenda in the late 1890s. I argue that this confirms Sheikh Ahmad al-fatani’s reputation as a progressive intellectual force, and offer suggestions for becoming connected to the “juristic Sufism” of Sheikh Ahmad Ibn Idris. I conclude by relating the changes to the Ahmadiya-Idrisiyya in Kelantan and Patani  brought about by later Murshid under whose leadership this tariqa developed a changed from that of a reformist order, to an ecstatic one. The presentation will include some visual vignettes of Ahmadiya-Idrisiyya dhikr.

Deadly ethnopolitical conflict in the deep south of Thailand or " Patani " founded the problematic issues regarding the presence/absence of some words; in other word, the argument on naming of the violence situation, actors, the territory/land and the people involves the way in which these conflicts are transformed. This article elaborates the dynamics of naming by mean of " unfolding " them to present how these contested words and concepts could shape conflict and peace process and how the peace communities should deal with these words when confronting the political inconvenience to accept term like " Armed Conflict, " the difference between " Santiphap " and " Santisuk " both seemed to mean " Peace " in this conflict.

บทความชิ้นนี้ให้ความสำคัญกับเรื่องเล่า โดยมุ่งสำรวจดูผลกระทบของความรุนแรงร่วมสมัยที่ส่งผลให้ผลิตงานเขียนในโลกภาษาไทยเกี่ยวกับประวัติศาสตร์ “ปาตานี” ในแง่มุมต่างๆ ที่มักจำกัดกรอบไว้ในระยะเวลาอันไกลโพ้นและเต็มไปด้วยเรื่องเล่าความรุนแรง หลังจากนั้นจะพยายามพิจารณาพลวัตภายในสังคมมลายูปาตานีในประวัติศาสตร์ระยะใกล้ในห้วง 2 – 3 ทศวรรษที่ผ่านมาและความทรงจำเกี่ยวกับการต่อรองทางการเมืองระหว่างศูนย์กลางกรุงเทพฯ และชายขอบปาตานี รวมถึงการต่อรองระหว่างกลุ่มต่างๆ ภายในสังคมมลายูปาตานีเองผ่านเรื่องเล่าเกี่ยวกับประสบการณ์ของผู้ที่เคยเป็นตัวละครสำคัญในเหตุการณ์สำคัญที่ข้าพเจ้าเลือกเป็นกรณีศึกษา อันได้แก่ กรณีการเคลื่อนไหวเรียกร้องให้มีการแก้ระเบียบให้นักศึกษาสตรีสามารถสวมใส่ฮิญาบได้ในวิทยาลัยครูยะลาเมื่อปลายปี 2530 ถึงต้นปี 2531 และกรณีการเรียกร้องให้เพิกถอนทะเบียนโบราณสถานของมัสยิดกรือเซะตั้งแต่ห้วงปี 2530 - 2533

In 2013, talks were held in Kuala Lumpur between Thailand’s National Security Council (NSC) and representatives of the Malay-Muslim separatist group Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN). The unprecedented announcement of this formal ‘peace dialogue’ between the Thai state and an insurgent group led to much scepticism from different parties concerning the motivations of the NSC and the level of influence of the BRN delegation’s chief representative, Hassan Taib. This article critically examines the turbulent ten month period from the February 28th declaration in Kuala Lumpur to the December 29th announcement by General Prayuth Chan-ocha that the military, and not the NSC, would represent Thailand at the next round of talks. This article also evaluates the positive aspects of the talks and the current barriers toward further progress for peace in the region. Additionally, attention is also drawn to the relevance of BRN’s communication with both the general public and the NSC.

