Cambodia’s Unique Islamic Sect Fights to Resist Assimilation

On the outskirts of a village near the ancient Cambodian capital of Longvek, the only sounds are the whir of an electric fan and the hum of insects all around. Suddenly, the silence is broken by the beating of a large drum hanging from an awning. At first, the pounding comes slowly, like a heartbeat. But soon the urgency increases as the rhythm beats faster and faster until suddenly the drummer stops and silence returns to the isolated courtyard. The drummer, clad in white, sits on the ground and prepares a tea set. After a few minutes, villagers, mostly men in white robes, emerge from their homes nearby and start assembling in the courtyard for their weekly prayer.

They are all devotees of Kan Imam San, a sect of Islam practiced almost exclusively by a small number of isolated villages of ethnic Chams in rural Cambodia. They pray only on Fridays, have their own scriptures and writing systems, and do not observe all the rules of Halal. Their behavior often seems to go against what the overwhelming majority of global Muslims would understand as Islam. However, they view themselves as the preservers of the authentic Islam of their ancestors.

Although once almost all of Cambodia’s Chams and Muslims followed Kan Imam San traditions, their numbers have been declining as whole villages have converted to “mainstream” Sunni Islam. Now only 44 mosques, representing less than 10 percent of Cambodia’s total Muslim population, are resisting the temptation of converting and receiving benefits from the international Muslim community.

Chams are a distinct ethnolinguistic group whose ancestors built the Kingdom of Champa in what is now southern Vietnam. For 2,000 years, Cham kingdoms vied for power with their Vietnamese and Khmer neighbors, until Champa was finally destroyed and occupied by Dai Viet in 1832, and most of their population fled into present-day Cambodia. King Ang Duong, who ruled Cambodia from his residence on Mount Oudong, close to the remains of Longvek in Kandal province, allowed the Chams to establish a mosque on the mountain and to settle villages in the area.

To this day, this mosque is considered their sacred site, and the Kan Imam San make a three-day pilgrimage there every year. For the rest of the year, it stands empty and is maintained by volunteer elders. King Ang Duong also gave their spiritual leader, Imam San (after whom the sect is named) a royal grant to use the title “Oknha Khnour,” a combination of the Khmer noble title “Oknha'' and the Cham word for “Venerable.” Since then, successive Oknha Khnours have been approved by the community and officially signed into office by the reigning monarch.

While the Kan Imam San used to represent the overwhelming majority of Chams in Cambodia, over the last century their numbers have been in steep decline and most Chams now adhere to mainstream Sunni Islam. The ninth and current Okhna Khnour, Math Sa, sees it as his duty to preserve the sect.

“We lost our land already, so we can’t lose [our identity] as well. It is our pride,” he said during an interview just after the drummed call to prayer at his mosque in Kampong Tralach district, in Kampong Chhnang province. He said that there were now around 30,000 Kan Imam San followers in Cambodia, out of a Cham population of about 300,000. The reason for this, Math Sa said, is that Sunni Muslims receive substantial aid from the global Muslim community, particularly from Malaysia, Indonesia, and Kuwait.

The Indonesian Embassy, for example, says on its website that it has given full scholarships, including living allowance and housing, to 150 graduates of Phnom Penh’s top Sunni school. When asked for comment, an Indonesian Embassy official stated that most of their scholarships are available for all Cambodians regardless of their religious practices, but that some opportunities may only be available for Muslim students if they are related to religious studies. Similar scholarships are offered by Malaysia, Kuwait, and Qatar, but far fewer benefits are extended to the Kan Imam San community. According to several Kan Imam San followers, the only aid they receive from the outside world are occasional gifts of cows from some of the larger mosques in Phnom Penh after Ramadan.

The Oknha Khnour said that his community used to receive aid from the U.S. Embassy, particularly to help them preserve their manuscripts and create materials for teaching the traditional Cham script to their youth.

He produced a copy of the Gheet, one of the holy books of the Kan Imam San, which he described as a collection of summaries of sections of the Quran as well as instructions on how to perform rituals. This is the group’s main holy book, alongside 40 kitabs, or treatises, written by Kan Imam San scholars. They also place a lot of importance on a collection of longform poems called Ka Boun, which list the laws and expectations of men and women. This is the Cham version of the Khmer “Chbab Srey” and “Chbab Bros” (Women’s Rules and Men’s Rules), and includes many of the same traditional gender roles as well as additional ones drawn from Islamic tradition.

When presenting the book, Math Sa proudly flipped through the pages, written in swirling Cham script, which he said his ancestors used to painstakingly copy by hand, but which can now be photocopied if they can raise the funds. The edition he showed reporters was printed with help by the U.S. Embassy, which distributed copies to all Kan Imam San mosques in 2011. He told reporters that these books had a big, positive impact on the younger Kan Imam San, as it allowed them to interact with their traditions and made it much easier to help them with their literacy.

The Kan Imam San use three different writing systems in their communities. The Bani script is based on Arabic, but modified to phonetically match the Cham language. This is used for their main holy books. The Cham script is used to write their interpretive texts and cultural books, as well as for signage in their communities. In school, female students focus more on the Cham script, while male students focus more on the Bani script. Finally, Arabic is used for their prayers, as is customary throughout the Muslim world.