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THE STUDY OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN

INDONESIA
Robert W. Hefner
Published online: 16 Jul 2013.

To cite this article: Robert W. Hefner (2013) THE STUDY OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN INDONESIA, The
Review of Faith & International Affairs, 11:2, 18-27, DOI: 10.1080/15570274.2013.808038

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 THE STUDY OF RELIGIOUS
FREEDOM IN INDONESIA
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S
ince the early 1950s, the study of
religious politics and state–religion
relations has been central to academic
research on Indonesia. Although it is
only in the past decade that research has been
explicitly reframed in relation to ideas of
religious freedom, issues directly relevant to the
topic have long figured in studies of Indonesian
politics, constitutionalism, and religious
violence. The significance of this research for the
comparative study of religious freedom lies in
the way in which it shows that efforts to
promote religious freedom must take into
account competing models of human
flourishing and, more specifically, non-liberal
and non-secularist understandings of religion
and state (cf. Bhargava 2011; Casanova 2011;
Stepan 2011).
Part of the reason religion-and-state issues
have loomed so large in Indonesia has to do with
this Southeast Asian country’s demographic
realities. With a population of 240 million
people, 88.1 percent of whom are Muslim,
Indonesia is the largest Muslim-majority country
in the world. But the more basic reason these
questions have figured in Indonesian Studies has
to do with the zig-zag shifts in this country’s
politics, and the challenges these changes have
posed for religious tolerance, social freedoms, and
citizenship.
In the years following its declaration of
independence in August 1945, Indonesia passed
through a series of tumultuous political
transitions. In the early 1950s, Indonesia had an
open and free parliamentary democracy; despite
18 | volume 11, number 2 (summer 2013)
By Robert W. Hefner
ferocious opposition from Muslim parties, the
country also developed the largest communist
party in the non-communist world (Mortimer
1974). In late 1965, Indonesia turned sharply
rightward in the aftermath of a failed left-wing
officers coup, which had been supported by some
in the communist leadership. From 1966 to May
1998, a staunchly anti-communist, “New Order”
regime governed the country, under the
leadership of the former army general,
Muhammad Suharto. The New Order
government implemented social and economic
programs that, while repressing political and
religious freedoms, nonetheless catapulted the
country from the ranks of the global poor to a
solidly middle-tier developing country. In the
aftermath of Suharto’s overthrow in May 1998,
Indonesia’s “Reformation” (Reformasi)
governments lifted state controls on the media
and labor, decentralized power, and introduced
the first free elections since 1957. The results of
these elections have been notable for their
ideological moderation (Mietzner 2008; Ufen
2008).
What has ensured that matters of religion-
and-state remained prominent in academic
discussions of Indonesia is that, although not
always decisive, religious disputes played a role in
each of these transitions. Since the founding of
Robert W. Hefner is the Director of the Institute on Culture, Religion, and
World Affairs at Boston University and former President of the Association for
Asian Studies. He guest edited the fall 2012 issue of The Review of Faith and
International Affairs, a special issue on shari’a, democracy, and human
rights.
© 2013 Institute for Global Engagement

