Narathiwat – Thailand is home to numerous individuals who share a remarkable sense of community. As the country becomes a haven for various ethnic groups, there are the minority members who also give their own colorful take on building a beautiful culture within the country.
The Malay-Muslims, for instance, have been a part of southern Thailand’s growing society. They are considered as an indigenous group of the Malay Peninsula that is mostly seen in the southern border provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani, and Yala.
The Southern Dwellers
In the three southern provinces, the Malay-Muslim comprises the majority of the people in the region. They live harmoniously with the other ethnic groups such as the Chinese minorities and the ethnic Thai. Also, aside from the three main provinces, there are a number of Malay-Muslims living in Satun. The Malays living in these provinces are mostly Sunni Muslims who speak a variety of Malay from the Malayo-Polynesian family and is also closely related to Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Melayu. On the other hand, the remaining one percent of the Malay-Muslims are Shi’ite. Moreover, Tawi which is a Malay dialect can even be heard in the local communities of the south. This is a dialect that many non-Muslim Thais cannot speak.
Then, with the sea nearby, the people make a living as fishermen or traders. Also, the residents living in the southern region are depended on the production of rubber, coconuts, and rice. The landscape, aside from being a tourist attraction because of its beautiful islands and beaches, is dominated by various rice paddies and rubber plantations.
However, even though they are considered a majority in this region, they still have some problems which are usually general in nature compared to the other pressing concerns faced in other remote provinces in the country. They live in one of Thailand’s poorest regions and generally remain a minority among the overall ethnic groups of the country. Also, there are some who say that the economy of the region is largely controlled by the Chinese.
Islam in Thailand
The Deep South, which is the name for the southern regions with predominant Muslim societies, have active groups living near the Malaysian border of Thailand. In this area, about 80 percent of the people are Muslim of Malay descent. With this, Islam is now the second-largest faith in the country after Buddhism. The practices have been integrated into many beliefs. In the continuous growth of the ethnic group within Thailand, it is also becoming more difficult to distinguish the indigenous practices to the Malay culture and the local Islamic ceremonies because each of these contained aspects of the other.
Their practice of Islam in Southeast Asia has also opened a unique variety of writing system. They use a modified version of Arabic known as Jawi. It is good to know that the Malay-Muslims in Thailand continue using this script because the increasing use of the Latin alphabet is posting a great concern to the preservation of this written system in other Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia.
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