Indonesia orders Buddha Bar to shut down

The Central Jakarta District Court has ordered the Buddha Bar in Jakarta to close, finding its name and imagery to be offensive to Buddhists, and specifically the Anti-Buddha Bar Forum. The lounge is part of a French-based chain, each featuring a large statue of the Buddha as a centrepiece.

The owners of the lounge, along with the Jakarta Tourism Agency and Fauzi Bowo, the governor of Jakarta, have been fined a total of Rp 1 billion (Can. $116,933 / €86,595).

30 Mosques profiles Masjid Muhammad in DC

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Back when I lived in Washington, D.C., I'd pray at the Islamic Center of Washington, and sometimes at the Indonesian embassy, where I learned the phrase "dalam bulan suci Ramadhan". But one mosque I'd never even heard about until a few days ago is Masjid Muhammad, the subject of an interesting profile on the 30 Mosques/30 States blog. It sounds like this mosque is a lot better integrated into the general Washington, D.C. community than the Islamic Center is. On the other hand, its congregation also faces more of the social problems that plague some parts of the city. It makes you think.

Anyhow, this is one mosque I'd love to visit on my next trip to D.C., in sha' Allah.

Fachrizal Halim on Communism and Islam

My friend Fachrizal had an article published in the Jakarta Post in October challenging the notion that the Indonesian Communist movement was hostile to Islam from its inception.

Fachrizal cites Lenin's appeal to "all labouring Muslims of Russia and the East", and the subsequent support for the Bolsheviks on the part of some Russian Muslims. In Fachrizal's view, this "strategic alliance" was a result of the shared opposition of the Muslims and the Bolsheviks to Western imperialism.

Fachrizal argues that a similar alliance existed in Indonesia between the Communists and the Muslims masses. He concludes that it is time for the Communists' contribution to the formation of modern-day Indonesia to be fully acknowledged.

This is certainly a very interesting take on the issue. The history of cooperation between the Communists and Islamists in the days of Indonesia's struggle for independence is new to me. I do feel, though, that Fachrizal might be somewhat idealistic when he talks about Lenin's attitude towards Russian Muslims. On the other hand, he does acknowledge the fact that Stalin saw no grounds for the compatibility of Islam and Communism. This had a devastating outcome not just for the freedom of conscience of Soviet Muslims, but also in Indonesia, where the pro-Soviet Communists were forced to take an increasingly anti-Islamic stance.

23% of the world's population is Muslim

According to a new report issued by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Muslims number 1.57 billion, which is 23% of the world population of 6.8 billion people.

According to the study, Indonesia has the largest Muslim population (203 million), followed by Pakistan with 174 million, India with 161 million, Bangladesh with 145 million and Egypt with 79 million.

Over 300 million people, representing a fifth of all Muslims, live in non-Muslim-majority countries (India being the prime example).

Russia has the largest Muslim population in Europe, with 16 million. In the Americas, the United States has the largest Muslim population, with 2.5 million (0.8% of the US population), followed by Argentina (0.8 million; 1.9% of the population) and Canada (0.7 million; 2% of the population).

The Pew study is based on approximately 1,500 sources.

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Fachrizal Halim on Ahmadis in Indonesia

Continuing the series of articles by invited authors, here's an article by my friend Fachrizal Halim, a PhD student at McGill University's Institute of Islamic Studies. Fachrizal was born in Indonesia's South Kalimantan province, and, apart from Indonesia and Canada, has lived in the United States. He has a BA in philosophy and an MA in religious studies from Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta. He got another MA, this time in Christian-Muslim relations, from the Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Connecticut.

Is There a Place for Ahmadiyya in Indonesia?

By Fachrizal Halim

The issue of Ahmadiyya in Indonesia could escalate into a chronic social-religious problem if the Indonesian government does not come to a decisive position regarding the demand to ban the religious community. Since the Indonesian Ulama Council issued a decree that Ahmadiyya is heretical, the members of the community throughout the country suffered from various attacks. The recent recommendation from the Coordinating Board for Monitoring Mystical Belief in Society (Bakor Pakem) to ban the community does not bring about a solution but only intensifies violence in the guise of legal punishment.

Considering the increase of violence and the demand to ban the existence of the Ahmadi community, one may wonder if there is a place for Ahmadiyya in Indonesia.

As a secular democratic country, the constitution of Indonesia guarantees religious freedom, and therefore there should definitely be a place for the existence of Ahmadiyya in the country. However, the constitutional guarantee must be followed by a strong commitment on the part of the Indonesian government to protect the right of the Ahmadi community to hold their belief. An ambiguous position by the government would be not only damaging to the Indonesian label as a moderate and tolerant Muslim country, but also ruining its home-grown construction of freedom and democracy. The ambiguity can be interpreted as a hesitation to protect the right of the Ahmadi community in defining their self-identification as Muslims.

