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Malaysia, nation, independence and its Constitution are grounded upon the political bargaining process and ensuing social contract? that made them possible. Yet two major questions central to the Merdeka process? First, what exactly were the terms, and what is now the current standing and force, of that social contract? Still blurred and ill-understood after fifty years of national independence, the answers to this question remain central to the life of the nation. Second, under the independence Constitution that rests upon what has become retrospectively known as the nation social contract?, what specifically was the agreed constitutional position of Islam? What was the mutually accepted religion and society status quo? that the Constitution, its framers and the parties consenting to its adoption sought to establish? Did those understandings establish Malaysia as an Islamic state or indirectly permit it to evolve into, or even encourage its development as, an Islamic state? Or did they seek to preclude that direction of development?