the republic in 1945, non-religious or
“multiconfessional” nationalists have argued
publicly with organized Muslim groupings over
the proper place of religion—and, in particular,
Islam—in state affairs. Multiconfessional
nationalists have tended to favor state neutrality
or even-handedness with regard to religion. In
contrast, Islamic groupings have looked to the
state as an instrument with which to realize their
dream of promoting Islamic piety among that
portion of the population identified as Muslim.
Complicating matters further, the ideological
camps or (to use the Indonesian expression)
“currents” (Ind., aliran) involved in these
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disputes have not remained stable either in
numbers or outlook. Especially, since the Islamic
resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s (Hefner 1987,
2011a; Kim 1996; Rossler 1997), the number of
Indonesian Muslims identifying as religiously
observant has increased greatly. Once home to
one of the Muslim world’s largest communities of
heterodox and/or secular Muslims (Hefner
2011a; Lombard 1990; Ricklefs 2012), studies
show that Indonesia today is marked by some of
the highest levels of religious observance among
Muslims (Hassan 2002). However, the country’s
deepening Islamization has not increased the
electoral fortunes of Islamist parties. As piety has
surged, the popularity of Islamist parties has
actually declined (Mujani and Liddle 2007).
Notwithstanding the moderation
demonstrated by the Muslim electorate since
1999, outbreaks of violence against Ahmadis,
Christians, Shia Muslims, and other religious
minorities have increased dramatically since
Indonesia’s democratic opening. A small portion
of the violence has been perpetrated by terrorist
extremists, some of whom identify with
al-Qa‘ida’s model of international jihad.
However, since 2002, the Indonesian
government has conducted one of the most
effective anti-terror campaigns in the world, and
public support for terrorist jihad is minimal. The
greatest portion of the anti-minority violence has
been carried out, not by terrorist groups, but by
Islamist “anti-vice” (Ind., anti-maksiat) militias
determined to promote their own vision of public
morality, one premised on a decidedly anti-
pluralist model of religious freedom. Although
robert w. hefner
post-Suharto governments have on occasion
cracked down on Islamist militias, the political
establishment as a whole has been slow to
respond, for fear of being accused of violating
Islamists’ human rights. Equally significant, the
government’s hesitancy also reflects the fact that a
small but influential wing within the coalition
governments that have ruled Indonesia since
1999 subscribes to an anti-liberal and anti-
pluralist model of religious freedom.
Once celebrated in Western media for its
moderation and tolerance, Indonesia is today torn
by serious and occasionally violent disputes over
religion and religious policy. The most bitter
disputes pit conservative Islamists against the
Christian minority (9.3 percent of the
population) and the proponents of non-standard
varieties of Islam, especially Ahmadis and Shi‘a
(who together comprise less than one percent of
the country’s population). These unsettled
circumstances raise questions about the future of
religious freedom in Indonesia; they have also
given rise to a new wave of research since 1999 on
Islam, democracy, and religious freedom.
Religion and Democracy on Trial
In the years following Indonesian
independence, most of the research on religion
was not directly concerned with liberal and/or
human-rights-based measures of religious
freedom, but with a closely related political
question: whether an effectively civic framework
could be developed for managing Indonesia’s
religious and ethnic diversity in the face of
growing electoral competition (see Geertz 1960,
1965). Indonesia has more than 300 ethnic
groups, and, although Islam is the majority
religion, the country has (or once had) dozens of
minority religions, as well as groups professing
opposed and even syncretic varieties of Islam
(Atkinson 1987; Beatty 1999; Bowen 1993;
Cederroth 1997; Nourse 1999).
Earlier, in the face of this teaming diversity,
Dutch colonialism developed a religious
administration premised on, not liberal ideals of
religious freedom, but top-down surveillance and
control, especially of observant Muslims.
Convinced that pious Muslims, and especially
those associated with Islamic boarding schools
the review of faith & international affairs | 19
 the study of religious freedom in indonesia
