Discovering Muslim Sufi Liberation Theology in Indonesia

The essays of Farish Noor are always worth reading and were it only for his unmistakable style. He is a Malaysian political scientist and human rights activist (and I was lucky to meet him in person one day at Humboldt University Berlin, so there is my bias... ;-)).

Now he went discovering Muslim Sufi Liberation Theology in Indonesia (no less) for the BBC;

"I felt like I was a member of the Beatles and I was sitting at the feet of some Mahaguru spinning some transcendental jive that was cooling my temper. Even my aching back - made worse by three weeks of travel - felt relieved for a while. But Kyai Rahmat was not some lovey-dovey hippy guru selling miracle cures for pain relief.

He spoke about the problems Indonesia was facing, from the resurgence of the military to the rise of religious intolerance and extremism with a clarity that a political scientist like me could appreciate:

"Today we seem to be going back to the bad days of the past," he noted.
"Lawlessness and corruption is everywhere, and the people are getting tired of being lied to by their leaders." <...> "But all of these problems are there because we have lost our way, and we no longer live like Muslims should. Islam is not just about rituals.
"That is just the dress we wear. But what about what is happening inside of us, in our hearts?
"As long as we are guided by our egoistic wants, these problems will remain: corruption, abuse of power, authoritarian leaders.
"We need to struggle, but the struggle of Islam begins within all of us. What are the evils we fight against? Racism, prejudice, sexism, greed. This is our real struggle, our real jihad."

More:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/3631168.stm



You can still listen to (most of the) the programme here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/letter.shtml