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Laskar Jihad: Islam, Militancy, and the Quest for Identity in Post-New Order Indonesia.

Article Excerpt
Laskar Jihad: Islam, Militancy, and the Quest for Identity in Post-New Order Indonesia. By Noorhaidi Hasan. New York: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 2006. Softcover: 266pp.

The first time that I met Umar Jafaar Thalib, the first thing that I noticed about him was that he had delicate manicured hands, an eerie juxtaposition to all the bloodshed for which he was responsible. Yet reading through Noorhaidi Hasan's Laskar Jihad: Islam, Militancy, and the Quest for Identity in Post-New Order Indonesia--the first book-length study that charts the decline and fall of one of the most visible symbols of post-Soeharto Islamic militancy--one gets little sense of the sheer brutality or scope of violence that plagued Indonesia's Outer Islands from 1999 to 2002. Much of the violence gets glossed over and many parts of the book are frustrating because very little attention is given to such critical points. But the book, which was based on 18 months of fieldwork and 125 interviews of members of Laskar Jihad, remains a wealth of information.

The book in many ways is much more of an intellectual history of the Salafi movement within Indonesia, and in particular, Jafaar's quest to become the movement's paramount leader. Chapter 4, for example, simply explains the Salafi ideology as it took root in Indonesia. The book begins with an analysis of the rapid emergence of Salafi mosques, madrassa, and halqa' ("study circles"). It ties in local politics with the expansion of Saudi Arabian geopolitics and explains the emergence of what he considers a "new type" of...