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Create a 6 pages page paper that discusses islam in southeast asia

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Create a 6 pages page paper that discusses islam in southeast asia. Islam has flourished in Southeast Asia. With over 240 million adherents, today it represents nearly 40% of the population (Spencer 1999). While the majority are located in Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia, significant minorities are interspersed throughout the continent. Through an analysis of the social and political situation, this essay analyzes the myriad of forms of Islam throughout the Southeast Asian region.

With an estimated 190 million followers, the largest Islamic population in Southeast Asia is located in Indonesia. For a long time, researchers had argued that Indonesia wasn’t really Islamic, but that Islam superficially represents what is actually a largely Hindu-Buddhist society. Most will now agree that although Islam had been oppressed by former President Soeharto, it is now a large part of the political situation in Indonesia (Spencer 1999).

Muhammadiyah, one of the predominant Indonesian Islamic organizations, dates back to 1912 and is directly connected to religious and intellectual ideas brought to Indonesia from the Middle East. This is referred to by some historians as Islamic Modernism. The main aims of this movement were to encourage piety and a serious attitude to carrying out religious practices, the purification of Islamic belief, and finally providing social services to the country. Known as the ulama, Islamic traditionalists were generally approving, yet carried a number of divisions. Notably, they took issue with the Muhammadiyah rejection of praying at the tomb of saints and ancestors and their rejection of classical Islamic scholarship (Abu-Radia 2002). They feared that Islamic Modernism would destroy the traditional education structure that was they believed undermined the moral structure in Indonesian society.