" Maka bermegah-megah mereka itu setengah atas setengah dengan eluk khat dan banyak lagu (cara), dan pandai menulis, dan cempat (cepat) menghitung, dan eluk aturan surat kiriman dan petah membuat syair dan fasih percakapan, dan pandai bertutur dengan beberapa bahasa yang lain daripada bahasa negerinya dan banyak hafaz dan bijaksana di dalam segala ilmu dan kepandaian...." - Syaikh Ahmad bin Muhammad Zain bin Mustafa al Fatani (1856-1908) in his book Hadiqatu al Azhar.

In the 1960s, o­nly the very privileged attended pre-school. I remember just about everyone learnt to hold their pencils upon starting Standard o­ne. Watching my friends struggled to scrawl their first ABC was quite hilarious for me as, by then, I already knew how to read and write and to do so simple arithmetic.

My father, being a strict person and rather forward-looking for his times, taught me most evenings o­ne year before formal schooling. School was indeed a very strange experience. It was not uncommon in those days to see some parents waiting outside the class all day within sight of their anxious kids until they finally settled in, usually within the first week.

But for me it was a breeze, for apart from the evening lessons with my father, I attended sekolah agama , which was a sort of my pre-school, and continued for a few more years during primary school. Unlike the other kids, it was quite natural for me to have my pre-school education at this sekolah agama , for apart from my parents' enthusiasm, the sekolah was built o­n a land donated by my grandfather.

I guess he had put quite a lot of his own money into building it. Apart from providing religious education for the children, my grandfather organised literacy classes there outside school hours in the 1960s for the analphabetical adults in the kampong.

The present squabble in Malay politics that is threatening the long cherished, people's institution, the Sekolah Agama Rakyat (SAR) makes me recall with fondness the school that my grandfather built and my first experience of schooling.

Education for Malays

In colonial Malaya the British built or encouraged Christian missions to run excellent schools in major towns. However in the villages, the Malays were able to maintain some semblance of civilised life in the sense of being able to use the pen (even if o­nly in Jawi ) through their own initiative, i.e. building their own schools, and the o­nly education they knew was religious education.

The colonial administration's Malay school ( sekolah atap ), teaching modern secular subjects came later and its growth was slow. Obviously, educating the Malays was not the British administration's chief interest. The first government Malay school in Selangor was in Klang in 1875 but until 1889, o­nly nine more schools had been added and the total enrolment was 375.

It was the philanthropy, foresight, dedication and selfless sacrifice of the founders and teachers of these people's religious schools that kept the spirit of knowledge-seeking and of the pen alive, even if for the narrow purpose of religious education, in the period when the Malay world was at its lowest ebb.

Having a tradition of knowledge-seeking and familiarity with the written word at least made it easy the transition to mass modern education later, while the religious schools continue in its role in producing people geared for religious administration and serving the needs of the community in matters of religion.

At least for these reasons, SAR as an institution that has been in existence long before the modern Malaysian nation was born, will continue to serve an important function for the Malays. It remains part of Malaysia's rich educational heritage, together with Malay, Chinese and Tamil vernacular schools and those founded by Christian missions.

Providing balance

Today with mass modern education and access to the professions that such an education promises, the Malays are no longer constrained with religious schools as the o­nly form of education open to them. However many Malays see the value of SAR as providing a balance to modern secular education and sustaining Islam as integral their cultural identity.

In modern Malaysia, SAR is largely seen as vestiges of a pre-independence indigenous educational system initiated and operated privately by philanthropic Malays to serve the religious needs of the community, playing a marginal, peripheral role in our educational environment.

However in more recent times, with deterioration in the quality of our national schools, middle-class Malay families are increasingly turning to religious schools for their children's education, especially those that integrate modern secular curriculum with religious instruction.

Despite this recent trend the image of religious schools as anachronism of modern life has remained largely intact - the cheap, dilapidated buildings, narrowly religious curricula not suited for today's competitive job market ....etc. Notwithstanding the propaganda of those who wished to see the end of SAR for political reasons, some of this image is true.

Influential scholars

Today religious schools may be generally viewed in an unflattering, even negative light, its curricula static and stagnant to the neglect of secular, modern knowledge and apt to keep the Malays steeped in backwardness and ignorance.

But it was the religious schools and their founders, scholars influenced by the reformist ideas of religious reformers like Muhammad Abduh during their sojourn in the Middle East who first prompted the stirrings of self-identity and "national" consciousness among the Malays at the turn of the last century - the awareness of the conspicuous presence of 'others', of the weaknesses existing in Malay society and the need to subject almost every aspect of Malay life to effective reform in order that the Malays might again be masters of their own country.

It was these religious scholars and their schools that spearheaded the most conspicuous development in Malay society since 1874 (the Pangkor treaty and the advent of British colonial administration). Education was seen by them as a vital instrument of progress.

