Muslim thinkers and leaders have reinterpreted Prophet Muhammad’s seventh-century Medina Charter from Indonesia to Malaysia, Morocco, Turkey, and Sudan, seeking peaceful coexistence, human dignity, and a more inclusive Muslim world based on a vision of pluralism, justice, religious freedom, and common citizenship
The global spice trade transformed Indonesia into the centre of European colonial rivalry, where Dutch conquest and the Banda genocide gave way to a post-colonial nation shaped by Sukarno’s anti-colonial vision, the Bandung Conference, enduring Indian civilisational influences, and cultural traditions such as wayang, the Ramayana, and the Mahabharata
Nahdlatul Ulama emerged in 1926 after the collapse of the Ottoman Caliphate and the reshaping of the Muslim world, developing a model rooted in scholarship, pluralism, and compassion that evolved into the world’s largest Muslim organization and a leading advocate of Humanitarian Islam, interfaith cooperation, and global peace
Suharto’s elevation as a national hero opened the wounds of the mass killings, repression, corruption, and militarisation, which were never fully confronted or healed, under his over three-decade dictatorship. It becomes more fraught as Prabowo strengthens the military’s role, raising fears that Indonesia may be drifting back. Accountability or amnesia will determine whether Indonesia’s democracy endures or creeping authoritarianism continues
Zakat atau 2,5% dari tabungan yang wajib disumbangkan umat Islam untuk beramal telah mengubah kehidupan di negara-negara seperti Indonesia dan berpotensi untuk mengurangi kemiskinan global serta berkontribusi terhadap Tujuan Pembangunan Berkelanjutan PBB jika dimanfaatkan secara profesional
Despite evidence that polygamy is marginal, declining, and not specific to a religious group, it has been weaponised against Muslims to fuel Islamophobia, even as the Quran, the primary source of Islamic law, backs monogamy as the preferred model of marriage, underlining how polygamy can never be fair and just
Amid global anti-Muslim hysteria and the clash of civilizations narrative, the lived reality tells a different story: Hindus, Christians, and other minorities thrive in Muslim-majority societies like Indonesia and the Gulf, where Islamic traditions coexist with mutual respect, defining social and political life
Indonesia’s top political leadership, including the then President Joko Widodo, attended the inauguration of Garuda Vishnu Kencana, the world’s tallest Hindu statue, in September 2018, reaffirming the state’s backing and across-the-board consensus of upholding diversity in the most populous Muslim nation
Indonesia’s multicultural society founded on Islamic principles has been maintained through the Pancasila ideology, balancing religion and democracy even as recent shifts threaten this necessitating localised solutions to address rising identity politics to preserve national unity
The distorted notion that Islam spread through the military means ignores how the faith gained traction thanks to the pacifist Sufi tradition with its emphasis on equality and justice from Africa to Indonesia
