Islam in Singapore

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The Masjid Sultan (Sultan Mosque) in Singapore was built in 1824 and declared a national monument in 1973. The stunning building is very popular among visitors to Singapore as well as the local Malay community.

Islam is practised by about 16% of Singapore's population. It is mainly practised by the sizeable Malay minority, who constitute about 13.9% of the country's population. The remainder is practised by Indian, Pakistani and Arab Muslim communities. There is also a small number of Chinese and Eurasian followers of Islam.

Today, the Singapore Muslim Religious Council (Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura) plays a very important role in the organization of Islamic affairs and therefore of the Muslim community. Authorized by the 1966 Administration of Muslim Law Act, the council, composed of members nominated by Muslim societies but appointed by the President of Singapore, is formally a statutory board that advises the president on all matters relating to the Muslim religion. It acts to centralize and standardize the practice of Islam. The council administers all Muslim trusts (wafs); organizes a computerized and centralized collection of tithes and obligatory gifts (zakat); and manages all aspects of the pilgrimage to Mecca, including registering pilgrims, obtaining Saudi Arabian visas, and making airline reservations.

The council also helped the government reorganize the mosque system after redevelopment. Prior to the massive redevelopment and rehousing of the 1970s and 1980s, The Muslims in Singapore were served by about ninety mosques, many of which had been built and were funded and managed by local, sometimes ethnically-based, communities. Redevelopment destroyed both the mosques and the communities that had supported them, scattering the people over new housing estates. The council, in consultation with the government, decided not to rebuild the small mosques but to replace them with large central mosques.

Construction funds came from a formally voluntary contribution collected along with the Central Provident Fund deduction paid by all employed Muslims. The new central mosques can accommodate 1,000 to 2,000 persons and provide such services as kindergartens, religious classes, family counselling, leadership and community development classes, tuition and remedial instruction for school children, and Arabic language instruction.

The government has been regulating Muslim marriages and divorces since 1880, however, the 1957 Muslim Ordinance authorized the establishment of a centralized Sharia Court, with jurisdiction over divorce and inheritance cases. The court, under the Ministry of Community Development, replaced a set of government-licensed but otherwise unsupervised kathi (Islamic judges) who had previously decided on questions of divorce and inheritance, following either the traditions of particular ethnic groups or their own interpretations of Muslim law.

The court attempts to consistently enforce sharia law, a standard Islamic law as set out in the Qur'an and the decisions of early Muslim rulers and jurists, and to reduce the high rate of divorce among Malays. In 1989 the Singapore Muslim Religious Council took direct control of the subjects taught in Islamic schools and of the Friday sermons given at all mosques.