Ong describes the emerging disruption from the growing tension between Islamic revivalism and the Malaysian state’s modernization project in this essay. This disruption is the most clear in daily family life and in the regulation of women’s bodies, where new moral expectations challenge the previously flexible Malay social practices. As Islamic movements seek to impose stricter codes of dress, sexuality, and gender behavior, women become symbolic sites through which broader concerns around national identity, modernity, and religious authority are negotiated. The resulting disruption does not produce social collapse, but a reorganization of power, as both the state and Islamic institutions extend their control over intimate aspects of life. Ong frames this social disruption as a contested process that reshapes norms, identities, and governance in Malaysia, revealing how gender becomes central to managing social change.