The Predicament of Thailand’s
Southern Muslims

Carool Kersten 

Abstract

Recent events in Southeast Asia have revived interest in the role
of political Islam in the region. This article examines the posi-
tion of Muslims in Thailand’s four southern border provinces. It
addresses the historical background of the area’s relationship
with forms of centralized government by Thai political centers,
the relevant elements of ethnicity and their significance for cul-
tural (religious) self-identification, and how this may be trans-
lated in the political use of Islam. In a wider context, the study
can be considered as illustrative of the problematic relationship
between centers and peripheries, particularly those on the fron-
tiers of culture zones. 

Introduction
In 2004, after more than a decade of relative quiet, Thailand was rocked by
a sudden upsurge of unrest in its predominantly Malay-speaking Muslim-
inhabited southern provinces. Together with the arrest of suspected Bali
bombing mastermind Hambali in the central Thai town of Ayutthaya in
August 2003, these events have shoved Thailand into the limelight of the
American-led international war on terrorism. Although the Bush adminis-
tration claims that terrorism and Islam are in no way to be equated, the fact
remains that so far, the campaign has mainly focused on combating this

Carool Kersten is a researcher and tertiary educator with a background in Arabic, Islamic,
and Southeast Asian Studies. At present he is on the faculty of the Thai and Southeast Asian
Studies Program at Payap University in Chiang Mai, Thailand. He would like to thank Prof.
Raymond Scupin, Dr. Imtiyaz Yusuf, and Dr. Alexander Horstmann for their comments on
this article.



“scourge of our time” in Muslim countries. So, what is the connection of
Buddhist Thailand with Islam? 

In spite of having a predominantly Theravada Buddhist population,
Thailand also has a numerically small Muslim minority, or rather minorities,
because the country’s Muslim citizens present a highly diverse picture.1 One
of the most recent studies of Thai Muslims estimates their number at around
5 million, or 7 to 8 percent of the country’s total population. The position of
Thailand’s southern Muslims differs from the other communities in the
sense that in their particular region, they constitute numerically a majority;
the total Muslim population of Thailand’s southern border provinces is prob-
ably around 3.5 to 4 million, or more than 80 percent of the region’s overall
population.2

To understand the complexities of that composite image, this article
starts by placing Thailand in its geographical and historical context within
Southeast Asia. A correct appreciation of the apparently antagonistic situa-
tion in southern Thailand further requires an excursion into the issue of eth-
nicity as it pertains to frontiers between different culture zones, such as
Thailand’s south. This brings together elements of religion, linguistic diver-
sity, and historical experience.

Thai-Muslim Relations in Pre-Modern Times
Present-day Thailand did not take shape until the late nineteenth century;
however, other indigenous political entities dominated by ethnic Thai, cover-
ing more or less the same area, had been in existence for many centuries.3 The
most powerful of these earlier “states” centered around a city named
Ayutthaya. Although the state was often referred to by the name of its capi-
tal, it also became known as Siam. From the fifteenth until the late eighteenth
century, Siam was a dominant mainland Southeast Asian power. Its influence
extended not only into what are now Laos, Cambodia, and Burma
[Myanmar], but also into the Malay Peninsula. In those days, political domi-
nation was not so much exercised through direct administrative control as by
means of a system of tributary relations, in which vassal states paid a tribute
to their overlords in acknowledgement of the latter’s superior power.

During that same time-frame, the larger Malay-Indonesian world was
experiencing a process of Islamization, which had started with the conversion
of an increasing number of ruling families of Malay petty states (“principal-
ities” or “sultanates”). There are indications that the first such conversions
took place on the Indonesian island of Sumatra as early as the late thirteenth

2 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 21:4



century. However, more relevant for the current account is the acceptance of
Islam by the rulers of the two important power centers on the Malay
Peninsula, Malacca and Pattani, in c.a. 1409 and 1457, respectively.4

These petty states, located at the periphery of larger political entities,
led a precarious existence based upon trade instead of military might or the
assumed inherent stability of agricultural societies. Islam provided the uni-
fying factor necessary to iron out antagonisms and instill a sense of com-
mon interest; it became a vehicle for regulating the relationships between
local potentates, who, for that reason, were usually the first to convert.
Winning over the inhabitants was a far more gradual affair that only gained
pace in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In an environ-
ment so different from the Middle East, elements of religious traditions
predating Islam’s arrival were also incorporated into the Southeast Asian
variety of Islam.

Scholars have pondered and debated the long interval between
Southeast Asia’s initial contacts with Islam and the time that the religion
effectively gained a foothold among the indigenous population. The cur-
rently prevailing view is that it was a complex development that consisted
of multiple centers of origin, the active participation of both transmitters
and recipients, and, initially, a central role for the mystical strand of Islam
(Sufism).5 What evolved out of this process was a distinct Malay-Muslim
culture with unique ethnic features.

During its heyday, Siam had reduced most of the Malay states located
to its south to vassal status. Thus, a Buddhist kingdom claimed suzerainty
over its Muslim neighbors. It must be noted, however, that while Siam con-
sidered the payment of tribute to be a sacred oath of allegiance, the Muslim
rulers more likely regarded the relationship in terms of “buying-off” a more
powerful neighbor in order to be left alone and go about their own affairs.
Such differences in perception would lead to the mutual incomprehension
lying at the root of the tensions that have survived until the present day
between the central Thai authorities and the southern periphery.6 A key
player in these relations between Muslim maritime Southeast Asia and the
continental power of Siam was the state of Pattani, which became the
peninsula’s main center of Malay-Muslim culture following Portugal’s con-
quest of Malacca in 1511. Although it has since fragmented into several
Thai provinces and Malaysian federal states, the strained relations between
the deep south and Bangkok can be traced back to almost half a millenni-
um of troublesome exchanges between the greater Pattani region and suc-
cessive Thai power centers.

Kersten: The Predicament of Thailand’s Southern Muslims 3



Apart from dealing with neighboring kingdoms and vassal states, the
emporium of Ayutthaya, as a major Asian trading power, hosted a vast array
of foreign visitors, who often established expatriate communities in the
city’s vicinity. Among these were representatives of Muslim nations from
within and without Southeast Asia, such as Malays, Javanese, Baweans,
Macassarans, Bugis, Cham, Indians (e.g., Bengalis, Tamils, and Gujaratis),
Persians, and Arabs.7 Some of these would rise to high positions, such as
the descendants of the leaders of a Persian merchant mission that traveled
to Ayutthaya in the late sixteenth century. 8

In order to further appreciate the heterogeneity of Thailand’s Muslims,
it must pointed out that in addition to the southern maritime route, Islam
also entered mainland Southeast Asia via an offshoot of the Silk Road.
Between the tenth and twelfth centuries, Central Asian caravans brought
Islam to China’s western reaches. Due to their martial qualities, the local
converts, called Hui, became highly regarded mercenary forces for the
Chinese empire. By the late 1200s, a Muslim was appointed governor of
Dali in China’s southwestern Yunnan province. For centuries to come,
Yunnanese Muslims controlled the caravan trade with present-day Burma,
Laos, and northern Thailand. But not until the 1860s and 1940s, when wave
upon wave of political unrest and repression ravaged southern China,
would Chinese Muslims be enticed to take up permanent residence in
selected locations in northern Thailand. After the Second World War, they
were joined by Bengali Muslims leaving an increasingly inhospitable
Burma.9

Returning to the more sustained interaction on the Siamese-Malay fron-
tier, although the tribute system functioned for centuries, it was far from sta -
ble. For example, during times of a relative decline in Siamese power, the
Muslim sultanates would often throw off its yoke and then face punitive
actions after the kingdom recovered. However, with the arrival of European
imperialism, the relationship started to change. After the Burmese sacked
Ayutthaya in 1767, a new Thai kingdom was effectively restored in 1782 by
the founder of the current Chakri dynasty, who chose Bangkok as the new
capital.10 His successors, experiencing the increasing pressure of colonial
Britain and France, both of which were establishing themselves in Burma,
Malaya, and Indochina, felt a need to reassert their power over their former
dependencies. From then on, Thai policy toward its southern neighbors was
characterized by more concerted attempts to incorporate the Malay territo-
ries into the Thai state while simultaneously breaking Malay power struc-
tures through a policy of divide and rule.11

4 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 21:4



The Formation of Modern Thailand
In 1785, Thailand’s royal heir-apparent led an expedition to the south and
subjugated the Malay sultanates of Pattani, Kedah, Kelantan, and
Trengganu. All four dependencies were placed under the administration of
Nakhon Sri Thammarat, the principal southern province.12 When Bangkok
faced an uprising in Pattani in 1789, it divided the administrative control
over its Malay dependencies: Kedah and Kelantan remained under Nakhon
Sri Thammarat, while Pattani and Trengganu were transferred to the
responsibility of Songkhla province. To break the effectiveness of Malay
power, in 1816 Pattani was broken up into seven smaller principalities:
Pattani, Yaring, Nongchik, Saiburi (or Teluban), Rahman, Yala, and Ra-
Ngae (or Legeh). All of these dependencies were administered as so-called
third- or fourth-class provinces. This implied a higher status than the
realm’s ordinary provinces: The rulers were still selected from the descen-
dants of the old rajas or sultans, but now had to be invested by the Thai
monarch in Bangkok. This investiture was often withheld in order to make
the local Muslim rulers more pliable.

