Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country and the world’s third-largest democracy. The country has a population of over 260 million people, and approximately 86,9% of Indonesians are Muslim, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Indonesia has the world’s largest number of Islam believers, with more than 13% of all Muslims worldwide. Islam is the state religion of Indonesia and the country’s constitution guarantees religious freedom.
The majority of Indonesians are Sunni Muslims, but there are also a number of various minority groups that practice other religions same as other southeast Asia countries like Brunei, and Malaysia.
Despite this fact, are there also concerns that Indonesia is becoming increasingly conservative and intolerant of minorities? We will get through it now.
What is The Main Religion In Indonesia?
The Indonesian Constitution states “every person shall be free to choose and to practice the religion of his/her choice” and “guarantees all persons the freedom of worship, each according to his/her own religion or belief.” The official religion in Indonesia recognized only six religions, namely Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism.
How About The Religious Minorities?
If we see the Indonesian archipelago has so many ethnicities, and cultures and that goes for the indigenous religions. Indonesians who practice unrecognized religions, including indigenous or traditional belief systems such as animism, dynamics, local and ancestral spirits, and totemism, face legal restrictions.
Indonesian government officials require citizens to declare one of the six religions that are recognized on their national identity card, except for indigenous religions. Although legal citizens can leave the section blank.
But atheism and agnosticism are not common in Indonesia. However, the Government Restrictions Index Score on religion in Indonesia is high. The new law also expands existing blasphemy law and maintains five-year sentences for deviating from the core tenets of the six religions recognized in Indonesia. But the government is not yet published about it.
Religious Harmony in Indonesia
With the declaration of independence from the Netherlands in 1945, Indonesia established a national ideology of Pancasila. Its first principle is the “belief in the one and only God,” while its fifth guarantees “social justice” for all.
There are so many official religions and religious groups which are spread all over Indonesia. These religions have their own beliefs, culture, and practices. Some of them are really popular in Indonesia while some of them are not as famous as others.
But, each day whether the government or people are promoting religious tolerance to achieve harmonious and religious freedom.
Muslim In Indonesia
Most Indonesian Muslim populations are Sunni Islam. The rest of the Muslims are Shia and are concentrated in Aceh. The history of Islam come in Indonesia was in the 13th century when people from meddle east come to trade and spread Islam.
Now, Islam in Indonesian history is complex and reflects the richness and diversity of Indonesian cultures. Islam Spread throughout Western Indonesia, and now eight out of ten of the Indonesian population is Islam. While other religions spread among the province in Indonesia.
There are so many mosques, a place for Muslims to pray everywhere. Although Muslims are the most populated here, there are not many cases of religious intolerance. The majority of the Indonesian Muslim community is highly supportive and understanding of each believer.
Also Read: Indonesia’s population: Ranked The 4th Largest in The World
What About Other Religions?
Other religions aside from the Muslim population, also live harmoniously. The second highest population in Indonesia is Christianity, where Indonesia’s population is 28.6 million Christians made up 10.72% of the country’s population in 2018, with 7.60% Protestants (20.25 million) and 3.12% Roman Catholicism practitioners (8.33 million). and other 1.71% Hindu, 0.75% Buddhist, 0.03% Confucianism, and 0.05% other religions.
Christians
Indonesians were introduced to Christianity in the 16th century when Portuguese merchants and missionaries began sailing to the islands as the pioneer Christian missionary, gradually converting Indonesians to Catholicism. Dutch Protestants came after the Portuguese and for a time made Indonesia a Dutch colony and restricted the activities of the Catholic Church.
When it comes to Indonesian national sentiment, Christians are as nationalistic as the majority of Muslims. Christians are also very supportive of maintaining Indonesian unity.
Hinduism
Hinduism and classical Indian influences continue to define the hallmarks of Indonesian culture. The Indian concept of a divine king continues to shape the concept of leadership in Indonesia and shapes the use of Sanskrit in court literature and adaptations of Indian mythology such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata.
