This is the astonishing and inspiring story of millions of Muslims returning to their ancestral faith of Hinduism. A country with the largest Muslims population of the world, Indonesia where majority of the Indonesian Hindus are located in Bali Island, Java, Sumatra, Lombok, Kalimantan and Sulawesi. Hinduism in Indonesia is conspicuously different from India as they never apply the Indian caste system rigidly. The Balinese caste system is a system social organization similar to and yet different from the Indian caste system. In recent years, the resurgence of Hinduism in Indonesia is occurring in all parts of the country. Inspirations from Hindu Majapahit Empire, influence of Ramayana, Mahabharat, and Sanskrit are few reasons for resurgence among Muslims. The author has presented this book in a meticulous way for all the readers.

This book provides new data and perspectives on the development of 'world religion' in post-colonial societies through an analysis of the development of 'Hinduism' in various parts of Indonesia from the early twentieth century to the present. This development has been largely driven by the religious and cultural policy of the Indonesian central government, although the process began during the colonial period as an indigenous response to the introduction of modernity.

Across the Muslim world, religion plays an increasingly prominent role in both the private and public lives of over a billion people. Will democratic political participation by an increasingly religious population lead to victories by Islamists at the ballot box? Will more conspicuously pious Muslims participate in politics and markets in a fundamentally different way than they had previously? Against the common assumption that piety would naturally inhibit any tendencies towards modernity, democracy, or cosmopolitanism, Piety and Public Opinion reveals the complex and subtle links between religion and political beliefs in a critically important Muslim democracy.

"The best book on Bali for the serious visitor…Has the freshness of personal experience."--Dr. Hildred Geertz, author of Kinship in Bali and Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University In Bali, what you see--sekala--is a colorful world of ceremony, ritual, dance, and drama. What you don't see what is occult--niskala--is the doctrine underlying the pageants, the code underlying the rites, and the magic underlying the dance. In this book, author Fred Eiseman explores both tangibles and intangibles in the realm of Balinese religion, ritual, and performing arts. The essays collected here topics ranging from Hindu mythology to modern gamelan music. Eiseman's approach is that of a dedicated reporter in love with his subject--he has the knowledge and patience to explain the near-infinite permutations of the Balinese calendar, and yet he is still moved by the majesty of the great Eka Dasa Rudra ceremony. The author's 28 years experience on the island shows and this book rewards close reading--even by the most seasoned students of Balinese culture.

Comparative study of the various aspects of Hinduism and Buddhism in Thailand.

An illustrated A to Z reference containing more than 700 entries providing information on the theology, people, historical events, institutions and movements related to Hinduism.

Indonesia is the home of the largest single Muslim community of the world. Its Christian community, about 10% of the population, has until now received no overall description in English. Through cooperation of 26 Indonesian and European scholars, Protestants and Catholics, a broad and balanced picture is given of its 24 million Christians. This book sketches the growth of Christianity during the Portuguese period (1511-1605), it presents a fair account of developments under the Dutch colonial administration (1605-1942) and is more elaborate for the period of the Indonesian Republic (since 1945). It emphasizes the regional differences in this huge country, because most Christians live outside the main island of Java. Muslim-Christian relations, as well as the tensions between foreign missionaries and local theology, receive special attention.

The Indonesian term adat means ‘custom’ or ‘tradition’, and carries connotations of sedate order and harmony. Yet in recent years it has suddenly become associated with activism, protest and violence. This book investigates the revival of adat in Indonesian politics, identifying its origins, the historical factors that have conditioned it and the reasons behind its recent blossoming. It considers whether the adat revival is a constructive contribution to Indonesia’s new political pluralism or a divisive, dangerous and reactionary force, and examines the implications for the development of democracy, human rights, civility and political stability. The Revival of Tradition in Indonesian Politics provides detailed coverage of the growing significance of adat in Indonesian politics. It is an important resource for anyone seeking to understand the contemporary Indonesian political landscape.

The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion offers a comprehensive exploration of the dynamics of religious conversion, which for centuries has profoundly shaped societies, cultures, and individuals throughout the world. Scholars from a wide array of religions and disciplines interpret both the varieties of conversion experiences and the processes that inform this personal and communal phenomenon. This volume examines the experiences of individuals and communities who change religions, those who experience an intensification of their religion of origin, and those who encounter new religions through colonial intrusion, missionary work, and charismatic and revitalization movements. The thirty-two innovative essays provide overviews of the history of particular religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, indigenous religions, and new religious movements. The essays also offer a wide range of disciplinary perspectives-psychological, sociological, anthropological, legal, political, feminist, and geographical-on methods and theories deployed in understanding conversion, and insight into various forms of deconversion.

The history of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) is part of the longstanding tradition of political Islam in Indonesia. Born in 1912 with the foundation of the Union of Muslim Traders (Sarekat Dagang Islam) this trend dominated the emerging nationalism in the Dutch East Indies for nearly twenty years. This initial momentum lies at the the origin of the two-dimensional Islamist project: to islamicise society by cleansing Islam of all practices considered to be impure; to mobilise the electorate by invoking Islamic values and their necessary implementation. Indeed, the birth and development of political Islam was closely linked to the reformist Muslim movement which in religious, cultural and social matters attempted to face the colonial challenge through a religious surge. In Indonesia, the Muhammadiyah, founded in 1912, and the Persatuan Islam, founded in 1923, provided most of the early generations of activists. During the decade after independence, militant Islam played a leading role in Indonesian politics. Between 1945 and 1960, the Masjumi party, which brought together most Muslim organisations, was one of the main government components and thereby constituted the matrix of political Islam in Indonesia to which the current generation of activists still refer. The discussions conducted within this party, especially the delicate compromises made between divine law and people's democracy, preconfigured the present debates conducted by Islamic parties. Like the current leaders of the PKS, this first generation of “government Islamists” was also confronted with economic and social modernity issues such as those related to the role of the West in this process. As the two following contributions remind us, its failure is mainly due to domestic reasons that in turn heavily influenced the way Indonesian Islam later considered these issues. Banned by President Sukarno and marginalised by the emerging New Order, the proponents of militant Islam had no choice but to withdraw from conventional politics. Here the organisational model of the Muslim Brotherhood (also repressed in several Arab countries) as well as the financial resources and literature made available to them by Wahhabi Islam networks contributed to the radicalisation of their discourse. The two terms Dakwah (preaching) and Tarbiyah (education) were therefore used to describe a movement based on the conviction that the re-Islamisation of Indonesian society was the essential precondition for its return to the political scene. Paradoxically, after the initial phase of repression, it was the New Order that favoured this agenda. From the early 1990s, some of the networks born from the Islamic revival were instrumented by a power lacking support and looking for scapegoats (Sino-Indonesian Christians...) on whom to deflect public anger. However, most student associations from the Tarbiyah movement did not let themselves be dragged into this trend and, true to their moral position, joined the opposition against the declining Soeharto regime. From this movement the Justice Party (PK) was born in 1998 (later transformed into the Prosperous Justice Party, or the PKS).