The 1830s saw several campaigns launched against the sultanate of
Kedah, located on the Malay Peninsula’s west coast, as well as responses
from other Malay states in the area. These events must be considered against
the background of the turmoil pervading the wider Malay-Indonesian world
at the time. Between 1825-30, Java was experiencing an uprising led by
Prince Diponegoro, while in Sumatra’s Minangkabau region, the Padri war
(1831-38) was pitting Wahhabi-inspired orthodox Muslims against an
expanding Dutch colonial administration.13

The rebellion in the greater Pattani area evoked by Bangkok’s 1832
campaign was quickly subdued. While the rulers of Pattani and Yala fled
to remote Kelantan, the rajas of Ra-Ngae, Saiburi, and the president of the
short-lived Rahman “republic” were captured and taken, together with
thousands of their subjects, to Bangkok for resettlement in central Thailand,
where the authorities could closely monitor their activities. Such massive
resettlement exercises, a common pattern in traditional Southeast Asian
politics, also account for the substantial numbers of Thai Muslims in cen-
tral and eastern Thailand today. This rebellion was followed by an
abortive revolt in 1838, involving Ra-Ngae, Rahman, Yala, and
Nongchik. In the wake of this uprising, a final campaign against Kedah
resulted in the sultanate’s division into Kedah proper, Kabangpasu, Perlis,
and Satun.

Kersten: The Predicament of Thailand’s Southern Muslims 5



For the next 50 years Thailand’s southern dependencies enjoyed relative
peace and quiet, until a further encroachment on Malay-Muslim autonomy in
the final decade of the nineteenth century led to renewed unrest. The impetus
for this new incursion was given by the drastically changed political circum-
stances in Southeast Asia. By the 1890s, both France and Britain had more or
less carved out their Asian empires: France took control of what is now
Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and Britain established the colonies of Burma
(which was part of the Indian Empire) and British Malaya (administered from
Singapore). Wary of having to confront each other over territory, Britain and
France agreed that Thailand could remain independent and function as a
buffer between their two empires, provided that it would exercise effective
control over its dependencies along the borders. It thus fell to Thailand’s King
Chulalongkorn [Rama V] (r. 1868-1910) to devise a functioning bureaucrat-
ic system that could ensure law and order in its frontier provinces.14

In response to British pressure to have its economic interests in the Thai-
controlled Malay states safeguarded, a new provincial administration system
took shape between 1892 and 1899. In 1896, Kelantan and Trengganu were
placed under a so-called (Bangkok-appointed) royal commissioner, based
in Nakhon Sri Thammarat. A year later, Kedah and its former dependencies
of Perlis and Satun were reunited in a greater administrative unit known as
the monthon of Saiburi. One consequence of the newly introduced effi-
ciency measures was that the traditional rulers were deprived of their inde-
pendent financial means. For example, the opium monopolies were abol-
ished and administered centrally. In other words, revenues would first flow
to the treasury for later redistribution to the rulers – and often were never
paid. Royal commissioners also began to siphon off import duties and tin
royalties.15

By that time, secret understandings had been signed: Britain would
support Thai sovereignty over the Malay states on the condition that
Bangkok would not award any concessions on the Malay Peninsula to third
parties without British consent. When, in 1899, Abdul Kadir Kamaruddin
succeeded to the throne in Pattani, Bangkok withheld his investiture and
proceeded, in 1901, to unify Pattani and six other principalities into the so-
called “Area of Seven Provinces.” Even further restrictions were placed on
Saiburi and Ra-Ngae, where Thai officials would now govern alongside the
local rulers. The raja of Pattani wrote to the governor-general of British
Malaya, asking for British intervention. After organizing an opposition
movement against Thai influence, he was arrested and exiled to the north-
ern Thai province of Phitsanulok. He was released in 1903.

6 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 21:4



One of the first measures that led to further Malay agitation was the
1902 Bill of Reform, by which Prince Damrong, the Thai interior minister,
intended to overhaul the country’s financial, administrative, and judicial
systems. Until then, Thailand’s interference with local systems of govern-
ment had been minimal. This new act, however, severely curtailed the local
authorities’ powers. A further step followed in 1906, when the seven prin-
cipalities were effectively dismantled: Rahman was merged with Yala; Yaring
and Nongchik were incorporated into Pattani; Ra-Ngae was renamed
Narathiwat; and although Saiburi remained intact, it was placed, with the
others, in a new monthon: Pattani.

The watershed event came with the Anglo-Thai treaty of 1909. Thai
suzerainty over Kelantan, Trengganu, Kedah, and Perlis was transferred to
Britain, while Thailand retained the former Kedah dependency of Satun, in
addition to Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat. With this treaty, the final border
between Thailand and British Malaya (now Malaysia) was drawn, and
Bangkok remained in control of four provinces with a population that was
more than 80 percent Muslim-Malay.

Within a year, Bangkok faced not only an uprising instigated by two
Muslim “holy men,” To’ Tae and Haji Bula, both of whom were supported
by the region’s hereditary rulers, but also increasing tension between state
bureaucrats and local Islamic scholars. The authority of Muslim judges had
already been severely curtailed by the 1902 Bill of Reform, which, in
effect, limited their sphere of jurisdiction to family and inheritance law.
Adherence to the Shari`ah, whether in a strict or more relaxed sense, an
adherence often supplemented with local customary law (adat), was an
important element of the Malay-Muslims’ sense of ethnic identity. 16 It is,
therefore, opportune to interrupt this excursion into the history of Thai and
Malay-Muslim relations in order to introduce some of this culture’s distinct
features. 

Jawi Culture and Malay-Muslim ethnicity
Language is usually considered a key element of ethnicity. The Malay
world’s conversion to Islam had a major impact on the further develop-
ment of its linguistic tradition. Contact with Islamic writings not only left
its imprint on the Malay language by introducing Arabic terminology and
adopting the Arabic script to write Malay, but Arabic and Persian litera-
ture also provided ideas that found new expression through local adapta-
tions.17 Regional Muslim intellectual life reached its first climax in the

Kersten: The Predicament of Thailand’s Southern Muslims 7



beginning of the seventeenth century in Aceh, a sultanate located on the
northern tip of Sumatra. Between 1600 and 1640, Aceh was home to three
giants of Malay religious writing who, apart from their theological con-
tributions, were also instrumental in developing the Malay literary model,
in particular the syair – a mathematically constructed form of written
poetry.18

The pioneer of syair was Hamza Fansuri (also Pansuri, died before
1607). A somewhat enigmatic and controversial figure whose religious ideas
borrowed heavily from Abd al-Karim al-Jili’s (and, through him, Ibn al-
`Arabi) wahdat al-wujud doctrine, Pansuri traveled throughout the Muslim
world.19 The second authority of seventeenth-century Muslim thought in
Malay, and probably the most respected transmitter and interpreter of the Ibn
al-`Arabi-al-Jili legacy, was Samsuddin al-Sumatrani (also known as Shams
al-Din of Pasai, d. 1630).20 The third member of this trio was Nuruddin al-
Raniri (d. 1658), whose texts are still consulted in Malaysian and Indonesian
religious schools. Originally from Gujarat, India, al-Raniri rose to promi-
nence at the Aceh court between 1637 and 1644 and became a fierce oppo-
nent of Pansuri’s allegedly monist theology. 21

In addition, these scholars are drawn together by their direct acquisition
of Islamic knowledge at its centers in the Middle East, where they attained
a sound knowledge of Arabic and the Islamic sciences. Their significance
lies in the fact that, in the absence of any earlier direct evidence, they can
be considered as having stood at the cradle of a new culture distinguished
by a form of Malay suffused with Islamic concepts and style figures.
Written in an adapted Arabic script known as Jawi, it became the primary
vehicle for transmitting Islamic learning throughout Southeast Asia, includ-
ing southern Thailand.

After Aceh, other centers of Islamic learning sprang up throughout the
Malay-Indonesian world at Palembang, Banjarmasin, Trengganu, Riau, and
Pattani. Recent studies have mapped the networks that existed between
these indigenous Southeast Asian centers of Muslim learning and their
Middle Eastern counterparts.22 The institution used to preserve and perpet-
uate this new religious tradition, and thus a core aspect of Malay culture,
was an indigenous Southeast Asian phenomenon known variously as pon-
dok (Malaysia, southern Thailand), pesantren (Java), surau (Sumatra), and
pandita (the Philippines).23 For many centuries the only form of education
available to rural Muslims, pondoks were not as formally organized as
Middle Eastern madrasas. Their existence centered around highly person-
alized relationships between the teacher or guru (also referred to as kyai in

8 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 21:4



Javanese or to’ khru in the Malay vernacular of Thailand) and the pupils,
who usually boarded at the school.