Although readers of Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch have been familiar with the writings of Jacques de Coutre since the 1980s, scholars and researchers in Southeast Asia have yet to familiarize themselves with his autobiography (Vida) and his petitions. De Coutre, who was a native of Bruges in Flanders, spent roughly one decade in Southeast Asia between 1593 and 1603, and in this time was based in Melaka and Manila. From here he made lengthy trips to other parts of the Malay Peninsula – such as Pahang and Patani, and especially also to Siam and Cambodia. This paper which is held on the occasion of the launch of the first published English translation of a selection of De Coutre’s writings asks two very fundamental questions: Why should we bother to read this source and of what value might it be to Southeast Asian researchers today?
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What personalities and processes need to be present for religious traditions to successfully establish new constituencies? In Aceh, for example, did recently arrived Arabs from Aden play key roles in the processes of "Islamisation?" While few claim rank outsiders to have been crucial in chapters of significant religious change, in this paper I argue that neither are individuals⎯albeit inadequately⎯described as insiders. Accounts provided by historians done with dissecting the dynamics of religious change note the presence of multi-lingual and mobile mediators, who have been described as "inbetweeners", who were adept at importing new ideas⎯including ways of dealing with the divine. Commerce across the Indian Ocean both before and after the rise in European presence centred on ports where being different was normal. Pre-colonial port-cities produced ethnolinguistical “creole” or “cosmopolitan” communities whose comfort with ethnoreligious diversity is lamentable scarce in present-day South and Southeast Asia. This paper considers the role of “mobile mediators” and “inbetweeners” in the importation of a range of Islamic movements in Thailand. I make suggestions about the personalities and processes through which ideas espoused by Imam Al-Ghazali (1058–1111), Sheikh Ahmad Ibn Idris (1760-1837), and Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849-1905) become known in Thai/Malay Peninsula. I describe the contributions and discuss the identity of local luminaries including Shaykh Ahmad al-Fatani, Ishmael Lutfi Japakiya, Direk Kulsriswasd, and Conrad Laurens Coolen to the spread of mystical, modernist, reformist, and revivalist Christian and Muslim movements.

Southeast Asia has been a historical crossroads of major world civilizations for nearly two millennia. Muslim traders were sojourning along the shores of the Indonesian archipelago from at least the 8th century, and by the turn of the 14th century local Muslim communities had taken root, and the region’s first sultanate was established in northern Sumatra. Since then, Muslim communities had been established across many other parts of Southeast Asia, where in the 21st century they comprise demographic majorities in the nation-states of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei and significant minority populations in the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, and Singapore.

The Islamization of these societies, and their inclusion into an expanding constellation of Muslim societies in the medieval and early modern periods, was facilitated by intensifications of activity along the maritime trading routes linking Southeast Asia to ports on the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and Swahili Coasts with those of India and China over the medieval and early modern periods. Over the course of this history, the expansion of Islam in the region was not dominantly directed from any single source but rather the result of diverse, interlaced strands of commercial and cultural circulations that connected the region to multiple points in an expanding Muslim world—adopting local traditions to produce diverse and dynamic vernacular forms of Islamic cultural expression.

This paper describes Malay negotiation with Thai Influences and Islamic reformism in Thailand’s far-south by analyzing the changes in merit-making rhetoric, rituals, and rationales. I begin by demonstrating how the local rise of Thai/Siamese influence coincided with growth of Islamic reformism. The subjugation of the Malay Kerajaan of Patani by Siamese forces between the 178Os and the 1820’s led to an exodus of ‘ulama to Mecca at a tumultuous time. The writings and returning students of Malay-Indonesian scholars based in Mecca began to challenge traditionalist orthopraxy in Pattani before Siam increased its attempts to assimilate its southern subjects following the 1909 Anglo-Siamese Treaty. The governments of General Prem Tinsulanonda negotiated an amnesty to Malay separatists, accommodated Malay demands, and co-opted Malay elites. Once more, these developments roughly coincided with Islamic resurgence. As a result, Malays in South Thailand are both more religiously observant, and engagement in Thai modernity. The second half of this paper describes the impact of these Thai and Islamic influences on merit-making rhetoric, rituals, and rationales. Malay language loss among urban Malays have led to increasing numbers referring to the generation, accumulation and transference of merit as tham bun (merit-making)⎯an expansive Thai religious idiom. While Thai influences have impacted merit-making rhetoric, Islamic reformism has changed merit (Th. Bun, SM. Pahala) are generating. Traditionalists and reformists both insist that the performance of one’s individual ritual obligations (fardu ‘in) has the biggest effect on Muslim’s comfort in the grave and eschatological vindication. Nevertheless, reformist reject the efficacy of merit transferred to the deceased (except when performed by anak saleh) have led to the circle of posthumous funeral feasts being replaced by merit-transference strategies considered consistent with the sunnah. Traditionalists argue for the efficacy of a range of merit-generating ritual complexes, and that merit-transference is a meritorious act. While Thai influences have impacted merit-making rhetoric, and Islamic influences merit-making rituals, both affect merit-making rationales. Islamic tradition emphatically affirms that one’s the level of one’s store of merit affects one’s comfort in the grave and vindication at judgment. While Malays of South Thailand share the Indic background with other Southeast Asian Muslims, contact with Theravada Buddhism can be seen to have led to a greater emphasis on, and more sophisticated conception of, the economy of merit in South Thailand.

