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e Battle of Bangi 193

a close look at the Malay-majority townships of Shah Alam and Bangi, in
the state of Selangor. Challenging the view that PAS is more ‘Islamic’ than
PH simply because the party won many seats in Malaysia’s Malay-majority
northeast (Nambiar 2018), this chapter argues that PAS and PH—and
within PH, especially Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah, National Trust Party,
a splinter party from PAS)—represent di erent visions of political Islam in
contemporary Malaysia. As the results of GE14 indicated, PAS appears to be a
more Malay-oriented Islamic party, with strongholds in the state of Kelantan,
Terengganu, and Kedah, while Amanah is a more inclusive and reformist-
inclined Islamic party with a solid support base in the urbanised Klang Valley.
is does not mean PAS has limited in uence in the Klang Valley, but it faces
stronger competition from Amanah and other Islamic forces in urban areas
such as Bangi and Shah Alam. In other words, PAS has many loyalists in the
east-coast states, yet in the Klang Valley, PAS is only one of many in uential
actors in political Islam.
is chapter explores how di erent actors articulate Islamic narratives in
urban contexts, considering in the process how Islamic movements evolve with
political developments, while still holding to certain ideological commitments.
It engages with other studies of political Islam in Malaysia and elsewhere
(Ahmad Fauzi 2018; Ahmad Fauzi and Che Hamdan 2016; Liow 2009;
Mohamed Nawab 2017; Müller 2014; Noor 2014), but suggests that these
works have underplayed dynamics that were particularly central to the outcome
of GE14. e term ‘political Islam’ has many connotations (Boubekeur and
Roy 2012). Here, I mainly use it to refer to the political mobilization of Islam
by political parties and other social actors. As I will describe, one of the key
changes in GE14 was that the political competition for urban Malay votes has
evolved from ‘PAS versus UMNO’ to ‘PAS versus PH’ (especially Amanah);
the role of UMNO in this newly-con gured contest is uncertain.
With the support of Muslim preachers and organisations, PAS and PH
o er di erent visions of political Islam. Various terms could be used to
describe Amanah’s vision of political Islam, such as ‘post-Islamism’ (Bayat
2013), ‘second-generation political Islam’ (Dzulke y 2016; Maszlee and
Zulki i 2016), ‘Islamic resurgence 2.0’ (Zulki i 2016) and ‘democrat
Muslim’ (Maszlee 2017a)—but this is a topic beyond the scope of this
chapter. Generally speaking, PAS tends to be more exclusive, conservative,
‘Malay-centric’, and focused on the stricter implementation of Islamic laws,
while Amanah appears to be more inclusive and progressive, emphasizing the
greater objectives of an Islamic agenda and willing to work together with non-
Muslims. Acknowledging that the terms ‘conservative’ and ‘progressive’ are

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