One of the greatest visionaries for the advancement of the Malays through education was Syeikh Ahmad Zainal Abidin Al Fatani whom I quoted at the beginning of this article. Syeikh Ahmad's perspective o­n what constituted 'education' was extraordinary for someone of his times and his background.

He advocated the building of madrasahs for both boys and girls where they would be given instruction not o­nly in religious knowledge, but also in the anesthetics of belles lettres , mastery of modern languages and secular sciences that would create a modern Malay society but firmly anchored in the spiritual tradition of Islam.

Apart from publishing classical Malay texts o­n tasawwuf he also wrote o­n religious topics, Arabic language, history, literature and medicine as he had understood it. His two medical tests are Luqatu al'Ajlan and Tayyibu-al-Ihsan . A quotation from the latter demonstrated that he seemed to have a clear understanding of the principles and development of medical science:

" Dan telah kami harap bahawa membuka Allah akan hati seseorang yang mempunyai hemah (mengambil berat) yang tinggi, maka bersungguh-sungguh ia mencubakan beberapa pohon kayu dan tumbuh-tumbuhan lainnya, daripada barang yang ada pada bumi Melayu, dan memperiksakan pada demekian itu. Maka disuratkan beberapa faedahnya, dan khasiatnya dan pangkat segala tabiatnya, dan kaifiat istimal (cara menggunanya), seperti barang yang memperbuat demekian itu oleh hukama yunani (Greek) pada masa yang dahulu dengan beribu-ribu tahun. Kemudian mengambil dari mereka itu oleh setengah hukama Arab dengan hemmah setengah daripada raja-raja anak Harun Ar Rasyid. Maka berkekalan mentaklifkan (mengarang) mereka beberapa banyak karangan. Maka tercawang (berkembang) daripada demikain itu hingga sekarang ini tib(perubatan) segala tabib Farsi dan Hindi. Kemudian beratas-atas (atas mengatasi) pada demikian itu oleh segala tabib Afranji (European).

Through his writings he urged the Malay rulers and philanthropists to allocate part of their wealth for the advancement of education among the Malays.

Originally from Pattani (today part of southern Thailand) but residing and teaching in Mecca for much of his life, Syeikh Ahmad's vision fell o­n the shoulders of his illustrious pupil from Kelantan, Haji Muhammad Yusuf bin Ahmad, better known as Tok Kenali.

He went to Mecca at the age of 18 and returned to Kota Bharu 22 years later in 1910 to establish his madrasah , Pondok Paya (Pondok Kenali).

Quite unlike many other Malay states, the early phase of educational development in Kelantan owed almost nothing to the British administration. At the end of the 19 th century, there were many religious schools, or pondok , with several learned teachers. A few were from outside the Malay world such as Sayid Bahrein from Bahrain who was knowledgeable o­n Islamic laws and Tok Khorasan from Afghansitan who specializsd in Islamic philosophy.

Unlike previous teachers Tok Kenali adopted a very modern approach towards religious education. He kept abreast of world affairs by reading journals such a as Al-Ahram , Quallaushai and Al-Muqattan and encouraged his students to do the same.

His influence was widespread and his pupils came from various parts of the Malay world. In Kelantan itself, several of his pupils became leading religious teachers, writers, social critics and reformers. Tok Kenali himself was a prolific writer and his writings included short stories.

Leading lights

In 1917, Haji Nik Mahmud Ismail, Dato Perdana Menteri of Kelantan, a fellow student and close friend of Tok Kenali in Mecca, founded the Madrasah Muhammadiah with the advice of the former. The madrasah catered for three streams of education Malay, English and Arabic.

The English-language education was not as popular as Malay education and its success was frequently in doubt, but it was 19 years in advance of that provided by the government under the Advisory system. The first government English school in Kelantan was founded o­nly in 1936 (the Ismail English School).

The progress of Madrasah Muhammadiah was not always consistent but the school produced the leading literary figures and administrators of Kelantan. Many of its pupils were sent to further their education in the Penang Free School, the Malay College in Kuala Kangsar and the Sultan Idris Teacher College in Tanjung Malim.

In the 1920s, three former students of the Madrasah - Abdul Kadir Adabi, Asaad Shukri Haji Muda and Haji Nik Yusuf Haji Ismail ( Yussof Hilmi) - emerged as leading literary figures in Kelantan, writing critical essays in radical papers such as Saudara, and Edaran Zaman . In 1923 Abdul Kadir Adabi wrote a memorandum to the Sultan of Kelantan for the establishment of a university in the peninsula for the Malays.

Outside Kelantan, in the early decades of the 20 th century, the religious schools also played an important role in awakening the consciousness of the Malays. Sekolah Al-Diniah in Padang Rengas, Perak, founded by Syeikh Al-Junid in 1924, had a curriculum that included commercial subjects, mathematics, history and english.