(madrasas, known locally as pesantren; see Dhofier
1999; Bruinessen 1994) were more likely to
oppose European rule than their more nominally
Islamic counterparts, the Dutch discouraged
pilgrimage to the Middle East (Kartodirdjo 1972;
Laffan 2003). They also required Islamic teachers
to be licensed, suppressed political varieties of
Islam, and, departing from their earlier
indifference, launched programs for Christian
conversion among non-Muslims so as to
diminish the likelihood of native subjects rallying
against their colonial overlords under the banner
of Islam (see Aragon 2000; Steenbrink 1993).
The Dutch legacy had a lasting illiberal influence
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on religious politics in Indonesia.
Studies by Kahin (1952), Benda (1983),
Geertz (1960, 1965), and the Cornell-trained
Indonesian historian, Noer (1973), traced the
social impact of these policies, as well as those of
the more Muslim-accommodating Japanese, who
occupied Indonesia from 1942 to 1945. These
studies showed that on the eve of Indonesia’s
declaration of independence on August 17, 1945,
the native community was polarized between, on
one hand, parties committed to the establishment
of some variety of Islamic state, and those
committed to a state based on multiconfessional
nationalism. This rivalry has continued to be the
focus of research, including important works by
the historians Ricklefs (2007, 2012), Laffan
(2003), and Ropi (2012). The competition was
also the optic through which religious pluralism
and freedom were viewed in Indonesian Studies
up through the late 1990s.
If the issue of liberal religious freedom did not
figure explicitly in these early studies, the closely
related question of how to manage religious
diversity in a highly politicized and ideologically
polarized society did. In the final three decades of
colonial rule, Muslims had availed themselves of
European-inspired forms of civic association,
print technology, and mass education to organize
themselves nationally (Laffan 2003; Shiraishi
1990). Whether with the collection of religious
alms (zakat), the management of the hajj
pilgrimage, or the barring of Christian missions
from Muslim-majority territories, Muslim leaders
like Mohammad Natsir argued that the state
should not be neutral with regard to religion, but
20 | volume 11, number 2 (summer 2013)
active in the promotion of learning and piety (see
Federspiel 1970; Kahin 2012). During their three
and one-half year occupation (1942–1945), the
Japanese introduced a new Office of Religious
Affairs (the Shumubu), as well as an Indonesian
Muslim Consultative Council (Masyumi),
thereby providing Muslims with the first
institutional realization of their aspirations
(Benda 1983).
From the early twentieth century onward,
Indonesia also had a handful of activists
advocating an “assertive secularist” (to borrow
Ahmet Kuru’s phrase; see Kuru 2009) separation
of religion and state, in which religion is defined
as private and personal rather than public. In
recent years, a small but well educated group of
liberal Muslim intellectuals associated with
groups like the Freedom Institute in Jakarta have
sought, largely unsuccessfully, to promote an
assertive secularism in which the state is “ruled
free of religious interference” (Assyaukanie 2009,
154). However, most Indonesians committed to
a less exclusively Islamic form of nationalism have
tended to favor multiconfessional
accommodations rather than a fully secularist
separation of religion and state. For these
nationalists, the preferred model of religious
governance involves state support of several state-
recognized religions—on the model of Western
Europe’s (and, especially, the Netherlands’
consociational) legacy of religious establishment,
rather than the USA’ high wall of separation.
Against this backdrop, research on Indonesia
implicitly poses a question of great importance for
the comparative study of religious freedom,
namely, whether freedom can flourish in a legal
setting characterized, not by privatization, but by
extensive if selective state-society collaboration in
religious matters (see Fox 2008; Kuru 2009).
In the months leading up to the Indonesian
declaration of independence in August 1945, a
council of Indonesian leaders set up by the
Japanese, the Investigating Body for the
Preparation of Independence, attempted to
hammer out an agreement on the place of religion
in the future Indonesian state. While Islamist
groups advocated the establishment of a state
based on Islamic shari‘a (even while disagreeing
on how the shari‘a should be understood, and
 robert w. hefner

