ABSTRACT
There are three key differences between Islamic education in Indonesia and Malaysia that can shed light on the aforementioned puzzle. In contrast, the smaller number of schools coupled with the larger budget of ministries in charge of Islamic education allow the state to strengthen its hold over even supposedly autonomous Islamic schools in Malaysia. The chapter discusses the importance of ideological hegemony to regime maintenance, whereby moulding the education system into a certain ideological shape serves as one of the means to achieve that end. It explores the relationship between Islamic orthodoxy and the state, namely in the specific orthodox values found in the curriculum. The chapter discusses how and why state institutions might form their own identities and objectives that result in the general structure of a state being incoherent and fragmented. It also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
