3.5% of the world's population but very little is written in the West about Indonesia.
I have a couple of questions:
- How effective do you think is religious education in Indonesia? Judging by the Spanish experience (*) I'm a bit skeptical of the effect that madrasahs have on piousness and religiosity.
- Do you have any ideas on why Aceh is more religious than the rest of Indonesia? It would seem the rest of Indonesia is actually catching up with Aceh, but I don't know of any good explanation for why islamisation would have happened earlier in Aceh.
My naive explanation would be that historically Aceh had more contact with the big Islamic centers in Arabia and Muslim India, being close to the route that Muslim traders traveled on their way to Eastern Asia. But I don't find it very convincing.
(*) More than 30% of education in Spain is private, and most private schools are religious.
Great post!
3.5% of the world's population but very little is written in the West about Indonesia.
I have a couple of questions:
- How effective do you think is religious education in Indonesia? Judging by the Spanish experience (*) I'm a bit skeptical of the effect that madrasahs have on piousness and religiosity.
- Do you have any ideas on why Aceh is more religious than the rest of Indonesia? It would seem the rest of Indonesia is actually catching up with Aceh, but I don't know of any good explanation for why islamisation would have happened earlier in Aceh.
My naive explanation would be that historically Aceh had more contact with the big Islamic centers in Arabia and Muslim India, being close to the route that Muslim traders traveled on their way to Eastern Asia. But I don't find it very convincing.
(*) More than 30% of education in Spain is private, and most private schools are religious.
Thank you so much for this detailed and careful response.
I entirely agree that the Saudi export of Wahhabism is in the past. It is a legacy.
I also agree that saudi has now embarked on new cultural engineering, to culturally liberalise and encourage women in the public sphere - see my earlier essay https://www.ggd.world/p/netflix-and-change-tracking-cultural
Going forward, I’m very eager to visit Saudi Arabia.
I think meaning is use and madrasa is widely used to mean Islamic school. Even in Pakistan, a madrasa is a faith school.
I totally agree that many other cultures are patriarchal and please do explore my writings on them!
Thank you again!
Ha! Yes, certainly, December is optimal! Thank you!