This is an excellent study both in substance and in conceptual refinement, opening up important perspectives on the particular mode of Islamic modernity being achieved in Malaysia, and the dynamics of implanting globalised capitalist values within a major Muslim society.
This is an excellent study both in substance and in conceptual refinement, opening up important perspectives on the particular mode of Islamic modernity being achieved in Malaysia, and the dynamics of implanting globalised capitalist values within a major Muslim society. … Modernity assumes a variety of forms shaped by deeply embedded cultural and religious patterns across a wide spectrum of societies. This reflects the diverse reality of our pluralist cosmopolitan planet. The manner and direction in which growing Muslim middle-classes embrace consumerist attitudes and priorities, blending these with key aspects of their own Islamic practice and identity, is one of the great unfolding realities of contemporary Islamic societies. Fischer has made a valuable contribution toward understanding what the rise of the consumerist middle-class in civil society portends for emergent modes of modernity in Muslim majority nations. The distinction of Fischer’s analysis of the Malaysian pattern is to demonstrate clearly how this process is being managed and exploited by the State.