Intertextuality in Muamalat Discourse

The development of muamalat within the framework of conventional economic system has resulted in a particular social practice as muamalat is seen as Allah’s risalah (words) that must be obeyed by every Muslim. Recently, the issue of the need for Muslims to shift back to muamalat has frequently being debated, however the study on muamalat discourse to identify muamalat social practice and the way muamalat discourse strengthens this social practice has yet to be critically conducted. Therefore this study aims to; 1) Identify the social practice of muamalat discourse benefits within the framework of conventional economic system; and 2) Explain the practice of muamalat discourse (intertextuality) within the framework of conventional economic system. This is a qualitative study using Fairclough Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach. Three texts from Chairman’s Statements and four Islam Malaysia Bank Berhad (BIMB) Managing Director’s Operational Review Texts collected from 2009 until 2012 are used in this study. The results of this study show that the social practice which benefits from muamalat discourse is Ihsan (courtesy). This social practice influences muamalat discourse practice particularly in the aspects of intertextuality. This is proven with the infusion of metadiscourse elements explicitly which is more apparent than other intertextuality elements. This study has succeeded in exposing the dialectical relationship between muamalat social practice (Ihsan) with discourse practices (intertextuality)