For the past decade or so, Hamid Dabashi, the increasingly prolific Iranian-born but New York-based sociologist of religion and cultural critic, has been working on an ideology of resistance that defies the new globalised world order and challenges the allegedly inevitable Clash of Civilisations thesis.

Indonesia is increasingly identified as an upcoming global powerhouse ready to join the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), but too little importance is attached to the fact that it is also the most populous Muslim nation-state in the world—one in every five Muslims lives in maritime Southeast Asia.

The introduction of critical thinking into religious discourses has always been controversial and not exactly risk-free.