Chinese Ways of Being Muslim: Negotiating Ethnicity and Religiosity in Indonesia

by Hew Wai Weng

Many recent works on Muslim societies have pointed to a growing 'deculturalization’ and 'purification’ of Islamic practices. Instead, by exploring themes such as architectural designs, preaching activities, political engagement and cultural celebrations, this book describes and analyses the formation and negotiation of Chinese Muslim cultural identities in Indonesia today – a rapidly evolving environment where there are multiple ways of being or not being Chinese and Muslim. By engaging with the notions of 'inclusive Chineseness’ and 'cosmopolitan Islam’, this book gives insights not only into the cultural politics of Muslim and Chinese identities in Indonesia today but also into the possibilities and limitations of ethnic and religious cosmopolitanism in many other contemporary societies.

Hew Wai Weng is a Fellow at the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (IKMAS, UKM), working on Chinese Muslim identities, Hui migration patterns, and urban middle-class Muslim aspirations in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Publication year: 2017
332 pp / 229mm x 152mm
1 map, 19 figures
ISBN: 978-87-7694-211-3, Paperback
ISBN: 978-87-7694-210-6, Hardback

NIAS Press