Word: pesantrens
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...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...
...dictate just what kind of a Muslim democracy the world's fourth most populous nation aims to be. "I believe we must strengthen the moderate paradigm and say that our Islam stands for tolerance, dynamism and freedom of expression," says Zuhairi Misrawi, a researcher with the Indonesian Society for Pesantren and Community Development in Jakarta. "But is that what the majority of Indonesian people want? It's becoming harder to tell...
...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, even government leaders, accountable," says Muchsin Noor, a cleric who runs a pesantren in West Java's Cianjur regency, where Shari'a bylaws were officially implemented last year. But it is precisely the scattered nature of the bylaws' propagation that has made a concerted defense by moderate Muslims so difficult. "Because this conservatism is creeping in at the local level, people didn...
...society. Many have formed NGOs that funnel cash to liberal mosques or distribute pamphlets calling on Indonesians to defend their more inclusive spiritual traditions. Researcher Misrawi, whose religious credentials are burnished by study at Cairo's famed Islamic Al-Azhar University, says his organization coordinates with 5,000 moderate pesantren, many of which are located in traditionally conservative regions like southern Sulawesi or West Java. The moderates admit they face a rhetorical disadvantage in their spiritual battle. "Salafi Islam is attractive because it says that if you are not rewarded in this lifetime, you will be rewarded in the next...
...TIME: Should Jemaah Islamiah (the network of Islamic militants blamed for a spate of bombings in Indonesia) or any pesantren (religious boarding schools) suspected of terrorist activities be banned? SBY: Based on early intelligence reports, we first have to look at areas that are suspected of having terrorist activities so that, without the president having to say that legal steps need to be taken toward pesantren A or pesantren B, action will have already been taken. And if there is enough proof then definitive legal steps will be taken. This will require communication and the right approach so that...