Islam, State and Society in Indonesia ― Local Politics in Madura

Islamic powers in secular countries have presented a challenge for states around the world, including Indonesia, home to the largest Muslim population as well as the third largest democracy in the world.

This book focuses on the more complex relationship between Islam and politics during the last years of the New Order and the first years of the post-New Order (1990-2010) in Madura, a Muslim area with a history of a very strong religious as well as cultural tradition than is commonly understood. It identifies and explains factors that have shaped and characterized the development of contemporary Islam and politics in the region and elucidate forms and aspects of the relationships between Islam and politics; between state and society; between conflicts and accommodations; and between piety, tradition and violence. The author argues that changes, continuities, repetitions, and developments in the relationships between Islam and politics in Madurese society in two different periods should be understood as the accumulated outcome of a long historical process of interactions between different segments of society.

Based on extensive sets of anthropological fieldwork and interviews as well as historical research, this book makes an important contribution to the analysis of Islam and politics in Indonesia and future socio-political trajectory of other developing Muslim countries experiencing comparable democratic transformations. It will be of interest to academics in the field of Religion and Politics and Southeast Asian Studies, in particular Southeast Asian politics, anthropology and history.

Yanwar Pribadi is lecturer in Islamic History and Culture at the State Institute for Islamic Studies (IAIN), Sultan Maulana Hasanuddin Banten, Indonesia as well as a researcher at Laboratorium Bantenologi at the same university. Previously, he was a Visiting Scholar at SOAS, University of London, UK.