Suchergebnisse

Phlilipp Bruckmayr, Cambodia's Muslims and the Malay World: Malay Language, Jawi Script, and Islamic Factionalism from the 19th Century to the Present, (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2019).This paper reviews a book that discusses Islamization in one of the Muslim minority areas in mainland Southeast Asia, Cambodia. This book offers thought-provoking concept of Islamization in Cambodia, namely "Jawization". The concept describes how the use of the Jawi language in several areas in Cambodia as a symbol that represents the success of Islamization. In addition, this book is also quite distinctive from the other Islamic history in Southeast Asia scholarly works which generally frames this area as a part of "centre-periphery". In addition, by emphasizing language aspects including other socio-historical and political factors, Cambodian Muslims are presented in various ways, according to their level of exposure and use of the Jawi language as well as the tradition of writing in Arabic script. Above all, this book brings an important argument that Muslim in Cambodia is also inseparable from the grand narrative of Islamization in the Malay world.

The emergence of sharia bylaws in several regions in Indonesia is increasingly worrisome. In many cases, they have generated socio-religious problems within society such as preventing the establishment of a house of worship and forbidding of religious activities, especially for minority sects such as Ahmadiyya and Shi'a. Furthermore, they also produce the discrimination against women. For example, in Tangerang City, a female worker was arrested by Civil Service Police Unit (Satuan Polisi Pamong Praja, Satpol PP) because she was accused of being prostitute because she returned home at night. Unfortunately, the basis of accusation is Perda Kota Tangerang No. 5, 2005.One of the prominent factors giving occasion to the emergence of those sharia bylaws is the political opportunity after the decline of Suharto's New Order. Afterwards, the falling regime became a sign of this glitch. Ignoring the fact that they produce many problems within society, local governments still repeatedly produce sharia bylaws.DOI:10.15408/sdi.v23i2.3672

Religion is predicted to dissipate from social significance through the processes of development or economic modernization. Classical secularization theory forecasted religion in the modern era will face some circumstances such as 1) the decline of personal faith, religious beliefs and practices; and (2) the retreat of religion from public space (Cassanova: 1994, 2010). However, the supporters of secularization and modernization theories failed to notice that religion did not disappear from the public sphere. The opposite occurs in Southeast Asia. Economic development program and modernization could work hand-in-hand with religion in the region (Feener and Fountain: 2018).In the context of Indonesia, the issue of religion has gone through ups and downs. The story of Indonesia's revival of Islam had been begun when the country experienced anti-communist campaigns of 1965-66 (McVey: 2006). Since then, the government obliged all of its societies to profess one of Indonesia's recognized religions: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, and Hinduism (now Confucianism has been added to the list) (Qurtuby: 2013). The pressure for all citizens to embrace one particular recognized religion resulted in great conversion from local religions/faiths—Hindu, Buddha, abangan, etc.—to Islam (Hefner: 1987a, 1987b, 1989; cf. Beatty: 1999). It then witnesses rapid growth of the grassroots Islam and the spread of Islamization (Houben: 2003).