This chapter explores a controversial 2005 legal opinion (fatwā) of the MUI—the Indonesian Ulama Council (Majelis Ulama Indonesia) empowered by President Suharto in 1975 to serve as a semi-official religious authority—on the subject of interreligious marriage, and specifically, marriage to so-called ‘People of the Book.’ The MUI finds such marriages to be unlawful, based on the preponderance of harm over benefit therein. This is somewhat surprising given the general permissibility of such unions according to the four Sunnī schools. The logic of the arguments produced in favour of the prohibition are discussed, as well as the political and social contexts of the debate.

This chapter explores a 2012 legal opinion (fatwā) of the MUI—the Indonesian Ulama Council (Majelis Ulama Indonesia) empowered by President Suharto in 1975 to serve as a semi-official religious authority—on the Shīʿī preacher Tajul Muluk, operating in Sampang (East Java). The fatwā comments on the distinctive legal and theological doctrines of the Twelver Shīʿa generally, which are found wanting. The authors emphasise the collective probity of the Prophet’s Companions (ṣaḥāba), the illegitimacy of temporary marriage (mutʿa) and the legitimacy of tarāwīḥ prayer in Ramaḍān, among other issues, and cite a large number of premodern Sunnī theologians and jurists to argue that the Twelver Shīʿa are guilty of unbelief (kufr). They hold that Tajul Muluk must thus be prosecuted, not under the legal norms associated with apostasy (ridda) in the Islamic legal tradition, but with ‘blasphemy against Islam’ as defined in Indonesian state law.