Besides the commitment of the government, the Indonesian ulama must also have the courage to consider their role in the modern state. One of the triggers of recent violence against the Ahmadi community is undoubtedly the fatwa (legal decision) of the Indonesian Ulama Council which labeled Ahmadiyya as deviant of Islam. Indeed, as men of learning and guardians of the faith, the ulama have the authority to define Islamic orthodoxy in matter of belief and practice. However the ulama could become authoritarian if their basic function to guard the interest of the entire Muslim community has mingled with the interest of a certain group. This is exactly the case in Indonesia.

The Indonesian Ulama Council, which is supposed to mediate the difference in understanding of the idea of the Prophet Muhammad as 'the Seal of the Prophets' among Muslims in Indonesia has become a punitive apparatus of the hardliner and illiberal moderate Muslims. The Ahmadis hold a position that Ghulam Ahmad is the Promised Messiah. Some of the extreme Ahmadis believe that Ghulam Ahmad is a 'prophet' without a law or a holy book. Like the majority of Muslims, however, all Ahmadi communities believe in the finality of the revelation of the Prophet Muhammad. What made the Ahmadis differ from the majority of Muslims is their idea that the promised Messiah has the correct interpretation of Islam. The Ahmadis define their movement as a reform that would bring about the true Islam. By keeping this self-definition, the Ahmadis do not consider themselves to be deviant from Islam.

The Indonesian Ulama Council could not tolerate this position and issued a fatwa that Ahmadiyya is heretical and therefore should be regarded as non-Muslim. What matters in this article is not the content of the fatwa, because obviously one may have his own theological position about the issue. The matter is the impact of the fatwa that violated the freedom of expression of the Ahmadi community. The rights of the Ahmadis to pray in their own mosques, to educate their children in their own schools and to propagate their teaching have been put into question by the imposition of the label of heresy. In this case, the Indonesian Ulama Council has become the regime of truth that does not allow any definition of Islam that differs from their definition.

If one agrees that the role of the ulama is to promote God's mercy on earth, one must also agree that the Indonesian Ulama Council should stop using their authority to punish the Ahmadis. The Council must realize that their fatwa, which expelled the Ahmadis from the mainstream of Islam, contributed to transgression upon the right of the Ahmadis to have their own interpretation of Islam. If the Council could change its role from representing one particular opinion to promoting a communal holiness that respects the diversity of opinions in Islam, Indonesia would continue to become a model of a home grown democracy among Muslim countries.

One of the good things of Indonesia being a secular democratic country is that the decree of the Indonesian Ulama Council has no legal binding in the Indonesian constitution. The demand of the hardliner and illiberal moderate Muslims to ban Ahmadiyya as represented by the Coordinating Board for Monitoring Mystical Belief in Society (Bakor Pakem) cannot have any effect without the final decision of the Indonesian government.

To guarantee the religious freedom and to protect the Ahmadi community from continued attacks, there is no doubt that the government should disregard the fatwa of the Indonesian Ulama Council which labelled the Ahmadis as heretical. Subsequently, the government should be more active in law enforcement towards anyone who disrupts freedom.

Editor's note: Notes on Religion does not necessarily agree with the views expressed by guest authors.

American students meet Muslims worldwide

Four students at Washington, D.C.'s American University, among them three non-Muslims and one Muslim, have accompanied Prof. Akbar Ahmed on an "anthropological excursion" around nine countries with large Muslim populations, from Egypt to Indonesia.

Ahmed (a former Pakistani diplomat) and the students met Muslim students, preachers and political activists, some of them with anti-Western views. They were surprised to find even the Muslims opposed to Western policies to be warm and welcoming on a personal level, and open to discussion and debate. For their part, many of the Muslims they met were astounded at the visitors' descriptions of the freedom of worship Muslims enjoy in the United States (Christian Science Monitor).

Of course, this tour was not entirely unique: a substantial number of American students go on study abroad programmes in Muslim countries; other young Americans work as interns with local NGOs with these countries, or serve with organisations such as the Peace Corps. However, this "excursion" was rather unique in its scope: nine countries visited, a large number of Muslims encountered, a large number of meaningful conversations and exchanges entered into.

I hope more such exchanges take place, in both directions. Muslim students would also have a great deal to learn from touring Western countries and having discussions of this sort with Western students, as well as political and civil society leaders.

Was Obama once a Muslim?

A bit of investigative journalism has revealed that Barack Obama Jr. not only took classes on Islam at school in Indonesia, where he lived for four years in his childhood, but also attended prayers at his neighbourhood mosque. His old friends and teachers -- both at a Muslim and a Christian school he attended -- insist that he was a Muslim and was registered as such in school documents. According to a friend of his, Obama's mother would sometimes go to church, but Obama himself would accompany his Muslim Indonesian stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, to the mosque (Orlando Sentinel).

Whatever his childhood religion may have been though, Obama is now a Christian and a member of the United Church of Christ.