Resurgent Islam and Malay rural culture: Malay novelists and the invention of culture

Prominent Malay novelists present Islam as a folk model that structures modern Malay peasant views of the Malaysian political system. Pious Muslim characters in these novels are symbols of the political potential of Islam; the novels themselves reflect a rejection, by many Malays, of democratic models of society that restrict religion to the personal sphere. Islamic resurgence is not solely an expression of social conflict. [Malay culture, Islam, Islamic revival, education, religion]