Language: English

Title: Book Discussion: The  Shariatisation of Indonesia: The Politics of the Council of Indonesian Ulama (Majelis Ulama Indonesia, MUI), published by Brill, January 2023

Presenter: Syafiq Hasyim
(Faculty member of Islamic Studies and Director of Central Library at Indonesian International Islamic University / Visiting Fellow at the Indonesia Studies Programme of ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore)

Abstract:
This book presents a critical account on the politics of shariatisation in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world. Shariatisation meant by this book is the process of bringing sharia law into the legal and public sphere of Indonesia. Shariatisation has become an effective and strategic way, since the decline of political Islam’s struggle (making Indonesia as an Islamic state), to remain living under Islam and its legal doctrine implemented in the daily life of state and society of Indonesia. The book focuses to study on the role of Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI, the Council of Indonesian Ulama) through its fatwa and Islamic recommendation in promoting the inclusion of sharia in laws, policy, and regulation and social normativity in Indonesia. This book makes aware that living under the value and doctrine of Islamic law is not necessarily actualised through the formation of Islamic state. This book brings strong cases for the effective shariatisation, for instance on halal project, sharia economy, the domination of Sunni, and many others. The book comes with an important conclusion that the change of such a non-theocratic state like Indonesia into a theocratic state is highly possible when its law is penetrated by those who want to change the state system.