Book review: Becoming better Muslims: Religious authority and ethical improvement in Aceh, Indonesia (by David Kloos) & Chinese ways of being Muslim: Negotiating ethnicity and religiosity in Indonesia (by Hew Wai Weng)

• Main Author: SETIJADI, Charlotte
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2018
• Subjects: Asian Studies; Race and Ethnicity; Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3609; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4867/viewcontent/Bookreview_BetterMuslims_2015_sv.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Indonesian Islam has earned something of a bad reputation in recent times. Amid reports of rising intolerance against religious minorities, terrorism attacks, high-profile blasphemy cases and the growing political influence of hard-line Muslim groups, it is easy to take an alarmist stance and assume that Indonesia’s approximately 225 million Muslims are heading down the path of puritanism. Indeed, even seasoned analysts of Indonesia often forget that Indonesian Islam is heterogeneous, and that the everyday experiences of Muslims from different socio-cultural backgrounds are extremely diverse. This is why Hew Wai Weng’s and David Kloos’ respective books are much-needed additions to contemporary scholarship on Islam in Indonesia.