Islam and Politics in a Muslim Society: The Record of Indonesia

At present the Islamic community – ummah is searching for a modern Islamic political identity. Traditional Muslim legal doctrine does not offer the only and definite form of the state, the political organization and functioning of government structures, but sets general guidelines where different options are possible. And there arises a theoretical question – what are factors that determine a particular version of the state-political system in a particular Muslim society, legal forms of interrelations between religion and politics, their complicated evolution in a specific country and time context. This article is aimed at finding out of the factors, which form models of state-political systems, interaction between religion and government, the role of Islam in politics on the example of the Republic of Indonesia, which has a very flexible and effective model of relations between Islam and the state. The study of the origin and development of Indonesian statehood, the evolution within its framework of relations between Islam and politics leads to the conclusion that the most important role here is played by the interweaving of a number of objective and subjective factors: cultural and civilizational specificity that has developed over the centuries and determines the level of Islamization of religious consciousness, which is reflected in the political culture; geographical and religious demographic factors. The evolution of the nature and extent of the influence of Islam on politics also depends of the influence of the specific historical situation in the country, changes in political regimes, and internal political confrontation. The role of Islam in politics grows when other channels are closed for the expression of group interests or social and political protest and decreases due to the absence of internal cohesion of the Islamic Ummah, competition between Islamic parties, organizations and leaders. The example of Indonesia is interesting because by appealing to distinctive civilizational specifics, the country opposes the efforts of Islamist fundamentalists to impose the standards of the Middle Eastern Arab-Islamic development model, the so-called “Caliphate project,” the concept of an “Islamic state,” ignoring the cultural and civilizational features of non-Arab Muslim peoples, the diversity of cultural, historical and political development of Muslims.

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