Word: islamic
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...what happens when the state's definition of Islam differs from its citizens'? The Islamic Development Department, which governs Muslim practices on a federal level, deems Shia and Baha'i interpretations of Islam deviant faiths worthy of forced "rehabilitation." Controversy also surrounds Malays who wish to convert to another religion, thus defying the constitutional clause specifying that all Malays must be Muslims. That issue is being tested by the case of Lina Joy, a Malay who has been barred from converting to Christianity by Shari'a courts. Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, a lawyer who has received death threats for representing...
...Kaliammal, her husband's ultimate choice will never be known for certain. He was buried as a Muslim, but she wants to move the remains to a Hindu grave. Kaliammal's appeal, one of several involving alleged conversions to Islam, is pending before a higher court, though no date has been fixed for judgment. "My husband never once told me he had secretly converted to Islam," says Kaliammal, showing off a wall in her apartment dedicated to her husband's mountaineering achievements for the glory of the Malaysian nation. "He was always a Hindu and drank alcohol and ate pork...
...spiritual revolution. Since the 1998 fall of strongman Suharto, who during his 32-year rule suppressed not only political freedom but any faith that could challenge his authority, the country has re-embraced its religiosity. In 2004, Indonesia held its first-ever direct presidential election, shattering the notion that Islam and democracy are incompatible. Yet that same open system of politics has encouraged a flowering of conservative religious thought and allowed the rise of homegrown terrorists, threatening the country's reputation as a model of moderate Islam...
...That message is being broadcast from thousands of new mosques and Islamic schools, or pesantren, now proliferating across the 17,000-island archipelago. Many are funded by Middle Eastern groups that see Indonesia as fertile ground for spiritual purification. Clerics at these religious institutions preach the Salafi strain of Islam, which advocates a return to the religion as practiced in the era of the Prophet Muhammad. (Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia's strict form of the faith, is considered an offshoot of Salafi Islam.) By contrast, most Indonesians, like other Southeast Asian Muslims, had for centuries practiced a far less orthodox faith...
...Jakarta, female students and teachers are strongly encouraged to wear the jilbab on Fridays-and face stigmatization if they don't. In 2005, the nation's top religious body, the Indonesia Ulema Council, issued a fatwa stating that "religious teachings influenced by pluralism, liberalism and secularism are against Islam." Equally worrisome, some of Indonesia's homegrown terrorists, whose bombing campaign has claimed hundreds of lives since 2002, profess their violence is justified by Salafi teachings-even if most conservative clerics disagree. "If we don't promote a smiling Islam, then we will be seen overseas as a hotbed of radicalism...