Disertasi ini merupakan satu kajian perbandingan bahasa Melayu yang dituturkan di dua buah kawasan yang saling berjiran, iaitu di Malaysia dan di Thailand, khususnya empat wilayah sempadan selatan, berdasarkan kerangka teoritis sosiolinguistik. Kajian ini mempunyai tiga tujuan, iaitu (i) unsur-unsur yang mempengaruhi arah perkembangan bahasa Melayu di negara masing-masing, (ii) menggambarkan dan menganalisis perbezaan yang ada pada bahasa Melayu di kedua-dua negara, dan (iii) meramalkan arah perkembangan masa depan bahasa Melayu berdasarkan cabaran yang dihadapinya.

Artikel tentang kejadian pertempuran antara kumpulan bersenjata pembebasan Melayu Patani dan tentera Thai yang terjadi pada 13 Februari 2013 yang memberi dampak yang signifikan terhadap perkembangan ruang publik/politik di wilayah konflik di Patani, Selatan Thailand.

This paper describes Malay negotiation with Thai Influences and Islamic reformism in Thailand’s far-south by analyzing the changes in merit-making rhetoric, rituals, and rationales. I begin by demonstrates how the local rise of Thai/Siamese influence coincided with growth of Islamic reformism. The subjugation of the  Malay Kerajaan of Patani by Siamese forces between 178Os and the 1820’s led to an exodus of ‘ulama to Mecca at a tumultuous time. The writings and returning students of Malay-Indonesian scholars based in Mecca began to challenge traditionalist orthopraxy in Pattani before Siam increased its attempts to assimilate its southern subjects following the 1909 Anglo-Siamese Treaty. The religious and political activism of Haji Sulong (1895-1945) coincided with the rise of the Thai nationalist ruler, Field Marshall Phibun Songkram. Although following World War II successive Thai governments sought to modernize traditional Islamic education and encourage Thai, the governments of General Prem Tinsulanonda negotiated an amnesty to Malay separatists, accommodated Malay demands, and co-opted Malay elites. Once more, these developments roughly coincided with Islamic resurgence, which have led to greater religious observance, and engagement in Thai modernity among Malays in resent-day South Thailand. The second half of this paper describes the impact of these Thai and Islamic influences on merit-making rhetoric, rituals, and rationales. Malay language loss among urban Malays have led to increasing numbers referring to the generation, accumulation and transference of merit as tham bun (merit-making)⎯an expansive Thai religious idiom. While Thai influences have impacted merit-making rhetoric, Islamic reformism has changed merit (Th. Bun, SM. Pahala) are generating. Traditionalists and reformists both insist that the performance of one’s individual ritual obligations (fardu ‘in) has the biggest effect on Muslim’s comfort in the grave and eschatological vindication. Nevertheless, reformist reject the efficacy of merit transferred to the deceased (except when performed by anak saleh) have led to the circle of posthumous funeral feasts being replaced by merit-transference strategies considered consistent with the sunnah. Traditionalists argue for the efficacy of a range of merit-generating ritual complexes, and that merit-transference is a meritorious act. While Thai influences have impacted merit-making rhetoric, and Islamic influences merit-making rituals, both affect merit-making rationales. Islamic tradition emphatically affirms that one’s the level of one’s store of merit affects one’s comfort in the grave and vindication at judgment. While Malays of South Thailand share the Indic background with other Southeast Asian Muslims, contact with Theravada Buddhism can be seen to have led to a greater emphasis on, and more sophisticated conception of, the economy of merit in South Thailand.