ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the idea of radical inclusivity as a significant effort to create a universal ontological framework that supersedes religious, national, economic or ethnic divisions. Focusing on the idea of community from the Islamic tradition, the idea of ‘Ummah’ is often understood as the community/society followers of Allah. Reviewing the images of Kuala Lumpur from the 1950s and 1960s, the perception is of a unified urban community disregard of race and religion. On several occasions, the notion of Ummah is associated with specific duties and obligations, which makes it close to the community defined by Esposito. The Malaysian conceptualisations of the notion of ‘community’, critically comparing its Western traditions, Anglo-Saxon colonial practices and legacy with the Islamic idea of the Ummah and Islamic approaches to non-Muslim communities are all analysed.
