Chapter 7 - Conclusion: Towards an Integrated Political Relationship between Islam and the State

Summary

But one thing which is still tempting is where political Islam [is] heading, if an ideological stake no longer exists. Several answers have been proposed. From the intellectual circle we often hear the necessity of turning Islam into a scientific, philosophical, or grand paradigm. At the same time, there are those who aspire that Islam moves to the realm of culture or engage in societal development [programmes], without having to put the umat [Muslim community] at political risk. While those answers sound prestigious and noble, in practice it is difficult to imagine an Islam which is totally “absent” from politics. The deepening root of Islam in the mass[es] naturally generates some sort of “political value.” There are many mediators who are willing to find an appropriate meeting point between supply and demand. Other than that, there are always groups aspiring for an immediate and concrete offer. For them, political Islam needs to transform itself from ideology to a more practical political discourse. Now they have ample opportunities to bring Islam into power politics. It is in that direction that political Islam is seeking its new format.

Aswab Mahasin

In a broader perspective the foregoing pages have sought to answer the question of whether or not Islam is actually compatible with a modern political system, with the idea of the nation state as its major element. Given the polyinterpretability of Islam, as suggested in the introduction of this volume, the answer to such an inquiry can be either affirmative or negative, depending on what kind of Islam is being put forward in the limelight of analytical investigation. Likewise, the problem of the political relationship between Islam and the state in Indonesia, through the course of its political history, is contingent upon what kind of Islamic political discourse is being developed.

By way of deconstructing the venture of the country's political Islam during the revolutionary (mid-1940s), liberal (mid-1950s), and early New Order (late 1960s) periods, this study shows that the formalistic or legalistic articulations of Islam, especially in terms of its political idealism and activism, played a crucial role in the evolution of a highly strained relationship between Islam and the state with regard to Islam's political role.