Denpasar, you know, the capital of our Hindu-majority island, has been named as one of Indonesia’s “most Islamic cities,” according to an Islamic City Index that surveyed 29 cities in Indonesia.
Bali’s capital ranked high on the list, sharing spots with Yogyakarta and Bandung on the survey that was released by the Maarif Institute on Tuesday.
The institute’s exec director, Fajar Riza Ul Haq says Yogyakarta, Bandung, and Denpasar topped the list, scoring 80.64 points out of a possible 100.
And naturally, none of the Indonesian cities who practice sharia law are on the survey’s top ten (e.g. Banda Aceh got 19th place).
“Implementing the sharia law doesn’t necessarily make a city more Islamic than others,” said Ahmad Imam Mujadid Rais, research director of the Maarif Institute, as quoted by the Jakarta Globe.
Apparently the survey saw no correlation between the size of a city’s Muslim population and its “adherence to Islamic values.” Yeah, because Denpasar’s Muslim population is less than 15 percent, so there’s no way it could rank so high if the survey was population-based.
So if sharia law doesn’t matter, then what makes a city more Islamic than another one? Ul Haq said that the survey used three main indicators that are primary values in the Koran: safety, prosperity, and happiness.
The survey was inspired by a similar survey, the Shariah Index Project, a multinational project.
As with the Maarif survey, the results of the Cordoba Initiative’s were ironic: Indonesia, the country with the world’s largest Muslim population ranked the 140th most Islamic country out of 170 countries surveyed.