who should have the authority to determine its version of which continues to regulate Indonesian
meanings), multiconfessional nationalists argued religious affairs today. Article 29 states that, “The
that giving the state an Islamic basis would only state shall guarantee freedom for every citizen to
encourage the Christian minority in eastern embrace any religion or belief and to practice
Indonesia to secede (see Aragon 2000; Chauvel religious duties in conformity with that religion
1990). The nationalists were also keenly aware or belief.”
that proclaiming an Islamic state would alienate As a number of scholars have observed (Butt
the many secular and nominal Muslims who and Lindsay 2012, 223–249; Salim 2008),
preferred nationalist, socialist, and Marxist Article 29 was deeply ambiguous as to the terms
political ideals to those of Islamism. for its implementation. For conservative Muslim
After weeks of bitter argument, Sukarno, the activists, section 2 of Article 29 can be interpreted
most influential nationalist leader (and non-liberally, so as to restrict freedom of religious
Indonesia’s first president), proposed a expression to citizens who profess a “religion”
compromise in June 1945, according to which (Ind., agama, see Atkinson 1987; Picard 2011)
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the country’s ideological foundation would be recognized by the Ministry of Religion. At the
the “Five Principles” urging of Muslim parties, the
(Pancasila). What eventually Ministry had been established
became the first of these ONE CHALLENGE FACED BY on January 3, 1946. If the
principles affirmed that the PROPONENTS OF RELIGIOUS clause is interpreted in this
basis of the Indonesian state FREEDOM IS THAT THE restrictive manner, the state is
was “Belief in God with the DEFINITION OF WHAT authorized to determine just
obligation to carry out the who has a “religion” and who
Islamic shari‘a for Muslim QUALIFIES AS “RELIGION” IN does not. Indonesia’s
adherents.” However, the day DIFFERENT FAITH AND Christians, and, even more
after the Indonesian ETHICAL TRADITIONS VARIES forcefully, its Buddhists,
declaration of independence Hindus, and practitioners of
on August 17, 1945, traditional religions and new
nationalist leaders removed the reference to the religious movements (the latter having
state’s obligation to implement Islamic law, proliferated in the period from the 1930s to the
replacing it with a vague declaration that the state early 1960s; see Geels 1997; Hefner 2011a)
was based on “Belief in the Oneness of God” countered that the state’s provisions for religious
(Ind., Ketuhanan yang Maha Esa). Although freedom should extend to all varieties of
Belief in One God could be interpreted as an religion. In the 1950s, supporters of Indonesia’s
Indonesian variation on the Islamic theological religious minorities, especially in the Indonesian
principle of tawhid (God’s unicity or oneness), Nationalist Party (the largest vote-getter in the
the shift in phrasing was seen as a betrayal in 1955 elections), lent their support to efforts to
Muslim circles. The question of the suitability of secure equal state recognition for minority faiths
the Pancasila for the proper administration of (Hefner 1987).
religion and religious freedom has remained a By contrast, however, the Ministry of
point of contention in Islamist and nationalist Religion—staffed primarily by observant
debates to this day (Salim 2008). Muslims with ties to the country’s huge Muslim
Although at the time it disappointed Muslim social welfare organizations—insisted that Article
leaders, studies have shown that the Pancasila’s 2’s provisions on religious freedom extended only
first principle did provide Muslims with a to those five or six faiths acknowledged by the
“normative basis for steering the state toward a state as agama (Picard 2011). From this
more Islamized form” (Ropi 2012, 97). The perspective, the Indonesian example provides an
“Ketuhanan” principle was given further important general lesson on religious freedom:
legislative force when it was included in Article 29 that one challenge faced by proponents of
of Indonesia’s 1945 constitution, a revised religious freedom is that the definition of what