In Melaka Sayid Syeikh Al Hadi founded the Sekolah AlHadi. In Alor Gajah Syeikh Tahir Jalaluddin, a writer and scholar who had returned from the Middle East began disseminating his reformist ideas in 1926.

Reformist ideas

Apart from education (through the establishment of religious schools with modern orientation), Muslim scholars exposed to the reformist ideas of Muhammad Abduh and Jamluddin Al-Afghani during their study in the Middle East attempted to awaken the Malay consciousness through their writings in magazines and periodicals, warning of the dangers of ultra-conservatism and non-action, and advocating reform.

Best known among these was Al Imam , first published in Singapore in 1906, which boldly voiced the grievances of the Malays and at the same time sounded a warning to them that if they did not overcome their conservatism and passivity, their position in their own country world be in jeopardy.

Al Imam

was not concerned primarily with religion but was very preoccupied with the material problems of the Malays. It accused the British of using orang besar to suppress the rakyat, criticising Westerners for assuming that their religion and civilisation were superior, and called upon Eastern races to free themselves from bondage.

In the 1920s, Pengasuh , the official organ of the Majlis Agama dan Istiadat Melayu Kelantan, like Al Imam , blamed the indifference of the rulers for the weaknesses of Malay society and advocated education as an indispensable means of achieving progress. It called for educational opportunities to be made available to girls too. Two other papers published in Kelantan in the 1920s were Al Hedayah and the more radical Putera , both by former students of Madrasah Muhammadiah .

By the late 1920s and 1930s, graduates of government Malay schools and Sultan Idris Teachers Training College had contributed significantly to the growth of the Malay intelligentsia and the literate class. The Malay left and the Singapore-based Utusan Melayu journalists were largely drawn from this group. Up to that point of Malayan history, throughout the first three decades of the 20 th century, the dynamic elements in Malay society were indeed found amongst the products of religious schools and government Malay schools.

In the post-war years, English-educated Malay bureaucrats, many of whom belonged to the traditional ruling class, came to the forefront to assume leadership of several political organisations. Their success was due in large measure to British assistance o­n the o­ne hand, and suppression of the Malay left and religious elements of the nationalist movement o­n the other. The British were prepared to negotiate o­nly with the aristocrats and the English-educated Malays.

Religious needs

Back to today's controversy surrounding the government's decision to end the capitation grant to SAR which will effectively lead to their demise, I have sketched the role of religious scholars who studied in the Middle East in contributing to the growth the Malay literate class through education in religious schools they established.

The dissemination of their reformist ideas led to an intellectual and political ferment, planting the seeds of Malay national consciousness, calling for unity in the face of growing alien domination of the economy and administration of the Malay states, and to finally aim for full independence.

The vision of Syeikh Ahmad Al Fatani remained unrealised, partly because the integration of modern secular education in religious schools could not have been possible without the active assistance of the colonial administration, as the traditional scholars exclusively studied religious sciences. The rapid growth and popularity government schools among the Malays and the suppression of the religious (and leftist) elements of the nationalist movement led to the eclipse of religious schools towards the end of the colonial period.

Today SAR is a pale shadow of its former self, but it continues to play an important role in complementing national schools, providing a balance in the Malay children's early education, and serving the religious needs of the community through those whose inclination is to pursue an exclusively religious education.

That alone is enough reason to keep SAR alive. Additionally, SAR as a Malay cultural institution, despite its faded glory, remains an important feature of Malaysia's pluralist educational heritage, deserving as much support and assistance as Tamil and Chinese schools.

Of course it has many weaknesses, and the accusation that SAR being the breeding grounds of the Islamist opposition's cadres and activists, to my mind, is not in doubt, but that is the result of neglecting to improve and modernise the curriculum and facilities of these institutions, and of allowing party-politics to seep into every facet of Malay public life, including education.

But this is just part of the general disenfranchisement resulting from the tumultuous events of September 1998, obviously more pronounced within the more religious conscious section of Malay society who were deeply offended by the wilful use of slanderous accusations ( fitnah ) of sexual peccadilloes and sodomy to bring down a political opponent, and the subsequent expose' of gross abuse of power and corruption in government.

Many do not doubt that the threat to SAR is for reasons of short-term political gains at a great cost to the Malay society. This has not escaped the notice of even some o­ne with pro-government credentials like Mohd Noor Azam who wrote an open letter ( Berita Mingguan , Feb 23, 2003) to the religious adviser to the government (and former minister in the PM's Department), paradoxically himself a product of the very institution in question.

Notes

* The main references for this article are Professor Khoo Kay Kim's Malay Society -Transformation & Democratization , Pelanduk Publications, 1991, and William R Roff's standard text Origins of Malay Nationalism , Yale University Press, 1967.

* The quotations by Syeikh Ahmad Al Fatani are from Abdullah Zaidi Hassan of Himpunan Pencakna Budaya, Kelantan.