ARI Working Paper Series

This paper attempts to fill the lacunae in the scholarly literature surrounding Islamic activism in Singapore by providing a critical historical analysis of the Muhammadiyah movement. Utilizing insights and concepts borrowed from social movement theorists, I argue that four processes have been crucial in the sustenance of the Muhammadiyah movement within a non-Muslim dominated and politically conservative environment: the symbiotic relationship between the leaders and the led, the formulation and subsequent revision of the movement’s ideational frames, political opportunity structures which were judiciously exploited and the availability of a wide array of mobilizing structures. The Muhammadiyah movement, as will be shown, provides an informative sample of an Islamic activist organization in Singapore that has been successful in transcending the limits imposed by the secular state. By illuminating the interplay between local Islamic activism and international movements and the ways in which global Islamic discourses and paradigms were appropriated within a local context, this study of the Muhammadiyah movement in Singapore serves as a ground for comparison in the research on Islam in other parts of Asia.