The origins of this institution can probably be traced back to the Hindu-
Buddhist ashram (retreat) in pre-Islamic Southeast Asia.24 But as the Malay
word pondok (from the Arabic funduq: a wayfarer’s inn) indicates, it devel-
oped into a uniquely Southeast Asian yet thoroughly Islamic institution.
Maintaining such a pondok can be considered as fulfilling a religious duty,
since taking care of traveling scholars or students “on the way of Allah” is
one way to meet the obligation of zakat, one of the five pillars of Islam.25

In the context of this current account, it should be mentioned that recent
scholarship gives a central role to the Pattani region in maintaining the pon-
dok tradition. The Indonesian historian of Islam, Azyumardi Azra, observed
that:

[…] little attention has been paid to the growth of Islamic tradition and
institutions among the Patani Muslims in the earlier period. More
research needs to be done in order to throw some light on this important
issue. 26

An important point conveyed by these accounts [by other Southeast Asian
Muslim scholars, ck] is that the Patani Muslims were not isolated among
their fellow Malay-Indonesians […] Patani Muslims were made aware of
developments in religious ideas and institutions in other parts of the
Malay-Indonesian world. It is highly plausible that it was such scholars
who stimulated the establishment of the traditional Islamic educational
institution known in Patani as pondok. Furthermore it has even been sug-
gested that the pondok system which also developed in other parts of the
Malay Peninsula, originated from Patani [Italics mine, ck]. 27

The contours of Pattani’s importance in the development of Southeast
Asian Islam can be more clearly discerned in the course of the late eigh-
teenth century, and continue to come further into focus throughout the nine-
teenth century.28 It is somewhat ironic to notice how this coincided with the
growing Thai encroachment on the Pattani region.

A seminal figure in this development was Daud bin Abdullah bin Idris
al-Patani.29 Born in Gresik near Pattani, he made his way to Aceh and, from
there, to the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah, which he reached probably
in the late 1760s and never left.30 Here, he became a lodestone for visiting
and resident Muslim students from all over Southeast Asia. It is estimated
that he died around 1847 in Ta’if, leaving behind a legacy of more than 50

Kersten: The Predicament of Thailand’s Southern Muslims 9



works in Arabic and Jawi. In the nineteenth century, three more Islamic
scholars from Pattani would rise to prominence in Makkah and serve as
central figures in circles of Southeast Asian students. Of these three, Ahmad
Patani (1858-1906) was of specific significance. Not only was he the
teacher of the prominent Kelantan scholar and educator Muhammad Yusuf,
alias Tok Kenali, (1868-1933), but he also supervised the Malay printing
house located in Makkah during the 1880s.31

This leads to the next important constituent factor in sustaining Jawi
culture in modern times: the emergence of the printing press. This techno-
logical advancement gave further impetus to the development of the pon-
dok or pesantren tradition in Southeast Asia, because now study materials
could be reproduced more rapidly and in greater volume. The products of
Malay printing presses, first in Bombay, Cairo, Istanbul, and Makkah, and
later on in Southeast Asia itself, were known as kitab kuning or kitab jawi.32

The writings of many of the scholars mentioned before thus were made
accessible in print-form to pondok pupils throughout the Malay-Indonesian
world. Scholars from Pattani played a pivotal role in editing and authenti-
cating these earlier works.33

In closing this elaboration on Muslim-Malay or Jawi culture, it should
be pointed out that in addition to the above-mentioned “intellectual” fea-
tures, there are elements of a more popular nature as well. But these have
an equally important impact on the local population’s outlook, such as what
Michel Gilquin has called an “emblematic figure” of Jawi society: the
bomoh (faith healer).34 Other elements pertain to the observance of Islamic
practices and rituals.35

The reason for this extensive digression is to illustrate the extent to
which the greater Pattani region, which encompasses all of the present-day
southern Muslim provinces of Thailand and the northern states of Malaysia,
was incorporated into a cultural zone that differed vastly from Thailand,
which now intended to exercise direct political control. In order to appreci-
ate the further unfolding of events in southern Thailand, it is crucial to
underscore the significance that ethnic diversity can have for political
developments. This is how Surin Pitsuwan, a prominent Muslim intellectu-
al and former minister of foreign affairs of Thailand, formulated it in 1982:

It is this sense of being separate from the dominant populace of the Thai
nation and its bureaucratic apparatus that can be identified as the single
most crucial factor that sustains the conflicts and violence in Southern
Thailand today. It is, in other words, the problem of ethnicity.36

10 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 21:4



Culture Clash: Causes of Malay-Muslim Discontent
In his analysis of the situation in southern Thailand, Surin Pitsuwan has
characterized the period of resistance in the early part of the twentieth cen-
tury as one dominated by the “royal connection.”37 For the first 2 decades,
the former raja of Pattani, Abdul Kadir Kamaruddin, remained a rallying
point for Malay-Muslim opposition against Thai interference in their affairs,
even after his decision to live in exile in neighboring Kelantan (his family
was an offshoot of the Kelantan dynasty). From there, he remained in close
contact with the religious leaders in southern Thailand, while, at the same
time, he attempted to shore up support from his former colleagues in the sul-
tanates of British Malaya and the British administration itself. The last great
rebellion orchestrated by the raja was the 1922 Namsai Uprising in rural
Pattani. Starting out as a “civil disobedience” campaign directed against the
payment of land taxes and rent, it escalated into a confrontation with police
forces that caused numerous casualties.38

Parallel to this strand of ruler-led resistance, the role of the religious
scholars (ulama), the second constituent group of the traditional Malay elite,
was on the rise. Several factors contributed to this. First of all, the incumbents
of the judiciary and teaching positions in the local Shari`ah courts and pon-
doks were recruited from their ranks – the very institutions that were being
assaulted by Thailand’s central authorities after incorporating Pattani, Yala,
Narathiwat, and Satun into the Thai state. An additional factor that should not
be ignored is the emergence of Islamic reformism in the Middle East. There,
the ideas of such scholars as Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad `Abduh,
and Rashid Rida were rapidly gaining influence.39 As explained above,
Southeast Asian Muslims had sustained contacts with the great cultural cen-
ters of the Middle East, and, therefore, were well aware of these develop-
ments. The increasing assertiveness of southern Thailand’s Malay-Muslim
intelligentsia, which was inspired by these developments in the Muslim
world at large, was bound to set them on a collision course with Bangkok.

In the meantime, great changes were taking place in mainstream Thai
society. King Vajiravudh (Rama VI: r. 1910-25), King Chulalongkorn’s
successor, set out to formulate new policies based on a Thai nationalist ide-
ology emphasizing that all citizens should subscribe to the notion of one
Thai nation, be loyal to their king, and profess allegiance to Buddhism.40

Obviously, this third element was the most contentious from the Muslim
perspective. It should come as no surprise, then, that Rama VI’s reign was
marred by unrest in the south, which would see full-blown uprisings in

Kersten: The Predicament of Thailand’s Southern Muslims 11



1910-11 and 1922. This instability forced the king to tone down his policies
on education, bureaucratic integration, and socioeconomic involvement in
the south. According to Surin Pitsuwan, the subsequent shift from conflict
to accommodation marked,

… the beginning of a long and tortuous struggle to widen the sphere and
deepen the level of autonomy for the Malay-Muslims of Patani based on
specific ethnic differences. [But] the very nature of the Thai state and its
bureaucratic set-up did not permit such a royal policy pronouncement.41

After the 1932 revolution ended Thailand’s absolute monarchy, it sud-
denly seemed possible to reach an understanding with the new democratic
government. When the former raja of Pattani died in 1933, his son Tengku
Mahmud Muhyiddin returned to Thailand; however, he chose to settle in
Bangkok instead of Pattani. Between 1933 and 1938 an increasing number
of Malay-Muslim candidates were elected to parliamentary seats, thanks to
the active lobbying on their behalf by the ulama leadership, who were now
moving to the forefront of the campaign for autonomy. 42

However, the military takeover of 1938 marked the end of these
prospects and heralded the beginning of a reversal of reconciliatory initia-
tives and a return to Thai political and cultural domination, which would
last throughout the subsequent decades of military dictatorship. Studies of
ethnic nationalism among Thailand’s Malay-Muslims by Uthai
Dulyakasem and Omar Farouk [Bajouned] have focused on the impact of
Bangkok’s educational and chauvinist cultural policies from 1938 until the
mid-1980s.43 In addition to that, Surin Pitsuwan has paid ample attention to
the cumbersome process of integrating elements of Shari`ah law into
Thailand’s legal system, which was abruptly halted in 1944.44

Uthai Dulyakasem has observed that as early as 1908, Bangkok
instructed its provincial administrators in the south to establish public edu-
cation committees. Although these measures did not affect the pondok sys-
tem directly, the Malay-Muslims interpreted the introduction of a parallel
educational system as an effort to inculcate them with Thai – including
Buddhist – values and thereby undermine their ethnic (religious) identity.
On its part, the new government that took over in 1932 considered educa-
tion a major tool in its campaign to absorb different ethnic groups into Thai
society. This was evidenced by the introduction of its National Education
System (1932) and National Education Plan (1936).45

