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Colleagues, friends reflect on Muslim scholar Bahtiar Effendy's legacy
His seminal book, Islam and the State in Indonesia, published by Ohio University Press, is now considered a classic among scholars of Indonesian Islam.
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Prominent Muslim scholar and Muhammadiyah Central Board (PP) Bahtiar Effendy has passed away in Jakarta on Thursday. (tribunwow.com/File)
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ahtiar Effendy, a prominent Muslim scholar whose body of work elucidated and helped shape the complex relations between Islam and the state in Indonesia, died in a Jakarta hospital early on Thursday. He was 60.
His death triggered an outpouring of grief from his closest colleagues who believed that, as a public intellectual, the late scholar had left an important legacy for the country, in which Islam — how it is interpreted and practiced by its followers — has long been a dominant political force.
His seminal book, Islam and the State in Indonesia, published by Ohio University Press, is now considered a classic among scholars of Indonesian Islam.
"Without reading the book, it is impossible for anyone to understand properly the position of Muslims in the country," said Center for the Study of Religion and Democracy (PUSAD) director Ihsan Ali Fauzi.
The book highlights the tension between Muslims who believe that the concept of a democratic nation state is un-Islamic and other Muslims who believe to the contrary that the Quran is compatible with democracy and does not specify a political system.
Bahtiar, according to Sarah Moser in her review of the book, sided with the latter, quoting the Muslim scholar as saying that "there is no legitimate basis to put Islam in a contradictory position to the modern political system".
Born in Ambarawa, Central Java, on Dec. 10, 1958, Bahtiar finished his elementary education in his hometown and then enrolled in Pabelan pesantren (Islamic boarding school) in Muntilan, Magelang, Central Java. Bahtiar then continued his education at the Ushuluddin Faculty of IAIN Jakarta, the former name of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN Jakarta), graduating in 1986.
