Non-Muslim Leadership and the Question of Legitimacy
A Critical Study on the Indonesian Case
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52541/isiri.v64i4.7254Keywords:
Indonesia, non-Muslim leadership, legitimacy, politics, religionAbstract
The issue of non-Muslim leadership within the Islamic community remains a highly debated topic in several Muslim countries, particularly those with diverse religious populations. While Muslim jurists have historically agreed that the head of state should be a Muslim, the political changes witnessed in Muslim societies and the establishment of modern nation states during the post-colonial era have led to the emergence of differing opinions regarding the permissibility of non-Muslim leadership. This study investigates Indonesia as a case study, considering its societal context marked by significant political and intellectual polarization. This context is characterized by ideological divisions among writers and the presence of competing organizations within the political sphere. To address this issue, this paper explores two main areas: firstly, it highlights the historical background surrounding the emergence of this problem both internationally and locally, and secondly, it evaluates the textual and jurisprudential evidence presented by proponents of non-Muslim leadership legitimacy. The evaluation of inference methods used to justify the legitimacy of a non-Muslim leadership reveals the adoption of an arbitrary approach in interpreting textual and jurisprudential evidence, which involves both selectivity and distortion.
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