the review of faith & international affairs | 21

 the study of religious freedom in indonesia
qualifies as “religion” in different faith and ethical
traditions varies. The definition of religion also
varies in different systems of nation-state
regulation, including those in Europe (see Fox
2008, 105–139).
From 1950 until the rise of the New Order
regime in 1965–1966, the debate continued as to
the proper understanding of these constitutional
provisions on religious freedom. Revisions to the
constitution in 1950 authorized even greater state
intervention in religious affairs, ostensibly in the
interests of religious harmony (Ropi 2012, 100).
A government decree in 1951 made religious
study compulsory in state schools (Hefner 2009;
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Ropi 2012, 126). In 1952, the Ministry of
Religion established a special desk dedicated to
combating new religious movements, known in
Indonesian as aliran kebatinan (lit., “interiorist
spirituality streams”; see Geels 1997; Stange
1986). New spiritual movements of this sort were
proliferating across Indonesia, especially on the
island of Java (Hefner 1987, 2011a). As far as
most observant Muslims were concerned, the
movements were not “religions” (agama) at all,
but deviationists “beliefs” undeserving of state
recognition. Known today by its acronym of
PAKEM (Supervisory Body of Local Beliefs in
Society), this special desk has continued to serve
as a state-based bureau for the surveillance and
suppression of religious groupings identified as
deviating from a proper profession of agama.
As Lev (1996) and other researchers on the
pre-1966 period have pointed out, these
developments consolidated and centralized the
administration of religious affairs in Indonesia,
thereby providing “a critical foothold pending the
further Islamization of Indonesia” (Lev 1972,
47). Studies of Indonesian politics from the same
period, including works by Feith (1962) and
Geertz (1960, 1965, 1973) highlighted how
competition among political parties led to
growing tensions between Islamist and left-
nationalist groupings in society, as well as
pressures for growing state control of religious
expression. These studies illustrate the difficulty
of securing religious freedom where an operating
consensus on just what constitutes religion, and
on the terms for balancing religious freedom and
societal cohesion, is lacking. This same issue has
22 | volume 11, number 2 (summer 2013)
recently been recognized as a matter of critical
importance for the politics of religious freedom in
other parts of the world (Bhargava 2011; Kuru
and Stepan 2012).
On January 27, 1965, President Sukarno
responded to the growing animosity between
Muslim and spiritual groupings by issuing a
Presidential edict on “Religious Defamation,” an
adjusted version of which remains in force to this
day (see Human Rights Watch (HRW) 2013).
The edict, reissued as a law in 1969, identified
religious defamation as a threat to national
security and prohibited all varieties of religion
that deviate from the state-approved tenets of
agama (Ind., “religion”). The act also provided de
facto recognition of six religions (Islam,
Protestant Christianity, Catholicism, Hinduism,
Buddhism, and Confucianism) while implying
that, because they were not true “religions,” the
country’s ethnic religions and spiritualist
groupings enjoyed few if any legal protections.
The state’s commitment to religious harmony, as
defined (primarily) by Muslim and at least some
Christian groupings, undercut a more robustly
pluralistic commitment to religious freedom.
Freedom and Repression in the New
Order and Reformasi Eras
The study of state–society relations and
religious freedom assumed a more central
position in scholarship on Indonesia during the
“New Order” (1966–1998) and “Reformasi”
(1998-today) periods. The issues moved to the
foreground during the New Order era because
the military-dominated regime imposed
draconian restrictions on religious life, typically in
the name of national security. By contrast, in the
Reformasi period following Suharto’s resignation
in May 1998, questions of religious freedom
moved to the foreground, not because of the
heavy hand of the state (although the state
remains extensively involved in religious affairs),
but because of outbreaks of ethnoreligious
violence, as well as, more generally, the rise of
Islamist groupings opposed to liberal and pluralist
models of religious freedom.
The New Order regime emerged in the
aftermath of a failed leftwing officers’ coup in
Jakarta the night of October 1, 1965. Over the
 robert w. hefner