While Thailand’s central educational policies would continue to have a
long-range destabilizing effect on Malay-Muslim society, the chauvinist

12 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 21:4



politics of the first military dictatorship, led by General Phibul Songkhram
(1938-44), had a more immediate impact. Between 1939 and 1942,
Bangkok promulgated a series of so-called “cultural mandates.” These
notorious measures were explicitly designed to rout out any cultural dis-
tinctions among Thailand’s citizens. For example, they forbade any other
designation but “Thai” for the country’s inhabitants (“Siam” now became
“Thailand”), prohibited the use of all languages other than central Thai, and
introduced several instructions for a “modernized” lifestyle. These cultural
mandates constituted a complete intrusion of private life, because they
affected dress code, eating habits, and modes of personal conduct.46 The sit-
uation became explosive in 1944, when Pattani’s governor forced local reli-
gious leaders to pay homage to a Buddha image. This led to a formal protest
by a member of Parliament from Narathiwat, which Bangkok brushed
aside. As a consequence, the MP resigned, went into exile in Malaysia, and
remained a leading resistance figure until his death in 1977.47

Phibul Songkhram’s confrontational policies provided the stimuli for a
strong Malay nationalist reaction.48 Frustrated by the setbacks it had suf-
fered and profiting from Thailand’s momentary weakness in the final years
of the Second World War, the leadership of Thailand’s Malay-Muslims
turned south. After the Japanese invasion of British Malaya, Thailand was
rewarded for its pro-Japanese stance and given possession of the Malay
states that it had been forced to cede to Britain in 1909. One unintended –
and certainly undesired – effect of this was that it brought Malays from both
sides of the border closer together again. In addition, Tengku Muhyiddin’s
overtures toward the embattled British gained him access to allied policy-
making circles and, for a brief moment, it appeared as if there were a real
chance that, after the war, Thailand’s southern provinces would rejoin their
compatriots in British Malaya. Optimism was further stimulated by grow-
ing pan-Malayan nationalist sentiments at the end of the war.49

Appeasement or Manipulation?
A brief respite from the increasingly confrontational encounter between
Bangkok and the south came on May 3, 1945, when the “Patronage of
Islam Act” was promulgated. The driving forces behind this initiative were
Pridi Banomyong (the country’s most senior civilian politician and future
prime minister), and Cham Phromyong (a Muslim senator from Bangkok).
This duo realized the southern Muslims could be weaned away from
Malay nationalism only if their leadership was appeased by receiving offi-

Kersten: The Predicament of Thailand’s Southern Muslims 13



cial recognition. The expression “patronage” referred to no one less than
the king as “great sustainer of religions” – which also included Islam. At
face value, the bill appeared to herald a sea change in the government’s
attitude toward the Muslims of the south. But in his evaluation of the
Patronage Act, Surin Pitsuwan has expressed reservations over the bill’s
intent. Indeed, the motive of political expediency, if not outright manipu-
lation, cannot be dismissed. 

So far, the leadership of the southern resistance had been in the hands of
the former rulers’ descendants. Of course, they had taken care to ensure
themselves of the ulama’s support, whose patrons they had been throughout
the centuries. However, by the end of the Second World War, it became clear
that a changing of the guards was in the making. Having seen their position
eroded by Bangkok’s attempts to incorporate the south into Thailand’s over-
all judiciary and education structures, the religious scholars were becoming
increasingly assertive in protecting their own turf.

As described above, the Southeast Asian ulama had maintained con-
tacts with the Middle Eastern centers of learning ever since Islam had
gained a foothold in their region. Improved communications only intensi-
fied the traffic between the two regions from the middle of the nineteenth
century onward. The earlier mentioned emergence of Islamic reformism
further aided the determination of those scholars who were exposed to the
ideology’s influence to preserve Islam’s role in their society. Surin
Pitsuwan explicitly mentioned the importance of this “Arabian connec-
tion” for developing a vigorous ulama leadership in southern Thailand.50

With regard to the leadership question, we should not disregard the
possibility that the interests of former ruling families and the ulama have
not always run parallel. Islamic history is full of examples of tension
between these two sociopolitical classes, and Bangkok politicians may
have been perceptive enough to realize and exploit these. Consequently, the
“Patronage of Islam Act” can also be interpreted as a wedge intended to
deprive the traditional rulers of part of their support base by coopting the
ulama. The bill was primarily designed to incorporate existing mosque
councils, pondoks, and the office of the Shaykh al-Islam into state official-
dom. A new office, equivalent to the Shaykh al-Islam, was created: that of
Chularajamontri.51 Effectively holding (by delegation) the king’s powers of
patronage of Islam and the other religions, this official would be considered
the leader of Thailand’s Muslims.

This act also drew attention away from ethnic tensions in the south and
focused on Islam as it was perceived in central Thailand. In this respect, the

14 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 21:4



act’s language is indicative. Prior to 1945, whenever addressing southern
Muslims, the government had referred to them as “Malay,” “Muham-
madan,” or “khaek”; but now, they were integrated into the gloss category
of “Thai people professing Islam.”52 Administering Islamic affairs fell
largely into the hands of Bangkok Muslims. For example, since its formal
inception as a bureaucratic institution, the incumbents of the chularaja-
montri position have all hailed from the Bangkok area, notwithstanding the
fact that the vast majority of Muslims live in the south and that their prob-
lems are evidently the most acute.

Government influence over things Islamic was further enforced through
the close coordination between the Ministry of Interior and the Central
Islamic Committee of Thailand, which enabled the former to exercise con-
trol over the provincial Islamic committees and ensure the appointment of
ulama loyal to the Bangkok line.53 This trend, when combined with discred-
iting the traditional ruling families after the pan-Malayan prospects crum-
bled under the pressure of global politics, pushed representatives of the
Malay-Muslim scholarly elite into the vanguard of the southern resistance.54

Having matured into savvy politicians, the ulama resigned themselves to the
fact that the southern Muslim provinces would have to remain within
Thailand, and so focused their campaigns on securing as much legal and cul-
tural autonomy as possible. Their main grievance was a legal issue: the sta -
tus of the to kali or to kodi (qadi) and the application of Shari`ah law, which
had been rendered ineffective by the 1944 decisions of the Phibul
Songkhram government in order to give Thai civil courts full jurisdiction in
the south.55

The new leader emerging from southern ulama circles was Hajji
Sulong bin Abd al-Qadir bin Muhammad al-Fatani, chairman of Pattani’s
Provincial Islamic Council and former lecturer of law at the Holy Mosque
of Makkah’s Shafi`i school.56 Hajji Sulong was representative of the new
breed of ulama educated in the Middle East and conversant with the ideas
of Islamic reformism. Initially, it appeared that he and Prime Minister Pridi
Banomyong could come to an understanding. However, after the demise of
the latter’s political career as a result of the 1946 debacle surrounding King
Anand Mahidol’s death, things started to unravel.

The Road to Violence
By this time, the drive for regional autonomy had reached such momen-
tum that it could no longer be stopped. In April 1947, Hajji Sulong sub-

Kersten: The Predicament of Thailand’s Southern Muslims 15



mitted a seven-point plan to the government that not only addressed the
steady dismantling of Shari`ah law since the reign of Rama V, but also
complaints of oppression, widespread corruption by government officials
assigned to the south, and the dismal state of the region’s economy. The
plan foresaw, through the appointment of a Malay-Muslim as the region’s
high commissioner, several changes: an 80 percent quota of Malay-
Muslims in regional government positions, recognition of the Malay lan-
guage, application of Islamic law, full authority for the Provincial Islamic
Council on all Muslim affairs and Malay culture, and control over the
region’s financial revenues so that they could be used for the people’s wel-
fare. Muslim leaders from Narathiwat and Satun provinces followed suit
with similar demands.57

Within a year, the Thai government lashed back. In November 1947, a
military coup announced General Phibul Songkhram’s return to power and
led to the exile of former Prime Minister Pridi Banomyong and Cham
Phromyong, the first chularajamontri. In the meantime, Hajji Sulong tried
to enhance his bargaining power with the government by inviting Tengku
Muhyiddin, by now director of education in Kelantan (in British Malaya),
to assume the formal leadership of the four Muslim provinces. This move
rekindled Bangkok’s fear of a resurging pan-Malayan separatist movement
and, in January 1948, Hajji Sulong was arrested. In response, uprisings
raged throughout the south in April 1948, and Bangkok dispatched military
forces to help the police subdue the unrest. In September 1948, a state of
emergency was declared. Thousands of southerns fled to neighboring
British Malaya. 

