Survey and Qualitative Research on Religious Leaders/Ulama Perceptions on Nation-state

Being conducted from June 2018 to February 2019, the research was able to provide evidence-based knowledge on support of ulama on modern-state concept, democracy, and Pancasila. By conducting a survey and interview to at least 470 religious leaders in 15 cities in Indonesia, the research was able to map out the ideological spectrum of Indonesian religious leaders from moderate views to extreme religious views. In contrary to popular assumption, despite the increasing symptoms of intolerance and violent extremism in Indonesia, the majority of Indonesian ulama (71 percent) still supports modern nation-state, and 34 percent of Indonesian ulama has moderate views on religion, and 23 percent of them actually has inclusive views. It also becomes more interesting to see the characteristics of ulama in supporting or rejecting four main elements of nation-state, namely (1) anti-violence, (2) pro-system, (3) pro-tolerance, (4) and pro-civil rights. While most of the ulama rejects the use of violence (90 percent) and supports democratic and justice system in Indonesia (90 percent), there are still quite many who are intolerant (23 percent) and against the protection minority civil rights (30 percent).

Geographical Scope: National

Region: UNDP Asia and the Pacific

Country: Indonesia

Theme of Research: Education Faith-based

Year Published: 2019

Responsible Entity: UNDP Indonesia