NIM:D01394135.
One of the fulcrums of change in political Islam is the relationship between traditional patterns of Islamic politics, which focus upon the pursuit and wielding of formal power, particularly with the aim of enacting of shari’a law, and the more recent emergence of dynamic social spheres of Islamic activism, which emphasise values and moral order and operate with considerable autonomy from Isl…
Out of 50 Muslim-majority countries around the world, only six are electoral democracies. This problem has multiple material and ideational causes. This essay focuses on one ideational factor: the dominant method of Islamic law. The essay explains how this method became dominant after the eleventh century and why it causes the incompatibility between sharia (Islamic law) and democracy. The essa…
Vast public attention has been devoted to the politics of Muslim societies, much of it prompted – and distorted – by the rise of radical Islamism, and there has been a corresponding and voluminous academic literature on the subject. A central debate centres on whether ‘Islam’ is a formative factor or not and, if it is, how is it determining. A prevalent view is that Muslim politics st…
Scholars of Indonesian politics and Islam use the phrase ‘conservative turn’ to explain the increasing religious influence in contemporary Indonesia’s social, political, and cultural life. Although their literature provides insightful explanations about this trend, scholars fail to include subcultural Muslim youths in their analyses. The term ‘subcultural youths’ in this context refer…
The Muslim Brotherhood plays a prominent role in the politics of many Muslim countries as one of the largest Islamist groups. As a politico-social movement, the Muslim Brotherhood has gone through many tactical and ideological shifts over the past 90 years since its founding in 1928. Studying these shifts and the reasoning behind them can help us to understand the behaviour of certain groups. T…
This paper examines the precarious coexistence between Muslims and Christians in post-conflictMaluku, Indonesia. The lasting effects of brutal conflict have left fear and trauma as the dominant emotions in the relationships of local residents. While these emotions are commonly seen as hindrances to peace by scholars and non-scholars alike, in post-conflict societies, they are inescapable and de…