One consequence of the military crackdown was the formation of the
Gabongan Melayu Patani Raya (GAMPAR), the Association of Malays of
Greater Pattani, by refugees in Kedah, Kelantan, Penang, and Singapore.
The question of southern Thailand was internationalized further when the
Malay-Muslim leadership brought the matter to the attention of such politi-
cians as Indonesia’s Sukarno and such organizations as the United Nations
and the Arab League.58

The Hajji Sulong affair was not resolved until 1952, when he was
released from prison. Although the mysterious disappearance, and probable
assassination, of Hajji Sulong and his oldest son in 1954 spelled the end of
the ulama-led general rebellion, he has remained a cause célèbre and inspi-
ration for Malay-Muslims. In evaluating his influence, Surin Pitsuwan has
found that Hajji Sulong had enabled Islam to become a binding force by
creating a sense of social cohesion or `asabiyah, as Ibn Khaldun called it,

16 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 21:4



“heightening the ‘primordial ties’ already existing among the Malay ethnic
group.”59

The phenomenon of southern Muslim separatism has been studied in
great detail elsewhere and need not to be repeated too extensively.60
However, for the sake of completeness and in order to articulate the appar-
ent link between Bangkok’s reinvigorated attempts to establish an inte-
grated education system in the south and the actions of separatist move-
ments against it, a brief survey of separatist activism is needed.

Not long after GAMPAR’s formation and the 1948 general uprising,
known as the Dusun Nyior or the Mandi Minyak incident, veteran leader
Tengku Muhyiddin established the National Front for the Liberation of Patani
– usually referred to by the abbreviation of its Malay name: BNPP.61 Between
1953 and 1977, it was led by former Narathiwat MP Adun na Saiburi.62 Based
in Kelantan, it was royalist in orientation and maintained cordial relations
with the Malaysia’s Party Islam (PAS), which controlled (and continues to
control) Kelantan politics. The BNPP maintained a military wing that exe-
cuted actions in Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat provinces.

The proliferation of separatist movements started in the 1960s and
reached its saturation point in the 1970s.63 The most important separatist
movement was the Patani United Liberation Organization (PULO).64

Founded in 1968 by an aristocrat from the former principality of Rahman,
it became the best-organized armed resistance organization. In doing so, it
was helped by its extensive international network, which stretched to Saudi
Arabia, Libya, and Syria and gave it access to the funding and support
needed to carry out a well-orchestrated and sustained campaign. The orga-
nization’s headquarters are thought be in Makkah, but during the period of
its violent actions, it maintained an operations base in Tumpat, Kelantan.
Although PULO had “royal” origins, its support base was drawn from
young intellectuals with Middle Eastern or South Asian degrees. Much
smaller was the Barisan Revolusi National (BRN), a city-based group that
maintained a tactical alliance with the Communist Party of Malaya. Such
links, incidentally, were the main motivation for Thailand and Malaysia to
execute joint anti-insurgence operations in their border regions.

Apart from these Malay nationalist movements, smaller groups of a
more distinct Islamist signature also operated in the region. In 1975, the
Sabillah (Path of God) organization emerged. This urban guerilla group is
thought to have been formed in the wake of the “Great Demonstrations” of
1975 and 1976. Other splinter groups included the Gerakan Islam Patani
(GIP) and the December 1902 Group. It is thought that these organizations

Kersten: The Predicament of Thailand’s Southern Muslims 17



were behind the terrorist attacks on Bangkok’s Don Muang Airport and
Hatyai railway station, as well as the attack in Yala during a visit by the Thai
king and queen. Surin Pitsuwan is careful to point out that apart from these
militants, who were not adverse to violence, Islamic activism also took place
in the form of a vigorous da`wah (Islamic propagation) movement and even
a revival of Sufi turuq.65

The years between 1969 and 1973 saw the most spectacular surge in
violence in southern Thailand, ostensibly due to a combination of wide-
spread public indignation with military dictatorship and the inspiration
derived from neighboring Malaysia’s 1969 race riots. The violence
appeared to wear off in the early 1980s, after the take-over by General Prem
Tinsulanonda. Although a military-controlled regime, PremTinsulanonda’s
government distinguished itself from its predecessors by its willingness to
work with Parliament and initiate a different approach to both the commu-
nist guerilla movements of northern and northeastern Thailand and the
Malay-Muslim separatists in the south. Himself a Buddhist from the south,
Prem Tinsulanonda pursued a carrot-and-stick policy that focused on stim-
ulating economic development in this poor region. In this, he was helped
by the economic boom that started in the late 1980s. Parallel to this devel-
opment, the separatist movements saw their support base evaporate.

Again Education
The common targets of the separatist movements throughout the period of
armed resistance were police posts, army units, and government schools.
The inclusion of the latter shown that the central government’s education
policies continued to be considered a highly controversial intrusion into
Malay-Muslim affairs.

The post-war military regimes that controlled Thailand from 1947 until
1973 again took up the cause of national secular education, and new inte-
grative plans were promulgated in 1960 and 1963. These initiatives targeted
the pondok system more directly, because Bangkok insisted on registering
all pondoks with the Ministry of Education as “private schools teaching
Islam” if they wanted official recognition. Between 1965 and 1971, the
government increased its efforts to introduce a modern-secular curriculum
with overt Buddhist dimensions into these schools. In 1971, registration
became mandatory and registered pondoks were no longer permitted to
teach in Malay.66 These measures effectively deprived the Malay-Muslims
of an education system that prepared individuals for social and cultural

18 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 21:4



functions in the Malay-Muslim communities and stimulated a drive to pur-
sue an Islamic education abroad.67 Another effect was that schools that
failed to reform and seek registration faced devaluation, which, in turn, had
real socioeconomic implications for their graduates.68

In his continuous analysis of Thailand’s “southern question,” Surin
Pitsuwan consistently argues that education is probably the most central issue
not only for the Malay-Muslims’ emancipation, but also for their sense of
recognition of their distinct ethnic identity.69 His 1982 thesis drew attention to
the mistaken assumptions informing the Bangkok’s ill-conceived education
policies toward the south since the 1960s. Politicians thought that introduc-
ing a secular curriculum would somehow miraculously turn Malay-Muslims
into Thais. In this respect, Surin Pitsuwan approvingly quoted the dissenting
view of former Prime Minister Kukrit Pramoj, who thought that people’s reli-
gious institutions, including the pondoks, should be left alone and that the
government should limit itself to improving economic conditions and mak-
ing sufficient education opportunities available on an optional basis.70

But not only the politicians had it wrong. The security establishment,
responsible for the uphill task of maintaining law and order in the south,
insisted that ethnicity needed to be deemphasized in order to alleviate ten-
sions between the center and the periphery. In the case of the Malay-
Muslims, this meant that religion should be separated from other cultural
traits; in the eyes of the security officials, Malay-Muslims were just “Thais
professing Islam.” The above account, however, convincingly demon-
strates that Malay-Muslim ethnicity is a complex mélange from which it is
impossible to arbitrarily subtract religion. As far as those directly responsi-
ble for the conversion process taking place in the pondoks were concerned,
the regional education officials were of the opinion that much of the com-
munal opposition was due to the perception that Bangkok was only inter-
ested in pushing through a secular curriculum. Instead, it would have been
wiser to take a more comprehensive approach and acknowledge support for
a distinct Islamic component in the curriculum.71

Unfortunately, the general conclusion must be that patronage and sup-
port usually give way to supervision and control. Probably the first real step
toward empowering Malay-Muslims was given in 1988. As part of the less
repressive approach introduced by Prem Tinsulanonda’s government, that
year saw the establishment of a College of Islamic Studies on the Pattani
campus of Prince of Songkhla University. However, it cannot be denied
that security concerns must also have been a motivation for this initiative:
namely, an effort to discourage the earlier mentioned trend of seeking an

Kersten: The Predicament of Thailand’s Southern Muslims 19



Islamic education overseas, which could expose Thailand’s Muslims to the
unwanted influences of Muslim radicals abroad.

