The Study of Lived Religion Through Different Interpretations: An Ethnography on Perceptions of Singaporean Malay-Muslims' Islamic Prayer Ritual Practice

Abstract

There are differences between traditional Islamic textual interpretations and modern Singaporean state interpretations of the mandatory Islamic prayer ritual of wudu (ablution in preparation for prayer) and salat (the five daily prayers). Some Singaporean Malay-Muslims say that the proper prayer practice follows traditional Islamic textual interpretations of it. Yet, in certain contexts, they describe practicing the prayer ritual in a way that reflects the Singaporean state's adapted prayer guidelines. Hence, these individuals may seemingly exhibit a contradiction between what they describe as the proper prayer practice and how they actually practice the prayer. As a religious and racial minority in the majority Chinese and Christian dominant nation of Singapore, these Singaporean Malay-Muslims actually find creative and complex ways to negotiate this difference in the two Singaporean contexts of National Service and work at private companies. This includes perceiving prayer through belonging to a majority national group in the National Service context, while understanding Islamic prayer through the lens of belonging to a minority religious group in the private work context. In this negotiation, they contently move between these different groups and prioritize certain values in a way that shapes their identity. The Singaporean Malay-Muslims' differing interpretations of their prayer ritual practice in these contexts help to reconcile the ostensible contradiction between belief and practice. Furthermore, the existence of these two interpretations of simultaneously belonging to a minority religious and larger national group are consistent with Robert Orsi's perspective of lived religion as acknowledging the existence of varying interpretations of the same religious practice in daily life.