Word: saudi
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...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, incorporating the Hindu, Buddhist and animist traditions that had flourished before Islam arrived in the archipelago in the 12th century. Some...
...Unlike Iran or Saudi Arabia, however, the Republic of Indonesia is governed by a constitution that guarantees a separation of mosque and state. Those secular underpinnings, say some legal experts, call into question the very constitutionality of the Shari'a bylaws. But the administration of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has sidestepped this debate. Vice President Jusuf Kalla calls the faith-based regulations "normal" in a Muslim-majority state, insisting: "It is not Shari'a law but laws influenced by Shari'a." Yudhoyono himself has avoided any public comment on the bylaws' legality. "The President will do nothing on this...
...newfound piety of University of Indonesia student Lintang Anisa, however, came not from Saudi Arabia but from closer to home. In high school, Anisa lived what she calls a "hedonist" lifestyle, never praying five times a day as is required by Islam. But after enrolling at UI, where she took part in student-organized Koranic study, the 19-year-old English major began wearing a headscarf. "It was God's will that I could study at UI," she says, "so wearing the jilbab is an expression of gratitude for God's blessings." When Anisa and her classmates finish their studies...
...have America's fortune in the Middle East sunk? So low that we're staking our hopes for the region on ... Saudi Arabia. In the past month, Saudi King Abdullah has emerged as the most energetic dealmaker in the Middle East, brokering a tentative power-sharing agreement between rival Palestinian factions and mediating between the pro-Western government in Beirut and representatives of Hizballah, who want to topple it. Riyadh is also suppressing the price of oil, in what many observers see as a bid to undermine Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by starving his government of cash. And the Saudis...
...Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt have been expecting the U.S. and Israel to make some significant positive moves. In talks with U.S. diplomats, they argue that the Saudi-brokered accord that helped forge the unity government gives Abbas some room to negotiate on behalf of all Palestinians - including Hamas - and the Israelis and Americans should take him up on that. The Arab diplomats also stress that if Olmert is prepared to make major concessions, such as a withdrawal from Jewish settlements in the West Bank, it could lay the groundwork for a lasting peace between Israel and its Arab...