months that followed, conservative officers in the 2010). In the Reformasi era, these clauses have
armed forces worked with religion-based militias been cited by militant Islamists to justify their
to arrest and neutralize activists associated with efforts, sometimes violent, to bring about the
the Indonesian Communist Party, which over the closing or destruction of Christian churches.
previous six years had blossomed into the Drawing on information gathered by the
country’s largest political party (Kammen and Indonesian Communion of (Protestant)
McGregor 2012). Although estimates vary, some Churches, HRW has reported that more than
500,000 people are thought to have been killed 430 churches have been attacked since 2004
(Cribb 1990; Robinson 1995). In Java, victims (HRW 2013, 15).
were drawn disproportionately from the ranks of In the face of a strong prodemocracy
nominal Muslims and Javanist spiritualists. The movement as well as dissatisfaction among the
scale of the killings led some two million nominal military and political elite, President Suharto
Muslims to repudiate their faith, converting to stepped down on May 21, 1998. The Reformasi
Christianity or, in smaller numbers, Hinduism government that succeeded him implemented a
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(van Akkeren 1969; Hefner 1993; Lyon 1977). series of liberalizing reforms with regard to the
Once in power, the press, civic associations, labor
regime pushed through a unions, and the
series of laws intended to ISLAMIST GROUPINGS HAVE decentralization of power.
combat religious groupings BEEN ABLE TO EXERCISE AN Many democratic activists had
viewed as sympathetic to INFLUENCE IN PUBLIC LIFE FAR looked forward to a parallel
communism. The GREATER THAN THEIR ACTUAL liberalization of state policies
government banned dozens of with regard to religion. Some
mystical groups. At the same NUMBERS IN SOCIETY controls on religion were
time, it refused to rehabilitate lifted, including the
a reformist Muslim political party (the Masyumi) requirement that all faith-based associations
accused of involvement in regional revolts in the recognize the New Order State’s “Five Principles”
late 1950s. In 1969, the government (Pancasila) as their “sole foundation” (asas
strengthened the provisions of the 1965 edict on tunggal). However, the more open political
religious defamation. In a gesture that was well environment also allowed for militant Islamists—
received in Muslim circles, the regime also made who won only a small share of the vote in national
state-standardized religious education mandatory elections—to jockey for influence on regional
in all schools, and established a network of religious councils, not least the semi-
Islamic colleges to train teachers for the Islamic governmental “Council of Indonesian Ulama”
portion of the state’s educational program. (Majelis Ulama Indonesia; MUI). The latter
In the aftermath of complaints about organization had been created in 1975 to provide
Christian missionizing in Muslim communities a bridge between the government and Islamic
(complaints sparked in part by Christian success scholars (Ichwan 2005, 2013). From these
at winning converts in communities that had institutional perches, Islamist groupings have
suffered most severely during the 1965–1966 been able to exercise an influence in public life far
violence), in 1969 the government issued a “Joint greater than their actual numbers in society
Decree on Places of Worship” that made the right (Bruinessen 2013).
to build places of worship subject to the written The growing influence of anti-liberal and
permission of the local government anti-pluralist ideas in conservative Muslim circles
(Mujiburrahman 2006, 59–60). In many regions, was amply demonstrated in July 2005, when the
the permit-granting process was also made subject Council of Indonesian Ulama issued several
to the approval of 90 families in the community fatwas widely seen as attacking the country’s civil-
where the house of worship was to be built. The democratic Muslims. In blunt and
1969 law was revised in 2006 and these local- uncompromising language, the Council referred
approval provisions were strengthened (Crouch to “secularism, liberalism, and pluralism” as