Indonesian Hinduism, officially called Agama Hindu Dharma share many common beliefs with the one in India. You can see the famous Hindu monument, Prambanan in Yogyakarta. Was built at 850 M
Buddhists
Most Chinese believe in Buddhism and Confucianism. Indonesian Buddhist culture has a long history of Buddhist empires such as the Sailendra Dynasty, Srivijaya Dynasty, and Mataram Dynasty. The arrival of Buddhism began with commercial activity rising on the Silk Road between Indonesia and India in the early 1st century AD.
In Indonesia, you can see the world’s largest Buddhist monument and also how powerful Buddhist empires were at that time, Borobudur was built by the Kingdom of Sailendra the peak of the Buddhism-Javanese civilization in central java.
Now, The clear majority of Indonesian Buddhists consist of the ethnic Chinese community.
Confucianism
In 2006, the government recognized religions Confucianism as one of its official religions. Confucianism was brought to the archipelago (from mainland China) primarily by Chinese merchants and immigrants in the 3rd century AD.
In fact, there are many Chinese beliefs who actually practice Taoism or Chinese folk religion, but the Indonesian government does not recognize these trends and is therefore classified as Buddhist.
Therefore, the Chinese Indonesians who practiced Confucianism of them “changed” their religion to Buddhism or Christianity (identification only). although, each year Chinese celebrations are one public holiday.
Distribution of Religion in Indonesia
Indonesia has so much diversity, and live in harmony even in the same city with different beliefs, like Islam, Sunni Muslims mostly in West Java: 46.92 million people, East Java: 39.93 million people, Central Java, South Sumatra, West Sumatra, North Sumatra, Aceh, West Nusa Tenggara, South Kalimantan, Gorontalo, and more.
While Christians according to data records in Papua as much as 69.56% (2.99 million people) of the Christian population are in the province of Papua then North Sumatra, Toraja, Jakarta, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), and more.
Hinduism is mostly in Bali with 4,67 million people, Buddhism mostly in Riau Archipelago, namely as many as 145.91 thousand people (7.15%), and West Java, East Java.
Confusicm in The province with the most followers of the Confucian religion is the Bangka Belitung Islands, with a total of 28,348 people. Then followed by West Kalimantan with a total of 13,093 people.
Religious Conflicts
Although Indonesia recognizes a number of different religions, inter-religious conflict sometimes is unavoidable.
It began with President Suharto’s attempt to “de-Islamize” the government from 1966 to 1998 by keeping a large number of Christians in the cabinet. There are people who disagree with that.
However, in the early 1990s, the issue of Islamization emerged and the military split into two factions, the Nationalist and Islamic camps. Where the nationalists are taking the secular side and the other stand with the Muslim world.
Another remarkable religious conflict was when in the new order era, during that time, former President Suharto proposed an anti-Chinese law that would ban anything related to Chinese culture, including names and religion.
Nonetheless, there were time only five official religions. Since the new order era has been gone.
Now, the Chinese belief can pray and use their real name, and also the local government does not give any differences between religions either in administration or other matters.
The U.S. embassy & consulate in Jakarta works with human rights organizations, government officials, and research institutions to promote tolerance and also posted a report about international religious freedom from 2010 to 2021.
The report was about the date and explained what happen in religious in Indonesia including religious violence and different religious groups acting toward each other.
Religious Harmony in Indonesia
Indonesia taught school children civics, religion, and language. In civics, teachers teach understanding and tolerance of each other. While the religion classes teach about the understanding of religion. They only attend religious education classes that correspond to their beliefs.
In order to keep harmony in Indonesia, the Ministry along with the most prominent Islamic organization in Indonesia, Nahdatul Ulama, always tried to promote Islamic moderation by holding international Conferences of Islamic Scholars, and more. Which is believed to reduce the tension in the country, glad the tolerant Islamic interpretations have had significant success but still have so much to work on.
For other religions, there are also religious organizations to keep everything in order and under control about the conflict, like Perbuddhi (Indonesian Buddhists Organisation), Parisada Hindu Dharma Indonesia (Indonesian Hindu Dharma Society), Khung Chiao Hui Indonesia (PKCHI) a Confucianist organization.
