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In the northeast corner of peninsular Malaysia, bordering Thailand, is the state of Kelantan. Few tourists head this far north up the east coast, but it's a fascinating journey for those interested in seeing Malaysia as it might have been without so many foreign influences. The state is populated mostly by Malays and Bumiputeras, with only tiny factions of Chinese and Indian residents and almost no traces of British colonialism. Not surprisingly, Kelantan is the heart of traditional Islam in modern Malaysia. While the government in KL constructs social policies based upon a more open and tolerant Islam, religious and government leaders in Kelantan can be counted on for putting forth a strong Muslim ideal where they feel they may have influence.

Kelantan owes its character to the mountain range that runs north to south through the interior, slicing the peninsula in half. Isolated from other Malay areas, Kelantan for most of its history was aligned with Siam, which didn't care one way or another how Kelantan ran its territory. Cut off from the trade traffic on the other side of the mountains, Kelantan, and to some extent its southern neighbor Terengganu, had sufficient peace of mind to form its own Islamic bureaucracy, judicial system, and societal institutions, emphasizing Muslim standards of scholarship and learning. Trade in gold, mined from the interior, provided for business with Chinese and Thais, but Europeans, their mouths watering for the mineral wealth, were not welcome.
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