INDONESIA: SECULAR, MODERATE WITH FULL BLOWN SHARI'AH

New-age Islamic cleric triggers polygamy row

ABDULLAH GYMNASTIAR is Indonesia's modern face of moderate Islamism. A leather jacket often compliments the cleric's white turban, and he has a predilection for riding a Harley-Davidson. He is close to the President and his wife, and his weekly radio sermons are syndicated across 150 local stations.

Last week the figurehead of new-age Islamic family values shocked his audience with the news he had taken a second, younger wife. Men and women had different "software" he said; women were wired for monogamy, he suggested, while men had more stereophonic inclinations.

The revelations have reinvigorated debate about the role of Islamic law in supposedly secular Indonesia, polygamy and attitudes to women, sex and morality.

Reverberations have spread into the presidential palace, where the mobile phones of the President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and his wife have rung red hot with messages of concern following Mr Gymnastiar's revelation.

Although conservative Islamic leaders have endorsed the taking of up to four wives - and anecdotally the practice appears increasingly common - moderates and women's groups have condemned it as a misinterpretation of the Koran.

Feminists have expressed outrage at "economic" sexual abuse, but Abu Bakar Bashir, the alleged former spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah, has weighed in to defend polygamy. "Polygamy is sharia; whoever rejects it becomes an infidel," he said.


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Paying attention Secretary Rice or are you still under the impression there is anything moderate about Islam?!? LOL...

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