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ItemContextualising wasaṭiyyah from the perspective of the leaders of the Malay/Muslim community in Singapore today( 2018)The need for this research arises from the current discourse associating extremism and violence to the Muslim ummah (community). In one corner of the discourse, certain sections have unequivocally associated violence and terror to Islam and Muslims. On the other corner, the constancy of suicide acts, arrests and acts of violence and terror perpetuated in the name of Islam have traumatised Muslims and non-Muslims alike all over the world. This violence-related discourse that the Muslim ummah (community) is presented in our present time, calls upon this research to understand how the text of the Qur’ān, being the primary revealed source of Islam, defines the central characteristic of the Muslim ummah (community). The focus of this research is on the ummatan wasaṭan verse in Qur’ān 2:143 which says: ‘We have indeed made you an ummatan wasaṭan’. The central characteristic of the Muslim ummah (community) is described in the Qur’ān as wasaṭan which is translated as ‘just, middlemost, and balanced’. Since the revelation of this verse, scholars have continued to address this wasaṭī characteristic aligning the Muslim community with the concept of wasaṭiyyah. This research attempts to continue this scholarly tradition. As much of the available scholarship on the wasaṭiyyah discourse have been focused from the context of a Muslim majority community, this research seeks to understand the applicability of the Qur’ānic concept of wasaṭiyyah from the context of the Malay/Muslim minority community in Singapore today. To understand the applicability of the Qur’ānic concept of wasaṭiyyah today from the context of the Singaporean Malay/Muslim minority community, this research uses Abdullah Saeed’s contextual approach to reading the Qur’ān. Saeed’s contextual approach deals with four levels of analysing the Qur’ānic text which are the linguistic context, macro context 1, connector context, and macro context 2. In this research, these levels of analysis provide a structured framework to understand three basic questions. Firstly, what is the Qur’ānic concept of wasaṭiyyah as understood at the time of revelation by the Prophet and his community? Secondly, was the concept of wasaṭiyyah prevalent among the Malay/Muslim community of the past in Singapore before the arrival of Raffles in 1819? Finally, how has the Malay/Muslim leadership understood and applied the concept of wasaṭiyyah in Singapore today? Based on these questions, this research examines the akal-hati-budi (rationality-belief-mannerism) of the Malay/Muslim community in terms of how wasaṭiyyah is read, understood, and applied by three key components of the community in Singapore – the political leadership, the ‘ulamā’ (religious scholars) and asātidhah (religious teachers), and the Islamic religious education. This research adopts a qualitative research method by interviewing relevant key political and religious leadership figures within the political and religious spheres, participating in conferences and seminars, and analysing khuṭbahs (Friday sermons). It also refers to a rich array of written literature, both classical and modern, in three different languages: English, Bahasa Melayu and Arabic with particular focus on the fields of Islamic studies, theology, tafsīr (Qur’ānic exegesis), Malay studies, minority studies, psychology and sociology. In summary, this research concludes that the concept of wasaṭiyyah has evolved since the revelation of the verse that moulded the wasaṭi (just, middlemost, and balanced) characteristics of the Medinan community in Prophet Muhammad’s time. Based on the subjectivity of these characteristics, over the different contexts of time and place, the concept of wasaṭiyyah has taken different forms. In medieval Islam, wasaṭiyyah took the form of a moral ethical framework, and today, it has adopted a more legalistic outlook. Focusing on the Malay/Muslim world, this research discovers that while the usage of the term wasaṭiyyah was a rarity in classical Malay/Muslim literary tradition, the values associated to wasaṭiyyah were inherent within the past Malay/Muslim’s aspects of power, diplomacy, language, and religion. In the context of the Malay/Muslim minority community in Singapore today, this research concludes that the applicability and degree of pervasiveness of the Qur’ānic concept of wasaṭiyyah within contemporary Malay/Muslim minority community in Singapore is determined by the current Malay/Muslim leadership’s conscious effort to balance living Islam faithfully as a minority community within the needs of progress and inclusivity in a modern, secular, and multicultural nation.