Conclusion
Although there has been a marked drop in incidents since the late 1980s,
the 1990s continued to witness the occasional flare-up of violence. These
incidents have generally been attributed to breakaway elements of PULO
or other organizations, consisting of foreign-trained young fundamentalists
disaffected with the leadership’s rapprochement with Bangkok following
various overtures by the central authorities.72 However, the general ten-
dency appears to be a combination of political participation and identity
assertion. The respective standard bearers of this two-pronged course are
local politicians taking advantage of Thailand’s relatively unhampered
process of democratization since 1992, and a new generation of religious
teachers who have replaced “separatist sentiments with religious fervor.”73

Unfortunately, the guarded optimism in reports dating back to the late
1990s has recently made place again for a more worrying tone. In January
2004, an army weapons depot was raided and a large quantity of weapons
was stolen. The ensuing heavy-handed security operations led to growing
tensions and a wave of assassinations in the region until, on April 28, the
situation erupted in an orgy of violence. At various places throughout the
south, army and police posts were attacked by youths often armed with
nothing but machetes. Outgunned, most of the attackers were killed. At the
end of the day, the death toll was set at 107 individuals. The security forces’
response was heavily criticized. A raid on the historical Krue Se Mosque,
where a few dozen assailants had holed up, led to more than 30 deaths. This
incident became the subject of an official investigation.74

Commentators, politicians, security experts, and scholars seem to be
unsure of the extent to which Thailand’s Muslims, in particular the Malay-
Muslims of the south, may harbor sympathy for militant Islamism. To take
it one step further: There appears to be a concern that networks of violent
Islamists have infiltrated Thailand’s Muslim communities. However, author-
ities are still uncertain as to the exact nature of their influence. Some down-
play the likelihood that separatists are regrouping and attribute the recent
wave of arson attacks and assaults on smugglers, bandits, or even an alter-
cation between rival elements of the police and the armed forces.75

This article has endeavored to disentangle some of the elements that
constitute Malay-Muslim identity. It intended to demonstrate that equating

20 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 21:4



the ethnic and religious referents of such a complex phenomenon is a gross
simplification that does justice neither to the position of southern Thailand’s
population or its multilayered identity. Linguistic particularity, geographical
separation, and religion serve as a compound of factors that segregate the
Malay-Muslims from mainstream Thai society and connect them to the
neighboring Malay world. History also weighs heavily on the regional con-
science and has influenced the development of certain separatist tendencies.
Against this historical backdrop, Gilquin’s characterization of the entrance
of a Malay-Muslim society into the modern Thai nation-state as a “difficult
insertion” rather than an “actual integration” seems appropriate.76

Symptomatic of the difficulty of accurately representing Malay-Muslim
identity is that as events continue to unfold in the south, their exact nature
cannot yet be gauged with a reasonable degree of certainty. This not only
underscores the complexity of Thailand’s “Malay-Muslim question,” but
also makes an oversimplified and ill-defined image of some multi-tentacled
Islamist conspiracy menacing Southeast Asia untenable.

Endnotes

1. Cf. Raymond Scupin, “Thailand,” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Modern Islam
New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 4:212-213; and “Muslim
Accommodation in Thai Society,” Journal of Islamic Studies 9, vol. 2 (1998):
229-58. A comprehensive survey of Thai Muslims is the two-volume study by
Andrew D. W. Forbes, ed., The Muslims of Thailand (Gaya, India: Center for
South East Asian Studies, 1989). Of more recent date, but much briefer, is
Michel Gilquin, Les musulmans de Thaïlande (Paris/Bangkok: L’Harmattan/
Institut de Recherche sur l’Asie du Sud Est Contemporaine, 2002).

2. Gilquin, Les musulmans, 55-61.
3. The term Thai is relatively recent. In fact, the majority of modern Thailand’s

inhabitants are part of a larger ethno-linguistic group known as the Tai, who
inhabit an area that, apart from Thailand, includes the Shan states of Burma,
Laos, parts of northern Vietnam, and areas of China’s southwestern Yunnan
province. For the concept of Thai in the context of nationalist ideology, cf.
W. F. Vella, Chaiyo! King Vajiravudh and the Development of Thai
Nationalism (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1978); Scot Barmé,
Luang Wichit Wathakan and the Creation of a Thai Identity (Singapore:
Institute of Southeast Asian Studies [ISEAS], 19930; Craig Reynolds,
National Identity and its Defenders: Thailand Today (Chiang Mai: Silkworm
Books, 2003).

4. Cf. D. K. Wyatt and A. Teeuw, The Story of Patani (The Hague: Martinus
Nijhoff, 1970); Alijah Gordon, The Propagation of Islam in the Indonesian-

Kersten: The Predicament of Thailand’s Southern Muslims 21



Malay Archipelago (Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Sociological Research
Institute, 2001). Although the preferred spelling in Malay is “Patani,” I have
dediced to adhere to the official Thai spelling for the current province of
Pattani.

5. The following titles can be considered key contributions to the study of the
Islamization of Southeast Asia: Syed Farid Alatas, “Notes on Various
Theories Regarding the Islamization of the Malay Archipelago,” The Muslim
World, no. 75 (1985):162-75; Syed Muhammad Naguib al-Attas, Preliminary
Statement on a General Theory of the Islamization of the Malay-Indonesian
Archipelago (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1969); Azyumardi
Azra, “The Transmission of Islamic Reformism to Indonesia: Networks of
Middle Eastern and Malay-Indonesian ‘Ulamâ’ in the Seventeenth and
Eighteenth Centuries” (Ph.D. diss., New York: Columbia University, 1992);
G. W. J. Drewes, “New Light on the Coming of Islam to Indonesia?” in
Readings on Islam in Southeast Asia, eds. Ahmed Ibrahim, Sharon Siddique,
and Yasmin Hussein (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1990),
7-19; Anthony H. Johns, “The Role of Sufism in the Spread of Islam to
Malaya and Indonesia,” Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society, no. 9
(1961); Anthony H. Johns, “From Coastal Settlement to Islamic School and
City: Islamization in Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, and Java,” in Indonesia:
Australian Perspectives, ed. James Fox (Canberra: ANU, Research School of
Pacific Studies, 1980), 163-182; Anthony H. Johns, “Islamization in
Southeast Asia: Reflections and Reconsiderations with Special Reference to
the Role of Sufism,” Southeast Asian Studies (Tokyo) 31, no. 1 (1993): 43-
61; Mohamed Taib Osman, “Islamization of the Malays: A Transformation of
Culture,” in Readings on Islam in Southeast Asia , 44-47; Anthony Reid,
“Sixteenth Century Turkish Influence in Western Indonesia,” Journal of
Southeast Asian History 10, no. 3 (1969): 395-414; and Peter Riddell, Islam
in the Malay-Indonesian World: Transmission and Responses (Hawaii:
University of Hawaii Press, 2001). Important contributions to the
Islamization of the southern Philippines include Peter G. Gowing, Muslim
Filipinos: Heritage and Horizon (Quezon City: New Day Press, 1979); Cesar
Majul, Muslims in the Philippines (Manila: University of the Philippines
Press, 1999); and Thomas M. McKenna, Muslim Rulers and Rebels:
Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism in the Southern Philippines
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). An interesting overview of
Arab influences on Muslim Southeast Asia can be found in Huub de Jonge
and Nico Kaptein (eds.), Transcending Borders: Arabs, Politics, Trade, and
Islam in Southeast Asia (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002).

6. Gilquin, Les musulmans, 20; Surin Pitsuwan, “Islam and Malay Nationalism:
A Case Study of the Malay-Muslims of Southern Thailand” (Ph.D. diss.,
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1982), 58-61. The latter was also
released as a commercial publication: Surin Pitsuwan, Islam and Malay

22 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 21:4



Nationalism A Case Study of the Malay-Muslims of Southern Thailand
(Bangkok: Thammasat University Thai Kadai Research Institute, 1985). For
this essay, the original thesis has been used as a reference.

7. Raymond Scupin, “Islam in Thailand before the Bangkok Period,” Journal of
the Siam Society, no. 68 (1990).

8. Omar Farouk, “Shaykh Ahmad: Muslims in the Kingdom of Ayutthaya,”
JEBAT, Journal of the History Department Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia,
no.10 (1980/81); Muhammad Ismail Marcinkowski, “Persian Religious and
Cultural Influence in Siam/Thailand and Maritime Southeast Asia in
Historical Perpective: A Plea for a Concerted Interdisciplinary Approach,”
Journal of the Siam Society 88, parts 1&2 (2000): 186-94; John O’Kane, The
Ship of Sulaiman. Persian Heritage Series, no. 11 (London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1972); David K. Wyatt, “A Persian Mission to Siam in the Reign
of King Narai,” Journal of the Siam Society 62, no. 1 (1974): 151-57.

9. Accounts of this process can be found in Andrew D. W. Forbes, “The
Yunnanese (‘Ho’) Muslims of North Thailand,” in Historical and Cultural
Studies, vol. 1 of The Muslims of Thailand, ed. Andrew D. W. Forbes (Gaya:
Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, 1988), 87-104; Suthep Soonthornpasuch,
“Islamic Identity in Chiengmai City: A Historical and Structural Comparison
of Two Communities” (Ph.D. diss., Berkeley: University of California, 1977);
Ann Maxwell Smith, “Familiar Strangers: The Yunnanese Chinese in Northern
Thailand” (Ph.D. diss., Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois–Urbana-
Champaign, 1982); Michael R. J. Vatikiotis, “Ethnic Pluralism in the Northern
Thai City of Chiang Mai” (Ph.D. diss., Oxford: St Catherine’s College, 1984).

10. Although the new state adopted the name “Siam” and would not become
known as “Thailand” until 1939, I have chosen to use that present-day name
for the remainder of the article. My intention is to underscore the changing
political circumstances that led to the formation of the state that would even-
tually correspond to the current political-geographical entity.

