Amanah Nurish | CRCS | Article

This article describes women’s lives in Indonesian pesantren (boarding schools), particularly in relation to issues of gender and sexuality. The curriculum and teaching methods adopted from Arabic culture are very traditional and deeply impact the ways of thinking of all santri (pesantren students) and kyai (pesantren leaders). Pesantren culture is still very patriarchal, for example, female students are subject to strict rules and women are regarded as sinful beings. Most pesantren regulate not only women’s bodies but also their sexual desires. In addition, female students are prepared to become pious wives for men, not leaders. However, despite these strict regulations in the pesantren, same-sex erotic relations have been noted in the pesantren. Given Islamic views on women’s sexuality and patriarchal power as propagated in the pesantren, same-sex relations among pesantren for women in East Java may be interpreted as acts of resistance.

Written by Ahmad Syarif H (Student of CRCS Batch 2010)

Province of Bangka Belitung Islands is one of Indonesia’s highly pluralistic with society condition that comes from various backgrounds (tribal, ethnic, and religious). The condition of this society on one side is an advantage if properly managed and empowered. But on the other hand, if differences are not well-managed and empowered through the planting of family values, tolerance and awareness of the difference, then the horizontal violence or conflict as happened in other areas in Indonesia are not impossible will happen in Bangka which is famous with predicate “Negeri Serumpun Sebalai. To maintain harmonious plural society, this paper offers two preventive: fostering community through multicultural education and inclusive-pluralist religious.

Gde Dwitya Arief | CRCS | Article

This articles reports the Foreign Policy’s 100 Top Global Thinkers of 2010 that includes New York Mayor, Michael Bloomberg and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf of Park 51.

Michael Bloomberg, the wealthy Jewish mayor of New York City, and Feisal Abdul Rauf, an imam and Kuwaiti immigrant to the US, together remind us that Muslims are part of America and that Islam is not attacking the West.

Both are important figures fighting the stigma imposed upon Islam after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. They believe it was not Islam that attacked America. It was a small group of discontented people who said they represented Islam.

Written By: Ahmad Syarif H (Student of CRCS Bacth 2010)

Preaching (Da’wah) as one tool to disseminate the teachings of a religion has a very important role in creating harmony, peace and tranquility in the midst of society. As an instrument which aims to convey the teachings of religion to the common people, not infrequently by the interpreter da’wah (da’i, missionaries, etc.) it is used as a tool to provoke people to do anarchist ways that intolerant and exclusive. So that not a few cases of violence occurring in the community began the process of preaching like this.