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...rights of the nation's non-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...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: A Call to Prayer | 2/22/2007 | See Source »

...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...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: A Call to Prayer | 2/22/2007 | See Source »

...Supporters of Shari'a argue that the central government's attitude simply reflects public sentiment. A 2006 poll by the Indonesia Survey Institute found that 58% of Indonesians believed adulterers should be stoned, as is mandated by Islamic law, up from 39% five years before. "There's a new feeling in Indonesia that people have been burned by secularism, that it's not working," says Zulkieflimansyah, a former UI student president and a legislator from Indonesia's biggest Islamic political party, the Justice and Welfare Party. "Islam can give them hope, and our mission is to educate Muslims about...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: A Call to Prayer | 2/22/2007 | See Source »

...road to Bulukumba, a rice-growing hamlet in eastern Indonesia's Sulawesi province, is rutted and worn. But just past the district line stands an ornate, three-meter-high marble edifice festooned with Arabic calligraphy. "Religious Crash Program," announces the massive signboard, before detailing the four Shari'a bylaws Bulukumba has implemented since 2002: no alcohol; mandatory wearing of Islamic attire; required payment of Islamic alms; and Koranic proficiency for students and prospective married couples. As some of the first places to pass such bylaws in Indonesia, Bulukumba and five other regencies in southern Sulawesi have served as an inspiration...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: A Call to Prayer | 2/22/2007 | See Source »

...spread of Shari'a laws has come not by diktat from Jakarta but from the grassroots. A series of reforms implemented since 2001 has made Indonesia's regions more autonomous, giving local leaders unprecedented power in what, under Suharto, had been a deeply centralized nation. The bottom-up emergence of the faith-based laws lends legitimacy to those who say they represent a Muslim majority that was never well served by the capital's secularized-and often corrupt-political ?lite. "People in Jakarta may not understand this, but Shari'a is the aspiration of the people, because it makes everyone...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: A Call to Prayer | 2/22/2007 | See Source »

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