ABSTRACT
The ‘ritual as communication’ theory failed to capture the key characteristics of salat, characteristics also found in other Islamic rituals, none of which are built around a propositional or semantic core. At publicized ceremony, held at the Palace, the Minister of Religion led Islamic prayers but urged all attendees who held other religions to pray according to their own faiths. The damage-control version was included in coverage by the daily newspaper Republika, the organ of the government-sponsored Islamic organization indonesian intellectual muslims. When now-retired Admiral Sudomo headed the state security apparatus Kopkamtib, he aggressively sought to marginalise Muslim groups by claiming that Islamic politics lay behind disturbances in several parts of the country. The verse al-Fatihah, the opening verse in the Qur’an as it is presented in written form, is the verse most familiar to any Muslim. On the surface, the criticism concerned Haji Harmoko’serrors in pronouncing the last line of al-Fatihah.
