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James Hoesterey, An Anthropologist Who Fell in Love to Islam in Indonesia

Sabtu, 06 Juni 2020 - 01:12 | 46.06k
James Hoesterey on Zoom.
James Hoesterey on Zoom.

TIMESINDONESIA, JAKARTAJames Hoesterey a professor of anthropology who know works at Department of Religion Emory University Georgia, US told his story about how can he fall in love to Islam in such a deep way till he can call Islam in the country as "Smiling Islam" after visiting Indonesia through Zoom on Friday (5/6/2020).

He told his story about the first time he came to Indonesia in 2001. He was living at Bukittinggi, Sumatera Island at then. When he lives there 9/11 struck Amerika. He got so worried and trying to reach his family through a local small internet shop.

The owner of the shop, which is a muslim offered him a free call to America. "I know you worried about your brother and sisters in America, you could use the phone to contact them for free," the owner of the shop said at then.

Hoesterey was so touched by his generosity. And since then he began to fell in love more to Indonesia and to the people and respect Islam more. He also decided to change all American point of view about Islam, especially after seeing how Muslim in Indonesia live and struggle.

Taken from Emory official website Hoesterey which wear Batik in his Zoom conference was chair of the Indonesia-Timor Leste Studies Committee at the Association for Asian Studies (2011-2015).  Currently, he serves as Secretary at the American Institute for Indonesian Studies (AIFIS).

James Hoesterey had also published a book entitled Rebranding Islam: Piety, Prosperity, and a Self-help Guru (Stanford University Press, November 2015). This book tells his research about chronicles the rise, fall, and rebranding of celebrity televangelist of Islam Kyai Haji Abdullah Gymnastiar of Indonesia. (*)

**) Ikuti berita terbaru TIMES Indonesia di Google News klik link ini dan jangan lupa di follow.

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