In 1970, Mahathir bin Mohamad published The Malay Dilemma. Coming a year after explosive postelection race riots in 1969 exposed the racial and class tensions that underlay Malaysian politics, the book launched Mahathir's political career. His argument that Malays must be supported by government affirmative action programs lest the country be taken over by Chinese “immigrants” validated racial appeals by the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) that dominated the ruling political alliance. Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman banned Mahathir's book, but within months, he was forced to resign. Malay nationalists within the UMNO formulated the New Economic Policy, enshrining affirmative action policies for bumiputra (“sons of the soil”), the majority of whom were Malays, and amended the Seditions Act to criminalize public questioning of the special rights of Malay Muslims. Consolidation of Malay political power was accomplished by a constitutional amendment stating that future changes to the Constitution would require not only the consent of Parliament but also that of the Conference of Rulers, which is composed of the sultans of the Malay states, who are recognized as guardians of Islam. At the same time, the notorious Internal Security Act, dating from the colonial regime, was amended so that individuals could be held without trial for threats to “intercommunal harmony.”

Joseph Chinyong Liow's Piety and Politics: Islamism in Contemporary Malaysia is an attempt almost forty years later to confront “the Malaysian dilemma”: Is the UMNO or the new alliance of opposition parties that includes the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) more likely to protect the civil liberties of non-Muslim (and Muslim) Malaysians? In the epilogue, Liow discusses the results of the March 2008 election, in which an alliance of opposition parties—the liberal People's Justice Party led by Anwar Ibrahim, the Chinese-based Democratic Action Party, and the PAS—achieved what amounts to victory in Malaysia, denying the UMNO-led alliance a two-thirds parliamentary majority and winning control of five states. This success led Anwar Ibrahim to call for UMNO members to break ranks and join the opposition, giving it a simple majority. Such dreams of overturning the UMNO's control of political power after forty-two years have led to this reassessment of the policies and positions taken by the UMNO and PAS regarding the role of Islam in the governance of Malaysia.

When I lived in Malaysia (1975–78), signs of an Islamic resurgence on university campuses were evident. The Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement, established in 1971 by Anwar Ibrahim and likeminded students at the University of Malaya, emerged as a political force in 1974 when students organized demonstrations against the UMNO in Baling, Kedah. The protests over poverty and hunger among poor Malay farmers led to Anwar's arrest under the Internal Security Act and incarceration for twenty months. This reprisal apparently deterred the organization of further demonstrations, and in the late 1970s, Malaysians still appeared to be hopeful of building a better future for the nation. As Lim Teck Ghee, then a professor at the Universiti Sains Malaysia and until recently director of a Malaysian think tank, reflected recently to Ian Buruma, “The sad thing is that Malaysia could have been so good—we could have been a model of a multi-ethnic harmony” (“Letter From Malaysia,” The New Yorker, May 18, 2009).

Piety and Politics is an attempt to understand what went wrong and to overturn the widespread view of Malaysian Islam as progressive, tolerant, and inclusive. In 1974, the PAS joined the UNMO in support of its Malay nationalist agenda, but the coalition collapsed in 1977. In the 1978 election, the PAS was defeated, and a new generation emerged to challenge the older leadership. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 infused the more radical youths with energy, and they won positions of leadership at the PAS convention in 1982. One of their first acts was to create the Consultative Council of Religious Scholars, establishing the ulama in a decision-making role in the PAS, an innovation adopted from the Shi'a Islam of Iran. Under the leadership of Haji Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, the ulama began to push an Islamist agenda. Mahathir became prime minister in 1981 with the announced goal of modernizing Malay society. He evidently thought that he could deflect the Islamist challenge by co-opting Anwar Ibrahim, who joined the UMNO in 1982, and a strategy of divide and rule that divided Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement leaders. Anwar rose quickly in the ranks of the UMNO, from minister of culture, youth and sports in 1983 to deputy prime minister in 1993. Mahathir also created the Islamic Development Department and the Malaysian Institute of Islamic Understanding to co-opt other Islamic leaders and utilize their support in shaping Malaysian Islam to further his agenda. Liow's account of these events in chapters 1–3 is fascinating and crucial to his argument that the “turn to Islam” within the UMNO began during the period of coalition (1974–77) when “the seeds of an Islamic bureaucracy were sown with the inclusion of PAS leaders and members in various government organizations, such as the National Council of Islamic Affairs, the Islamic Missionary Foundation, and other key bureaucratic and ambassadorial posts” (p. 33). Liow describes these policies as Mahathir's “Islamization strategy” (p. 48) and argues that “[w]hether deliberate or otherwise, UMNO's bureaucratization of Islam has … put in place the infrastructure of an Islamic state run by ‘state-sponsored firebrands’ and a Muslim intelligentsia sympathetic to the government” (p. 68).

Liow's account of the internal debates and power shifts within the PAS and his description of the election strategies that led the PAS to victory or defeat are particularly valuable, although in order to make his argument, he treats the PAS and the UMNO in separate chapters, making the chronology and interaction between the two organizations difficult to follow. He suggests that the “PAS has proven to be … attuned to the “political” nature of Islamism, cognizant of political realities and … prepared to negotiate its political and ideological boundaries in order to ‘stay in the game’ where necessary” (pp. 185–86). However, the UMNO's Islamization strategy and Mahathir's 2001 proclamation that Malaysia already was an Islamic state removed pressure for the PAS to moderate or negotiate its position regarding the role of Islam in politics.

Liow devotes two chapters to liberal and conservative Islamic nongovernmental organizations that have been embroiled in passionate debates over the last five years concerning what constitutes an Islamic state, the relationship of Islam and democracy, and, more concretely, the enactment of the Sharia Criminal Offenses Act, the implications of temple demolitions, the apostasy case of Lina Joy, and the power of Sharia courts to determine a person's religion. In the conclusion, Liow lays out his argument about the UMNO's role in legitimating and institutionalizing an Islamist agenda. He does not resolve the “Malaysian dilemma,” pointing out that the PAS “remains deeply patriarchal, and its leaders … are likely to vehemently oppose expansion of social liberties” (p. 187). The dilemma for those concerned about the rights of Chinese and Indian minorities and the civil rights of liberal Muslims is that they cannot win power without the support of either the Islamists or the UMNO.