Book Review: Foundation of Islamic Governance: A Southeast Asian Perspective

• Main Author: Malik, Maszlee
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM Press) 2018
• Subjects: P1-1091 Philology. Linguistics(General)
• Online Access: http://eprints.usm.my/41397/1/IJAPS-1412018_Art.-10251-254.pdf; http://eprints.usm.my/41397/; http://ijaps.usm.my/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/IJAPS-1412018_Art.-10251-254.pdf

At frst, this reviewer was reluctant to pick up this book. He was not very interested in Islamic political economy and he was not sure what he could gain by reading this book. He turned out to be completely wrong. Maszlee Malik has written a superb book that provides an intellectual framework for anyone interested in deconstructing Western paradigms in the social sciences, economics and management. He proposes an Islamic alternative that goes beyond Islamic political economy but touches at the core of how the Muslim world might look like in the future. This reviewer proposes to frst outline the various chapters before making some further observations. The book is composed of an introduction and eight chapters. These are: Introduction; Chapter 1 (Governance: Defnitions and conceptual framework); Chapter 2 (Deconstructing the concept of good governance); Chapter 3 (Religion and governance: A philosophical enquiry); Chapter 4 (Ontological and epistemological sources for Islamic governance); Chapter 5 (New approach to the texts: Epistemological methods-related concerns); Chapter 6 (Contribution of Muslim scholars in the development of knowledge base for governance); Chapter 7 (Architectonics of Islamic governance: Locating the axioms, foundational principles and working mechanisms); and Chapter 8 (Articulation of Islamic governance). The titles of the chapters indicate the only problem with the book. Its academic style can be off-putting for readers. However, once this reviewer got used to this somewhat formal style of writing, reading this book became very instructive.