In many Muhammadiyah forums, oftentimes, people questioned the nature, content, essence, and importance of Muhammadiyah ideology. If one understood Islam, would be automatically understand the ideology of Muhammdiyah? What were differences of ideologies of Muhammadiyah and the ideology of other Islamic movement? What were the official thoughts that were included in Muhammadiyah ideology? What was the relations between one official thought to another thought in Muhammadiyah such as between the Preface and the Faith Pledge and Aspirations of Muhammadiyah Life, and Basic Strategies of Muhammadiyah? Why and what for did Muhammadiyah formulate the ideas of its ideology in its movement? Was revitalization or the strengthening of Muhammadiyah ideology in the organizational environment needed and what were the steps to do understand Muhammadiyah ideology according to the official thoughts in Islamic movement.

Basically, Muhammadiyah is a reform movement. The movement of Tadjid fil-Islam. The most profound essence of the Islamic movement established by Kyai Haji Ahmad Dahlan is the flame of reform/renewal. This characteristic is more prominent than other characteristics. Theology, ideology, and action model of Muhammadiyah are renewal leading to Islamic modernism or reformism. Those reform endeavors are actualized to break the stagnation of ummah by fostering a progressive Islamic teachings. In addition, Muhammadiyah has pioneered the system of modern Islamic education, health, and social services, community empowerment through Al-Ma'un movement, women's movement in the public through 'Aisyiyah, and reform works which revive the advancement of Islamic world and modernization of civil life. This reform is departed from the theme of al-ruju ila al-Qur'an wa al-Sunnah, namely a return to the Qur'an and the Prophet's Sunnah. The endeavours of purification of Islam to pursue the authentic teachings, as well as to establish a progressive Islam. Despite it frequently assumed to be ad-hoc, the span of twentieth century Muhammadiyah reform is a breakthrough. In the advance, directly and indirectly, it has been a state of mind for the majority of Muslim in Indonesia, including the previous oppositions.

This book explains how the leaders of the world's largest Islamic organizations understand tolerance, explicating how politics works in a Muslim-majority democracy.

Previous ed.: Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press, 1983.

This book is Ellery Eells' influential examination and analysis of theories of rational decision making.

"In this landmark account, Nur Amali Ibrahim paints a nuanced, detailed portrait of students seeking to reconcile some of the major social forces that inflect everyday life across the Muslim world—Islam, liberalism, radicalism, and secularism—as they strive to both find and define their place in a fast-changing, democratizing nation. Ibrahim demonstrates the critical importance of scholarly attention in both anthropology and religious studies to this vibrant country—the world’s largest Muslim nation." ―Daromir Rudnyckyj, Associate Professor, University of Victoria, and author of the award-winning Spiritual Economies Improvisational Islam is about novel and unexpected ways of being Muslim, where religious dispositions are achieved through techniques that have little or no precedent in classical Islamic texts or concepts. Nur Amali Ibrahim foregrounds two distinct autodidactic university student organizations, each trying to envision alternative ways of being Muslim independent from established religious and political authorities. One group draws from methods originating from the business world, like accounting, auditing, and self-help, to promote a puritanical understanding of the religion and spearhead Indonesia’s spiritual rebirth. A second group reads Islamic scriptures alongside the western human sciences. Both groups, he argues, show a great degree of improvisation and creativity in their interpretations of Islam. These experimental forms of religious improvisations and practices have developed in a specific Indonesian political context that has evolved after the deposal of President Suharto’s authoritarian New Order regime in 1998. At the same time, Improvisational Islam suggests that the Indonesian case study brings into sharper relief processes that are happening in ordinary Muslim life everywhere. To be a practitioner of their religion, Muslims draw on and are inspired by not only their holy scriptures, but also the non-traditional ideas and practices that circulate in their society, which importantly include those originating in the West. In the contemporary political discourse where Muslims are often portrayed as uncompromising and adversarial to the West and where bans and walls are deemed necessary to keep them out, this story about flexible and creative Muslims is an important one to tell.

Militant Islam provides a sociological framework for understanding the rise and character of recent Islamic militancy. It takes a systematic approach to the phenomenon and includes analysis of cases from around the world, comparisons with militancy in other religions, and their causes and consequences. The sociological concepts and theories examined in the book include those associated with social closure, social movements, nationalism, risk, fear and ‘de-civilising’. These are applied within three main themes; characteristics of militant Islam, multi-layered causes and the consequences of militancy, in particular Western reactions within the ‘war on terror’. Interrelationships between religious and secular behaviour, ‘terrorism’ and ‘counter-terrorism’, popular support and opposition are explored. Through the examination of examples from across Muslim societies and communities, the analysis challenges the popular tendency to concentrate upon ‘al-Qa’ida’ and the Middle East. This book will be of interest to students of Sociology, Political Science and International Relations, in particular those taking courses on Islam, religion, terrorism, political violence and related regional studies.