359 BRIDGING THE PROPHETIC LEGACY THROUGH TIME: A PRELIMINARY ACCOUNT ON AHL AL-SUNNAH WA AL- JAMA’AH AND PERLIS STATE CONSTITUTION OF 1948 1 Hazman Hassan 2 , Ahmad Zaharuddin Sani Ahmad Sabri 3 , Fadlan Mohd Othman 4 , Azwira Abdul Aziz 5 , Assoc. Prof. Aminuddin Basir @ Ahmad 6 & Mohd Radzi Othman 7 ABSTRACT On 1 st February 1948, the state of Perlis promulgated her first formally written constitution. Article 5(1) of this constitution declared: ‘The religion of the State shall be the religion of Islam Ahl al-Sunnah wa al- Jama’ah as heretofore professed and practiced in the State’. While other Malaysian states indirectly enshrined Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jama’ah or Sunni Islam as the official sect via convention and tradition, Perlis State Constitution of 1948 went further by consolidating the position of Ahl al-Sunnah wa al- Jama’ah as inseparable from the religion of the state through the letters of the law. As the Malaysian Federal Constitution is still silent about the official sect in understanding and practicing Islam as a nation, the public debate on this issue has indicated that the Perlis experience now seems has been rather successful in providing legal preservation to the future of Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jama’ah in a Malaysian state. Thus this preliminary account tries to emphasize some events and figures in relation to the historic codification of Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jama’ahin the Perlis State Constitution of 1948. 1 This paper is presented in conjunction with the 23 rd Conference of the International Association of Historians of Asia 2014 (IAHA 2014) on 23-27 th August 2014 at TH Hotel & Convention Centre, Alor Setar, and Kedah, MALAYSIA. The conference is jointly organized by the International Association of Historians of Asia (IAHA); Centre for General Studies, Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM); and Malaysian Historical Society (PSM). 2 Senior Lecturer, Centre for General Studies, College of Arts and Sciences, Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM), Kedah, MALAYSIA ; hazman@uum.edu.my 3 Deputy Director of Institute of Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s Thoughts (IPDM), Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM), 06010 Sintok, Kedah, MALAYSIA; zaharsani@uum.edu.my 4 Senior Lecturer, Department of al-Qur’an and al-Sunnah Studies, Faculty of Islamic Studies, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Selangor, MALAYSIA ; fadlan@ukm.my 5 Senior Lecturer, Centre for General Studies, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Selangor, MALAYSIA; azwira@ukm.my 6 Associate Professor, Centre for General Studies, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Selangor, MALAYSIA; binamanhaj@yahoo.com 7 Consultant, Yayasan Pembangunan Ekonomi Islam Malaysia (YaPEIM) Corporate Consultancy Centre, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, MALAYSIA ; moradzi@gmail.com brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by UUM Repository