Religion & Society

T HE blasphemy trial of the Governor of Jakarta, Indonesia, began on Tuesday of last week (News, 16 December). Prosecutors launched the event by accusing Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama of intentionally misinterpreting a Qur’anic verse during a speech on a working visit to Indonesia’s Thousand Islands region on 27 September.    The Governor, better known by his nickname “Ahok”, replied to the charges in tears, saying “I did not intend to misinterpret Surah Al Maidah 5:51 nor commit blasphemy nor insult Islamic scholars. I referred to certain politicians who had misused Surah Al Maidah 5:51 to avoid fair competition prior to upcoming regional elections.”    While world media outlets focus on this unfolding blasphemy trial in today’s Indonesia, the subtext to this event has deep roots in past history. W hen Indonesia attained its independence in the 1940s, the new nation was preoccupied with defining its identity. Indonesia is diverse in terms of its ethnic, ...

I was interviewed by staff of the CIU Zwemer Institute (USA) on Islamic History and the Crusades.  The interview is available in three parts, as follows: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

I was interviewed by the staff of the Zwemer Centre for Muslim Studies (USA) about the Qur'an.  The interview is available here .

For my interview of 7 December with Neil Johnson on the "Twenty20" program on Vision Radio , click here . If you cannot access it, or would like a copy in MP3 format, please email me.

     The Muslim communities of Southeast Asia have long been regarded as among the more moderate of the Islamic world. The world’s largest Muslim nation, Indonesia sits alongside the smaller but dynamic Muslim communities of Malaysia and Brunei, as well as the sizeable Muslim minorities in Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines. Together these nations are home to around 250 million Muslims.      The region has been largely spared from the tormented conflicts of the Arab world. But the temperature is rising in Muslim Southeast Asia, with increasingly bitter debates and, at times, violent conflicts between competing factions of Muslims. One of the key bones of contention relates to an increasing push for the implementation of aspects of Sharia law. Brunei      On May 1, 2014, the Sultan of Brunei enacted Sharia legal codes in his kingdom, one of the wealthiest countries in the world with its vast oil reserves. This step was taken i...

   Stereotyping the world of Islam is a fruitless task; such is its internal diversity. Nowadays sectarian conflict is tearing apart Muslim populations in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. While some Muslims pursue a vision of a forward-thinking, rationalist faith, others look backwards to what they see as a pristine age when Muhammad established the first Islamic community in Medina.    For the latter group, the Hadith, or prophetic traditions, are crucial in realising their vision, enabling Muslims who want to model their lives on that of their prophet to do so. These traditions record tens of thousands of short reports about Muhammad’s actions, attitudes, concerns, preferences, and prejudices.    Read literally, the Hadith reports can take Muslims in many directions: to compassion for widows and orphans, to patriarchal attitudes towards women, to disdain for religious minorities, and to military jihad for the cause of Islam. Read on here .

  As Australian churches entered the New Year, the attention of the church media was devoted to several pressing issues of debate, both domestic and international. The “same-sex marriage” debate The push in Australia for the somewhat euphemistically named “same-sex marriage” has been increasing in momentum in recent times. Opposition is coming from various quarters, including the different Australian churches, in partnership with other faith communities. During 2015, religious leaders from diverse religious traditions in Australia wrote a public letter to the then Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, calling on him to stand against attempts in Federal Parliament to redefine the meaning of marriage. The letter included the following statements: “As leaders of Australia’s major religions we write to express the grave concerns that we, and those who share our various faiths, share regarding Bills that have or will be introduced into the Federal Parliament to change the definition o...

For today's radio interview on Vision Radio with Neil Johnson, presenter of "Twenty20", click here .

Last year I had the opportunity to pay two visits to France for teaching purposes. I am quite a Francophile and so when such visits come around, I take some time out to enjoy the special charms that the country offers. On both occasions last year I was able to return to an old haunt: the Abbaye Notre Dame, a cloistered Benedictine monastery for nuns in the small village of Wisques in northern France, not far from Calais. I have been visiting that particular monastery since October 1998. So have countless other people who share with me a particular fascination for the attractions of the monastic environment. Notre Dame is a splendid 19 th -century construction but, in addition to its main buildings, it also includes outside the cloister an eight room hostel, called St Charles Hostel, which can accommodate over a dozen guests. One of the nuns I spoke with pointed out that all visitors come seeking something, yet seeking very different things. There are pilgrims who are walking the l...

There is a central idea driving Muslim youth radicalisation: young Muslims travelling this path are following a particular conceptual role model that praises activism for Islam, jihadi militancy and death for the sake of Allah. A number of intersecting elements underlie this core idea. The first element reinforcing such a role model is the influence of radical preachers in some mosques, as revealed in the “ Undercover Mosque ” documentaries produced in the UK some years ago. The subversive role of such preachers is exacerbated by easy access to radical Islamic websites and social media sites. These create the ingredients for a further key element: a peer group of real life and virtual radicalised youth which adds fuel to the pressures on young Muslims. Sadly, parents sometimes also provide a radicalised role model. The father of one of the much discussed 15-year-old jihadi brides from Bethnal Green was filmed participating in one protest led by the notorious radical preacher An...

The Marrakesh Declaration , ignored by the mainstream media, has been acclaimed as a new dawn by some commentators: as promising an era of tolerance and pluralistic harmony in the Muslim-majority regions, where religious minorities have suffered so much for so long. With so much bad news coming from the Muslim world, new voices of hope are bound to receive a warm welcome. Between 25–27 January, around 300 dignitaries gathered in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh under the auspices of King Mohammed VI of Morocco. This event represented the culmination of four years of planning, led by Sheikh Abdallah Bin Bayyah of Abu Dhabi, President of the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies. The conference title was ‘The Rights of Religious Minorities in Predominantly Muslim Majority Communities: Legal Framework and a Call to Action’. As the name suggests, its specific goal was to address the discrimination and persecution experienced by religious minorities living under Islamic major...

Since the civil war began in Syria in 2011, almost a quarter of a million people have been killed. Of the survivors, an estimated 12.2 million are in need of humanitarian assistance. This fact, combined with the deliberate campaigns of terror waged by the Islamic State, has triggered the massive outpouring of refugees from Syria. Such macro figures do not discriminate between Syria’s diverse population. A closer look at the country’s demography unpacks the religious diversity: 87% of Syrians are Muslim (also diverse), 10% are Christian and the remainder represent small minority groups, such as Druze and Yazidis. With hundreds of thousands of Syrians in refugee camps outside the country at this present moment, one would expect the camps to reflect the demography of Syria. This is not the case, as it is widely reported that religious minorities have been wary to enter the camps for fear of being persecuted by some of the Muslim refugees. Preferring religious minorities In this ...