11. Uthai Dulyakasem, “The Emergence and Escalation of Ethnic Nationalism:
The Case of the Muslim Malays in Southern Thailand,” in Islam and Society
in Southeast Asia, eds. Taufik Abdullah and Sharon Siddique (Singapore:
Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1986), 208-49; Syril Skinner and Justin
Corfield, Rama III and the Siamese Expedition to Kedah in 1839. Monash
Papers on Southeast Asia, no. 30 (Clayton [Victoria, Australia]: Monash
University, 1993); David Wyatt, Thailand: A Short History (Chiang Mai:
Silkworm Books, 2003), 122-209; and Gilquin, Les musulmans, 92-98.

12. Although Nakhorn Sri Thammarat has a substantial Muslim minority, the
province is culturally much closer to central Thailand due to its proximity to
that power center. In addition, it has remained an important center of Buddhist
learning and worship even after the arrival of Islam. A useful reference is
Stanley Tambiah, World Conqueror or World Renouncer (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1977).

Kersten: The Predicament of Thailand’s Southern Muslims 23



13. D.G. E. Hall, A History of Southeast Asia, 4th ed. (London: MacMillan,
1981), 506-11.

14. Cf. Michael Vickery, “Thai Regional Elites and the Reforms of King
Chulalongkorn,” Journal of Asian Studies, 29, no. 4 (1970): 863-81. For an
innovating and highly original account of this episode, cf. Thongchai
Winichakul, Siam Mapped: The History of the Geo-body of a Nation (Chiang
Mai: Silkworm Books, 1994).

15. Cf. Uthai Dulyakasem, “Emergence and Escalation,” 213ff.
16. “Ethnicity” has been the subject of considerable debate among anthropolo-

gists. In the context of Malay ethnicity, a recent and very innovative explo-
ration is Alexander Horstmann, Class, Culture and Space: The Construction
and Shaping of Communal Space in Southern Thailand (Tokyo: Research
Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa [ILCAA], Tokyo
University of Foreign Studies, 2002).

17. Cf. Hendrik M. J. Maier, “Malay and Indonesian Literature,” The Oxford
Encyclopedia of Modern Islam (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1995), 3:28-35; cf. Azra, “Transmission of Islamic Reformism,” 100-5.

18. Maier, “Malay and Indonesian Literature,” 30; Syed Muhammad Naguib al-
Attas, The Origin of the Malay Sha’ir (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan
Pustaka, 1968); and Concluding Post-Script to the Origin of the Malay Sha’ir
(Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1971).

19. Interestingly, this account contains speculations concerning his origins. For
example, it has been suggested that he was born, or at least spent time, in
Ayutthaya. Cf.: Syed Muhammad Naguib al-Attas, The Mysticism of Hamzah
Fansûrî (Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1970); “New Light on
the Life of Hamza Fansuri,” JMBRAS 40, part 1 (July 1967): 42-51; Vladimir
I. Braginsky, “Towards the Biography of Hamzah Fansuri: When Did
Hamzah Live? Data from His Poems and Early European Accounts,”
Archipel, no. 57 (1990): 135-75; and “On the Copy of Hamza Fansuri’s
Epitaph Published by C. Guillot & L. Kalus” (Paris), 62 (2001): 21-33; L. F.
van Brakel, “The Birth Place of Hamza Pansuri,”JMBRAS 42, part 2 (1969):
206-12; G. W. J. Drewes and L. van Brakel, The Poems of Hamzah Fansuri
(Dordrecht: Foris, 1986); C. Guillot and L. Kalus, La Stêle Funéraire de
Hamzah Fansuri,” Archipel 60 (2000): 3-24; Haji W. Mohd Shaghir
Abdullah, Tafsir Puisi Hamzah Fansuri dan Karya-Karya Shufi (Kuala
Lumpur: Khazanah Fataniya, 1996).

20. A. Hasymy, Syarah Rub’i Hamzah Fansuri oleh Syamsuddin al-Sumatrani
(Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1975); C. A. O. van Nieuwen-
huijze, Shams’l-Din van Pasai: bijdrage tot de kennis van de Sumatraansch
Mystiek (Leiden: Brill, 1945).

21. Syed Muhammad Naguib al-Attas, Mysticism of Hamzah: Rânîrî and the
Wujûdiyyah of the 17th Century Aceh (Singapore: Malay Branch of the Royal
Asiatic Society, 1966); G. W. J. Drewes, “Nûr al-Dîn al-Rânîrî’s Charge of

24 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 21:4



Heresy against Hamzah and Shamsuddîn from an International Point of
View,” in Cultural Contact and Textual Interpretation, ed. C. D. Robson
(Dordrecht: Foris, 1986); and G. W. J. Drewes, “De Herkomst van Nurrudin
ar-Raniri” (The Origin of Nuruddin ar-Raniri”), in Bijdragen tot de Taal-,
Land- en Volkenkunde (Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of
Southeast Asia and Oceania), no. 111 (1955); Takeshi Ito, “Why Did
Nuruddin ar-Raniri Leave Aceh in 1054 A.H.?” Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land-
en Volkenkunde, no. 134 (1978), 489-91.

22. Cf. in particular Azra, “Transmission of Islamic Reformism”; Drewes (1990),
Johns (1980, 1993), Riddell, Islam in the Malay-Indonesian World. These
studies have been very important to correct some of the views expressed in
the work of Clifford Geertz, one of the greatest authorities on the anthropo-
logical study of Islam in Southeast Asia, in particular on Java. His The
Religion of Java (1960) and Islam Observed (1968) leave the impression that
Islam in Southeast Asia is but a thin veneer over a core of older religious tra-
ditions: cf., Robert Hefner, “Introduction: Islam in an Era of Nation-States:
Politics and Religious Renewal in Muslim Southeast Asia,” in Islam in an Era
of Nation-States: Politics and Religious Renewal in Muslim Southeast Asia,
eds. Robert Hefner and Patricia Horvatich (Honolulu; University of Hawai’i
Press, 1997), 13-18.

23. Cf., Howard Federspiel, “Pesantren,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Modern
Islam, 3:324-26; Taufik Abdullah, “The Pesantren in Historical Perpective,”
in Islam and Society in Southeast Asia, eds. Taufik Abdullah and Sharon
Siddique, 80-86; Surin, “Islam and Malay Nationalism,” 175-87; More exten-
sive studies are: Karel A. Steenbrink, Pesantren, Madrasah, Sekolah
(Meppel: Boom, 1974); Zamakhshari Dhofier, The Pesantren Tradition: A
Study in the Role of the Kyai in the Maintenance of the Traditional Ideology
of Islam in Java (Canberra: Australia National University, 1980). 

24. Surin Pitsuwan, “Islam and Malay Nationalism,” 175.
25. Ibid., 181.
26. Azra, “Transmission of Islamic Reformism,” 513. In contrast, the more recent

developments in Malay nationalism among Thailand’s southern Muslims has
been studied extensively. Cf. Andrew Forbes, ed., Politics of the Malay-
Speaking South, vol. 2 of The Muslims of Thailand; Wan Kadir Che Man,
Muslim Separatism: The Moros of Southern Philippines and the Malays of
Southern Thailand (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1990); Ladd
Thomas, Political Violence in the Muslim Provinces of Southern Thailand
(Singapore: Institute for South East Asian Studies, 1975).

27. Azra, “Transmission of Islamic Reformism,” 514.
28. Ibid., 515; Riddell, Islam in the Malay-Indonesian World, 198; Surin

Pitsuwan, “Islam and Malay Nationalism,” 49; cf. Also: V. Matheson, V. and
M. B. Hooker, “Jawi Literature in Patani: The Maintenance of a Tradition,”
JMBRAS 1 11/1, 1-86.

Kersten: The Predicament of Thailand’s Southern Muslims 25



29. Also spelled “al-Fatani.” Cf., Azra, “Transmission of Islamic Reformism,”
515-22; Riddell, Islam in the Malay-Indonesian World, 198-99; H. W. M.
Shagir Abdullah, Syeikh Daud bin Abdullah al-Fatani : `Ulama dan
Pengarang Terulung Asia Tenggara (Kuala Lumpur: Hizbi, 1990).

30. There is no agreement on the date of his birth, and records vary from 1709 to
1769: cf. Azra, “Transmission of Islamic Reformism,” 516; Riddell, Islam in
the Malay-Indonesian World, 198, note 1.

31. In that position, he was prominent enough to draw even the attention of the
Dutch Islamicist Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, who spent time in Makkah in
the 1880s; Riddell, Islam in the Malay-Indonesian World, 198.

32. Cf. Martin van Bruinessen, Kitab kuning, pesantren dan tarekat: Tradisi-
tradisi Islam di Indonesia, 3d ed. (Bandung: Mizan, 1999). Also relevant
in this respect is Hasan Madmarn, Traditional Muslim Institutions in
Southern Thailand: A Critical Study of Islamic Education and Arabic
Influence in the Pondok and Madrasah Systems of Patani (Ph.D. diss.,
University of Utah, 1990), 102-13. This thesis is also significant as one of
the most recent studies of how the pondok tradition has survived into pre -
sent times.

