Civil Islam: Muslims and Democratization in Indonesia

"After these three empires, the Muslim world had the colonization period. In some cases, colonization began very early. In Indonesia, Dutch colonization was much earlier than the British and French colonization of the Middle East. Then, in the 20th century, Muslim societies started to exist as independent states. But they inherited certain problems we have already discussed, like a low literacy rate due to the delayed adoption of the printing press. Only seven Muslim-majority countries are electoral democracies. One of those seven is Indonesia, the largest Muslim country, with a population of over 225 million, about 90% Muslim. This is an interesting case, because, first of all, there’s too much emphasis on the Middle East in academic and policy debates. We need to understand other aspects of the Muslim world, including Southeast Asia, and how this largest Muslim society with a 10% non-Muslim minority achieved democratization. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . Robert Hefner is a leading authority on Indonesia, and especially Islam and democracy in Indonesia. In this particular book, he analyses the transformation from the military rule of Suharto to a democratic process where two leading Islamic groups played a very positive role. One is Nahdlatul Ulama, the ‘Awakening of Ulema,’ which claims to have 90 million members and is, therefore, the biggest Islamic organization on Earth. The other is Muhammadiyah, which means ‘followers of Muhammad’, which claims to have 30 million members. These two have certain differences: Nahdlatul Ulama is more open to traditional local practices and Sufism, while Muhammadiyah seems to be more rationalist and less open to Sufism. But they agree on keeping Indonesia as a non- sharia , non-Islamist state and making it democratic. Hefner explains how, in the late 1990s, they contributed to the country’s democratization, and the leader of Nahdlatul Ulama, Abdurrahman Wahid, became the president of Indonesia and the leader of Muhammadiyah, Amien Rais, became the speaker of parliament. Hefner’s book really helps us understand the historical background of Indonesian democracy. Currently, these two groups are still struggling to eliminate certain radical views in Indonesia and are even trying to reform Islamic thought. They may have an impact on the Middle East eventually. That’s a complex question. When we look at the different regions of Indonesia , only one, Aceh, has sharia in both family law and criminal law. Others don’t have sharia formally. Islamic law has some influence on their legal systems in varying degrees. But the short answer is no: there is no Islamic veto power over laws in Indonesia’s federal system. There is no constitutional article making Islamic law a source of reference legally."