Malaysian Islamic Party
Malaysian Islamic Party
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Malaysian Islamic Party

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Malaysian Islamic Party

The Malaysian Islamic Party, also known as the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (Malay: Parti Islam Se-Malaysia; abbrev: PAS), is an Islamist political party in Malaysia. Ideologically focused on Islamic fundamentalism and Malay dominance, PAS's electoral base is largely centered around Peninsular Malaysia's rural northern and east coast regions particularly the states of Kelantan, Terengganu, Perlis, and Kedah. They also gained significant support in the rural areas of Perak and Pahang in the last 2022 general election and the 2023 state elections, dubbed as the "Green Wave".

The party was a component party of the then governing Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition which came to power as a result of the 2020–21 Malaysian political crisis. The party governs either solely or as coalition partners in the states of Kelantan, Terengganu, Kedah and Perlis. In the past, it was a coalition partner in the state governments of Penang and Selangor as part of the federal opposition between 2008 and 2018.

Since the 2022 Malaysian general election, the party holds 43 of the 222 seats in the federal Dewan Rakyat, being the largest individual party, and has elected parliamentarians or state assembly members in 11 of the country's 13 states. Internationally, PAS is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

The post-World War II period, while Malaya was still under British colonial rule, saw the emergence of the country's first formal Islamic political movements. The Malay Nationalist Party (MNP), a left-wing nationalist organisation, was formed in October 1945 and led by Burhanuddin al-Helmy, who would later become the third president of PAS. Out of the MNP arose the Pan Malayan Supreme Islamic Council (Majlis Agama Tertinggi Sa-Malaya or MATA) in 1947, and MATA in turn formed the party Hizbul Muslimin (Muslim People's Party of Malaya) in 1948. The central aim of Hizbul Muslimin was the establishment of an independent Malaya as an Islamic state. However, the party did not live beyond 1948. The Malayan Emergency of that year, while a British–Communist dispute, saw the colonial administration arrest a number of the party's leaders, and the nascent group disbanded. Nevertheless, the party served as a forerunner to PAS, supplying both the ideology upon which PAS was formed and some of PAS's key leaders in its early years.

PAS was founded on 24 November 1951, as the Persatuan Islam Sa-Malaya (Pan Malayan Islamic Union) at a meeting in Butterworth, Penang. Shortly after it was renamed Persatuan Islam sa-Tanah Melayu (Tanah Melayu means "Land of the Malays" and was used instead of Malaya as "Malaya" had colonial connotations). In English, it became known as the Pan Malayan Islamic Party (PMIP) before the 1955 election as the registrar of society required it to incorporate the word "party" into its name. Its acronym PAS, originally used in Malay but became more widely adopted in the 1970s, is based the written form in Jawi (ڤاس).

The formation of the party was the culmination of a growing desire among Muslim clerics within the United Malays National Organisation to formalise a discrete Islamic political organisation. However, the lines between UMNO and the new party were initially blurred. PAS allowed dual membership of both parties, and many of its early senior leaders were also UMNO members. The party's first president was Ahmad Fuad Hassan, an UMNO cleric. He lasted in the position only until 1953, when he fell out of favour with the party, which was now developing a more distinct identity, and returned to the UMNO fold. Fuad's departure coincided with the end of dual membership. The party turned to Abbas Alias, a Western-educated medical doctor, as its second president, although he did not play an active role in the party and was little more than a nominal figurehead.

The party's first electoral test was the pre-independence 1955 election to the Federal Legislative Council, the body that preceded the national parliament. 52 single-member seats were up for election; PAS fielded 11 candidates. Hampered by a lack of funds and party organisation, PAS succeeded in having only one candidate elected: Ahmad Tuan Hussein, a teacher at an Islamic school in Kerian, Perak. He was the only opposition member of the council; the other 51 seats were won by members of the Alliance coalition between UMNO, the Malaysian Chinese Association and the Malaysian Indian Congress. PAS' performance in the election weakened its hand in negotiations with the British over the terms of Malayan independence. Its advocacy for the protection of Malay and Muslim rights, including the recognition of Islam as the country's official religion, was ignored. Alias stepped down from the presidency in 1956, handing it voluntarily to the radical nationalist Burhanuddin al-Helmy. This change exemplified a broader trend among PAS's leadership in the late 1950s: the party's upper echelons gradually became filled with nationalists and long-time UMNO opponents, replacing the UMNO clerics who had initially led the party.

Burhanuddin al-Helmy, a prominent anti-colonialist, steered PAS in a socialist and nationalist direction and set about strengthening the party's internal structure and geographic reach. In the 1959 election, Malaya's first since independence, the party's focus on rural constituencies, especially in the north, paid off. Thirteen PAS candidates were elected to the 104-member House of Representatives, and the party took control of the legislative assemblies of the northern states of Kelantan and Terengganu.

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