Indonesia as the Center of World Islamic Thought

“Ulil emphasized his optimism that Indonesia has an opportunity to be the center of Islamic thoughts in the international field. He stated his objection on the result of research conducted by two scholars from Washington about how far Islam has colored Muslim countries. They viewed this from a variety of criteria such as recognition of minority rights, tolerance, pluralism, transparency of government systems, etc. In this research, Indonesia ranked under Malaysia. According Ulil, the rank of Indonesia should be much more above Malaysia, at least if we look at various developments that we have today. In addition, Ulil stressed his belief by quoting Fazlur Rahman’s statement that the future of the Islamic world actually exists in Indonesia, not in Saudi Arabia. ”