Islam, Law, and Equality in Indonesia: An Anthropology of Public Reasoning

by John R. Bowen

• ISBN13: 9780521824828
• ISBN10: 0521824826
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-06-23
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

In Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country, Muslims struggle to reconcile radically different sets of social norms and laws, including those derived from Islam, local social norms, and contemporary ideas about gender equality and rule of law. In this new study, John Bowen explores this struggle, through archival and ethnographic research in villages and courtrooms of the Aceh Province, Sumatra, and through interviews with national religious and legal figures. He analyses the social frameworks for disputes about land, inheritance, marriage, divorce, Islamic History and, more broadly, about the relationships between the state and Islam, and between Muslims and non-Muslims. The book speaks to debates carried out in all societies about how people can live together with their deep differences in values and ways of life. It will be welcomed by scholars and students across the social sciences, particularly those interested in anthropology, cultural sociology and political theory.

Table of Contents

Part I. Village Repertoires: 1. Law, religion and pluralism

2. Adat's local inequalities

3. Remapping Adat

Part II. Reasoning Legally through Scripture: 4. The contours of the courts

5. The judicial history of 'consensus'

6. The poisoned gift

7. Historicizing scripture, justifying equality

Part III. Governing Muslims through Family: 8. Whose word is law?

9. Gender equality in the family?

10. Justifying religious boundaries

11. Public reasoning across cultural pluralism.