Indonesia and Islam in Transition, by Leonard C. Sebastian and Syed Huzaifah Bin Othman Alkaff

s Indonesia and Islam in Transition (2024) is a significant scholarly contribution to the discourse on the complex relationship between Islam, the state, and society in Indonesia.Framed as a multidisciplinary inquiry, the book integrates historical, political, security, and anthropological perspectives to examine ideological and sociopolitical transformations within Indonesia's Muslim community.Drawing on Abdullah Saeed's conceptual spectrum of Islamic inclusivism and exclusivism, combined with Quintan Wiktorowicz's social movement theory, the authors explore internal Muslim dynamics amidst the forces of globalization, democratization, and rising conservatism.From the outset, they argue that Indonesian Islam should never be approached as static.The nation's historical trajectory reveals a continual push and pull between moderation and radicalization, between the ideals of democratization and the drive for Sharia formalization, and between openness to global influences and the preservation of local identity.The historical perspective, which spans the pre-New Orde period, the New Orde, and the post-Reformasi era, underscores that change has been nonlinear, with each period producing critical junctures that shaped the evolving relationship between Islam and the state.Chapter One lays out the conceptual framework for anchoring the analysis.Saeed's spectrum is employed to map Muslim attitudes toward the "religious other", from hard exclusivism to hard inclusivism.It is integrated with Wiktorowicz's typology of Salafism into three categories: purists, politicos, and jihadis.Key issues such as democracy, relations with the West, Sharia implementation, and the Islamic state ideal are situated within this spectrum, allowing readers to appreciate the key idea that Islamic identity in Indonesia is not monolithic but distributed along multiple positions.Chapter Two turns to the historical and typological mapping of Islam in Indonesia, examining local variants such as Mataraman Islam, Tapal Kuda Islam, Neo-Kauman, and Islam Seberang in Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Aceh, and Riau.This section illustrates the rich diversity of Islamic expressions shaped by historical, geographical, and social dynamics, reinforcing the argument that Indonesian Islam results from a long process of social construction.Chapter Three analyzes the role of ideology in shaping Islam, Muslims, and activism in Indonesia, distinguishing between plural-liberal Islam, tolerantconservative Islam, and exclusive conservatism, each with distinct social bases, literature, and networks.It also details their responses to Sharia implementa

Bin · George (robot) · Islam · Asian Studies and History · Islamic Studies and History · Qur’anic Interpretation Studies