ABSTRACT
The relationship between Islam and the state has been one of the key unresolved questions in the political development of Muslim-majority Southeast Asian countries since their independence. In Indonesia, disagreements between advocates of an Islamic state and those who wanted to establish the new republic on a non-confessional basis were resolved in favour of the latter. The 1945 Constitution enshrined Pancasila — which defined the national identity without reference to Islam — as the national ideology. 1 The only concessions made to Islam were the retention of colonial-era Islamic courts with jurisdiction over family law, mainly marriage and divorce. Muslim dissatisfaction with the secular orientation of the republic, and disagreements over the role of Muslim militias in the new national army, led to the Darul Islam rebellion in West Java in 1948. The revolt spread to South Sulawesi and Aceh, and was not fully extinguished until the 1960s. Darul Islam significantly influenced the ideological development of some of the most virulent strains of current Indonesian Islamic extremism. 2