the review of faith & international affairs | 23

 the study of religious freedom in indonesia
contrary to Islam (Gillespie 2007). Islamists in
militant groups like the Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia,
the Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia, and the Islamic
Defenders Front (Front Pembela Islam) cited the
declaration to justify their escalating criticisms of
and occasional physical confrontations with
Muslim democrats (Hasani and Naipospos 2010;
Hilmy 2010, 99–134).
During these same years, the situation with
regard to non-standard Muslim groupings like
the Ahmadiyah—a Muslim sect established in
Pakistan in the early 20th century, and regarded
as deviationist by Muslim organizations in many
parts of the world—became even more desperate.
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Earlier, in 1980, the Council of Indonesian
Ulama had issued a fatwa condemning the
Ahmadiyah as heretical. However, the
authoritarian Suharto government—quietly
tolerant of religious minorities—took no action
against the group. In July 2005, seven years after
Suharto’s overthrow, the MUI issued a more
forceful fatwa against the Ahmadiyah,
characterizing the group as un-Islamic. Islamist
groups seized on the pronouncement to attack
Ahmadiyah institutions in West Java, East
Lombok, and several other parts of Indonesia;
dozens of Ahmadi mosques were closed and
hundreds of Ahmadi homes were destroyed. This
violence has been the focus of extensive academic
and, especially, non-governmental organization
(NGO) study (ICG 2008). Although a number
of Muslim leaders rallied to defend the right of
the Ahmadis to profess their faith, the attacks
have continued to this day (HRW 2013). State
authorities either failed to condemn the violence,
or, as with the Minister of Religion in 2009,
blamed it on the “provocations” of Ahmadi
worshippers themselves. On February 6, 2011,
1,500 militants stormed a small gathering of
Ahmadiyah in the village of Cikeusik in western
Java, bludgeoning three men to death. Police
officers stood by as the attack unfolded.
Although the incident was captured on a video
and uploaded to the Internet, the perpetrators of
the violence were eventually convicted of only
minor charges. An Ahmadi witness to the
violence was also sentenced to six months prison
for having “provoked” the attack by his simple
presence.
24 | volume 11, number 2 (summer 2013)
Attacks on Christian church gatherings,
mystical sects, and Indonesia’s small Shi‘a
community have also been the subject of a
growing body of research on limits to religious
freedom in post-Suharto Indonesia. Some of the
most widely read research has been carried out by
international rights groups (HRW 2013; ICG
2008). But detailed and important studies have
also been carried out by Muslim scholars and
NGOs, many concerned by the growing threat to
Indonesian traditions of tolerance and multifaith
nationalism (see e.g. Hassan 2006; Suaedy,
Azhari, and Samsul Fata 2010; Weck, Hasan, and
Abubakar 2011).
Looking to the Future
Even though most research has been
conducted in frameworks other than that of
religious freedom, research in Indonesia over the
past 60 years offers a wealth of information on the
preconditions of, and obstacles to, pluralist
practices of religious freedom. The research
demonstrates that civic-pluralist understandings
of religious freedom continue to face severe
obstacles, not merely in government circles, but
among anti-liberal groupings in society. The
obstacles reflect several deeper issues, some of
which have been overlooked in recent discussions
of religious freedom in US policy circles. These
include different views of what counts as a
legitimate “religion” (an issue that also figures in
Western European debates on religious freedom);
non-secularist views of the role of the state in the
promotion of virtue and popular religiosity; and,
most generally, divergent views of what is
required for human flourishing. Here in the
Indonesian context, however, the obstacles to
pluralist freedom also include the continuing
inability or unwillingness of Indonesian
authorities to enforce existing laws and
constitutional provisions on religious freedom in
a consistent manner. The unwillingness reflects
serious disagreements among the country’s
political elites over the question of how to balance
religious freedom with social cohesion.
Indonesia also offers rich opportunities for
future research. Among the most important issues
for further study is the role of Muslim democratic
groups in the promotion of non-secularist
 robert w. hefner

arguments in support of religious freedom
(Abdillah 1997; Hefner 2011b; Suaedy, Azhari,
and Samsul Fata 2010). In contemporary Islamic
ethical thought, such religious arguments are
often enunciated in relation to what is known in
Muslim jurisprudence as the “higher aims of the
shari‘a” (maqasid as-sharia). The maqasid can be
interpreted in anti-pluralist ways. However, the
work of global Muslim scholars like Fadl (2004)
and Ramadan (2009) provides a compelling
example of a broader trend in contemporary
Muslim ethics and law, including that here in
Indonesia: the invocation of the higher aims of
the shari‘a to provide a religious rationale for
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Islamists. The latter will claim that such ideas are
“Western” or “liberal” and antithetical to Islam.
The Indonesian example reminds us that, even
where only a small minority subscribes to such
views, if that minority is ideologically dedicated
and well-organized, it can exercise an influence
greatly disproportionate to its representation in
society.
Finally, there is a broader lesson in the
Indonesian example, not least of all in relation to
the example of small groups of militants able to
project such a commanding influence on the
public stage. It is that in Muslim-majority
countries like Indonesia, the strongest rationale

democracy, religious freedom, and pluralist
tolerance. Without the dissemination and public
acceptance of such religiously based rationales,
policies promoting religious freedom are
vulnerable to delegitimation by conservative
for religious freedom may be, not liberal
affirmations of individual autonomy, but the
conviction that, without freedom, religion itself
risks being corrupted at the hands of self-
appointed defenders of the faith. v

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