Word: azyumardi
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...country. "I think the fatwa was issued now because of their ties to clerics in Malaysia," suggests Hamid Basyaib of the Liberal Islam Network. Many doubt it will have much effect. "The council is trying to reassert its authority among Muslims as the guardians of Islamic belief," says Azyumardi Azra, director of graduate studies at the State Islamic University in Jakarta. "The fatwa is counterproductive because Muslims who do yoga do not feel it alters their fundamental belief in Islam...
...radical groups have also led to the closure of at least 23 "unlicensed" churches in recent months, according to press reports, a worrying sign for a nation long heralded as one of the Islamic world's most tolerant. "Hardliners are manipulating Muslim sentiment to further their own agendas," says Azyumardi Azra from the Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University. "I don't believe it is part of a conspiracy as some have alleged, but more a factor of certain groups pushing the boundaries of democracy and the freedoms it brings...
...Muslims, now 30 million strong. But as Indonesia's wealth gap widens-roughly 40 million citizens now live below the poverty line-conservative mosques have attracted worshippers, in part, by promising to alleviate economic hardship and eradicate immorality. "They preach that Islam and Shari'a are an elixir," says Azyumardi Azra, a prominent Muslim scholar and director of the graduate school at Jakarta's State Islamic University. "The state's social institutions have not fixed problems like drugs, prostitution, gambling and corruption. So people think maybe the mosques can solve things that the government...
...Along with luck and formidable bombmaking abilities, Azahari and Nurdin, once colleagues in the geophysics department of an obscure Malaysian university, have one other critical talent?the ability to convince young men to sacrifice their lives in the name of Islam. Azyumardi Azra, a moderate Islamic scholar and rector of the State Islamic University in Jakarta, argues that a combination of poverty, the speed of societal change since the fall of dictator Suharto in 1998, and the Western military presence in Iraq, has left many young Muslims alienated and receptive to the message of global jihad. "The recruiters are good...
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