The State and Religion in Indonesia: The Indonesian Ulama Council’s Authority on Public Health and National Lottery

This article examines the relationship between the Indonesian Ulama Council (MUI), a Muslim umbrella organisation, and the Indonesian state. It focuses on the dynamic role that MUI has played in public health issues and the national lottery. The two topics were chosen to focus on MUI’s partly contradictory role in its relationship with the state of Indonesia. While MUI has largely played along with the state on issues of public health and family planning, it has stood in opposition to and provided moral resistance to the state on issues of gambling and the national lottery. The analysis uses the theories of Bourdieu on symbolic capital and power, and the resource dependence theory as analytical tools. The article discusses how the state depends on the MUI’s religious legitimacy regarding policies like family planning and COVID vaccination. It has used its symbolic capital to mediate between divine revelation, public morality, and state authority. The MUI has played a paradoxical role through the dual processes of halalisation and haramisation. In contrast to halalisation in areas such as commerce, the MUI has stipulated the haramisation of gambling executed through a national lottery.