33. Riddell, Islam in the Malay-Indonesian World, 199-200.
34. Gilquin, Les musulmans, 83-84. A more extensive study can be found in

Ruth-Inge Heinze, “Socio-psychological aspects of the Work of Thai-Muslim
Bomohs in Pattani,” in Historical and Cultural Studies, vol. 1 of The Muslims
of Thailand, ed. Andrew D. W. Forbes, (Singapore: Oxford University Press,
1990), 135-54.

35. For a survey, cf. Raymond Scupin, “Popular Islam in Thailand,” in Forbes,
The Muslims of Thailand, 1:31-46. Other studies include Thomas Fraser,
Rusembilan: A Malay Fishing Village (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1960); Kirk Endicott, An Analysis of Malay Magic (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1970).

36. Surin Pitsuwan, “Islam and Malay Nationalism,” 51.
37. Ibid., chapter 2: “Historical Background: 1902-1922. The Royal Connection,”

27-61.
38. Surin Pitsuwan, “Islam and Malay Nationalism,” 57-58; Uthai Dulyakasem,

“Emergence and Escalation,” 217.
39. Cf., William R. Roff, “‘Kaum-Muda’– ‘Kaum Tua’: Innovation and Reaction

among the Malays: 1900-1941,” in Papers on Malayan History, K. G.
Tregonning, ed. (Singapore: Department of History, University of Malaya in
Singapore, 1961); William R. Roff, The Origins of Malay Nationalism (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1967).

40. Cf., Vella, Chaiyo!; Barmé, Luang Wichit Wathakan; Reynolds, National
Identity.

41. Surin Pitsuwan, “Islam and Malay Nationalism,” 69.
42. Ibid., 62-87.

26 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 21:4



43. Uthai Dulyakasem, “Emergence and Escalation”; Omar Farouk, “The Origins
and Evolution of Malay-Muslim Ethnic Nationalism in Southern Thailand,”
in Islam and Society, 208-49.

44. Surin Pitsuwan, “Islam and Malay Nationalism,”116-41.
45. Uthai Dulyakasem, “Emergence and Escalation,” 218ff.; cf. also, Raymond

Scupin, Aspects of Development: Education and Political Integration for
Muslims in Thailand and Malaysia. Selangor: Malaysia: Institute of Malay
Language, 1989.

46. Farouk, “Origins and Evolution,” 252ff.
47. Nai Adun na Saiburi alias Tengku Abdul Jalal alias Yala Nasir. Cf. ibid., 257-

59; “Islam and Malay Nationalism,” 98-99, Uthai Dulyakasem, “Emergence
and Escalation,” 220.

48. Farouk, “Origins and Evolution,” 250; Raymond Scupin, “Muslim Identity
and Nationalism in Buddhist Thailand,” in Dynamics and Dimensions of
Inter-Religious Contacts in Southeast Asia: Examining Buddhist-Muslim
Relations in Thailand, Omar Farouk , ed., (Japan: Times Publication, forth-
coming). 

49. Surin Pitsuwan, “Islam and Malay Nationalism,” 93-100; Farouk, Dynamics,
259-61. See also the more extensive study of this episode, A, Stockwell,
British Policy and Malay Politics during the Malayan Union Experiment
1942-194. (Kuala Lumpur: The Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic
Society Monograph no. 8, 1979).

50. Surin Pitsuwan, “Islam and Malay Nationalism,” 95-96.
51. Cf., M. Ismail Marcinkowski, “Iranians, Shaykh al-Islams and Chularaja-

montris: Genesis and Development of an Institution and Its Introduction to
Siam.” Paper presented to the Eighth International Conference on Thai
Studies. Nakhon Phanom: Ramkhamhaeng University; Imtiyaz Yusuf, “Islam
and Democracy in Thailand: Reforming the Office of the Chularajamontri/
Shaykh al-Islâm,” Journal of Islamic Studies 9:2 (1998): 277-298. See also,
Gilquin, Les musulmans, 63-68, 152-61.

52. Surin Pitsuwan, “Islam and Malay Nationalism,”107. Khaek means literally
“guest,” but has since long also been used to refer to people of Indian or
Middle Eastern descent, as well as Malay Muslims. For the latter, in particu-
lar, it carries a derogative connotation. For an elaborate discussion of the
term, cf. A.V.N. Diller, “Islam and Southern Thai Ethnic Reference,” in The
Muslims of Thailand , ed. Andrew D. W. Forbes, 1:155-67. The issue is also
discussed in Gilquin, Les musulmans, 33-35; Scupin, “Muslim Identity and
Nationalism in Buddhist Thailand,” 13,25-26.

53. Surin Pitsuwan, “Islam and Malay Nationalism,” 105; a general overview of
the administration of Islamic affairs in Thailand can be found in: Farouk,
“The Muslims of Thailand: A Survey,” in The Muslims of Thailand, ed.
Andrew D. W. Forbes, 1:16-27.

54. Surin Pitsuwan, “Islam and Malay Nationalism,”111-16.

Kersten: The Predicament of Thailand’s Southern Muslims 27



55. Ibid., 119-41.
56. Ibid., 146-49. Surin Pitsuwan has observed that for the Malay-Muslims, Haji

Sulong was in effect the surpreme Muslim authority, their Shaykh al-Islam,
rather than the incumbent of the Bangkok-based office of Chularajamontri.

57. Ibid., 151-54; Farouk, “Malay-Muslim Ethic Nationalism,” 262-63; Uthai
Dulyakasem, “Emergence and Escalation,” 220-21.

58. Surin Pitsuwan, “Islam and Malay Nationalism,” 159-65; Darouk, Malay-
Muslim Ethnic Nationalism,”  264-268; Uthai Dulyakasem, “Emergence and
Escalation,” 221-24.

59. Surin Pitsuwan, “Islam and Malay Nationalism,” 164-65.
60. For example: Chaiwat Satha-Anand, Islam and Violence: A Case Study of

Violent Events in the Four Southern Provinces of Thailand 1976-1981 (USF
Monographs in religion and public policy) (Tampa: University of South
Florida, 1986); Wan Kadir Che Man, Muslim Separatism: The Moros of the
Southern Philippines and the Malays of Southern Thailand (Singapore:
Oxford University Press, 1990); Ladd Thomas, “Thai Muslim Separatism in
South Thailand,” The Muslims of Thailand, ed. Andrew D.W. Forbes, 2:19-
32; Gaganath Jhan, “The Muslim Separatist Movement in Southern Thailand
from an Indian Viewpoint,” in The Muslims of Thailand, ed. Andrew D. W.
Forbes, 183-200; Cf. Also Gilquin, Les musulmans, 115-20; Surin Pitsuwan,
“Islam and Malay Nationalism,” 216-68; Uthai Dulyakasem, “Emergence
and Escalation,” 229-37.

61. Barisan Nasional Pembebasan Patani.
62. See note 46 above.
63. Surin Pituswan records “only” 49 groups totalling 249 operatives in 1973

against 84 organizations with over 1500 men in 1979. Surin Pitsuwan, “Islam
and Malay Nationalism,” 240.

64. In Malay it is known as Pertubohan Persatuan Pembibasan Patani. 
65. Surin Pitsuwan, “Islam and Malay Nationalism,” 247-56
66. Uthai Dulyakasem, “Emergence and Escalation,” 217-19, 225-27; Surin

Pitsuwan, “Islam and Malay Nationalism,” 188-96.
67. Surin Pitsuwan, “Islam and Malay Nationalism,” 196.
68. Uthai Dulyakasem, “Emergence and Escalation,” 227.
69. On of his most recent contributions is: “Developing Thailand’s South” In: Far

Eastern Economic Review, February 12, 2004.
70. Ibid., 197
71. Ibid., 197-203.
72. Rodney Tasker, “Burning Question: School arson attacks leave politicans

floundering,” Far Eastern Economic Review , August 19, 1993.
73. Michael Vatikiotis, “Ties of Faith: Muslims want to integrate – but also keep

identity,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 11 April 1996. Cf. Also, Imtiyaz
Yusuf, “Islam and Democracy in Thailand,” 288ff; Gilquin, Les musulmans,
166-70. Gilquin also mentions Thailand’s gradual opening toward the

28 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 21:4



Muslim world, epitomized by its receipt of observer status with the
Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) during Surin Pitsuwan’s tenure
as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gilquin, Les musulmans, 175ff.

74. The Nation Newspaper, April 29, 2004; May 4, 2004.
75. Cf. Suparajanchitfah, “Southern Muslims plead for understanding,” Bangkok

Post, 30 September 2001; Kavi Chongkittavorn, “A middle path: fighting ter-
rorism a la Thai,” The Nation, 23 December 2002; “Regional Perspective: the
thai Jemaah Islamiyah is unlike others” The Nation, 6 January 2003;
Suparajanchitfah, ‘southern key is justice,” Bangkok Post, 11 May 2003;
Shawn W. Crispin, “Thailand’s War Zone,” Far Eastern Economic Review,
March 11, 2004; Shawn W. Crispin, “Strife down South,” Far Eastern
Economic Review, January 22, 2004

76. Gilquin, Les musulmans, 98.

Kersten: The Predicament of Thailand’s Southern Muslims 29