Böcker av Sumanto Al Qurtuby

Since the last decades, Southeast Asia has undergone an unprecedented upsurge in religious practice, ritual, association, and observance that defies a century of forecasts by secularization and modernization theorists of religion's immanent privatization and decline. The Philippines has seen dramatic conversion to evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity that later drove some groups of Filipino Catholics to create a quasi-Pentecostal rebranding, namely a Pentecostal-inflected movement that is officially Catholic such as El Shaddai, which has a membership of some 10 million followers, making the group the world's largest charismatic Catholic organization. In the Theravada Buddhist lands of Myanmar and Thailand, the past generation has also witnessed a steady expansion in lay devotion as well as the augmentation of militant Buddhism such as the monk-led 969 anti-Muslim Buddhist movements. Religious resurgence also takes place within Islam. Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Mindanao region of the southern Philippines have experienced dramatic religious revitalization, typified by the rise of Islamism, macrocosm-minded Islam, and transnational religious movements. This book discusses these issues. A comparative study of religious resurgence and public religion in contemporary Southeast Asia, the book aims to examine the socio-historical roots of the present-day religious boom, the links between the religious resurgence and communal conflicts, and the challenges facing religious and secular actors in the struggle for building civil democratic ideals that guarantee interreligious tolerance, peace, harmony, freedom, and citizenship for ethnoreligious minorities.

This book is a comparative study of terrorism and counterterrorism in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. It explores the history and contemporary developments of terrorism, especially Islamist terrorism, in these two Sunni Muslim-majority countries. In doing so, it analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of governments' policies, strategies, and models of counterterrorism, including terrorist rehabilitation and reintegration programs. In addition, the book also documents the opinions of Saudis and Indonesians to find societal voices on effective ways of combating violent extremism and discusses Saudi-Indonesian cooperation on counterterrorism, defense, and security issues.The book suggests that although particular Islamic texts, teachings, and discourses might influence radical behaviors and practices of some Muslim individuals and groupings, terrorism is beyond ideological, religious, and doctrinal issues. Therefore, multiple methods and strategies are needed to combat radicalism and create sustainable peace in society. The work will be is beneficial for both academic and non-academic communities, particularly students of conflict, violence, peacebuilding, and religious studies.