Foreword

This journal is meant to be an international journal. Hence, articles that we publish in this journal shall represent international coverage. This second edition of this journal just does that. It consists of six (6) articles that examines issues related to Muslim politics in at least four different countries: Indonesia, Turkey, Malaysia and Egypt. Two articles on Indonesia examine, respectively, the conservative turn of subcultural youth and the emergence of Islamic populism in Palembang in 1950s. Two other articles are comparative studies: one article discusses the contemporary narratives of leftist Islam movements in Indonesia and Turkey; and the other compares the number of religious legislations in Indonesia with those of other democratic states to gauge the level/quality of democracy in Indonesia. The remaining two articles exclusively discuss social and political issues in Malaysia and Egypt. The Malaysia article examines the history of women’s involvement in politics from the time of the Malay Sultanate until post-World War II in Malaya, which now forms the modern territories of Malaysia and Singapore. The article on Egypt discusses major shift in the discourse of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, from the advocacy for restoring the Caliphate to the call for a modern civic state. Future editions of this journal shall cover political issues in more Muslim countries to further strengthen this journal’s credential as international journal. To attain that objective, scholars from around the world are warmly welcome to write articles for our journal.