Major Transitions in the Government System of the Malay World: The Case of Malaysia

There are three major eras in the history of the Malay world. These are the precolonial, colonial and postcolonial eras. Each era has its own uniqueness in framing the socio-political life in the Malay world. To understand the socio-political life during the different eras, a conceptual analytical tool is needed. This article uses a conceptual analysis tool known as knowledge baseline to understand the reasons behind the different patterns of socio-political life for each era of the Malay world. Knowledge baseline refers to the various major knowledge corpus that frame the socio-political life for that era. For example, the pre-colonial socio-political Malay world was framed by religious knowledge as its primary knowledge and the system of government during that era was an integration between State and religion. During the colonial era there was a clear demarcation between religion and State. That was the time when religion was separated from the state and the administrative system was based on secular modern science. The transition between different knowledge backgrounds occured again during the postcolonial era when there was an uneven coalescent between religion and secular modern science. This article explicates the transitions in the background knowledge that permeated the Malay world during the precolonial, colonial and post colonial periods using Malaysia as a case in point.