My Friend the Fanatic: Travels With an Indonesian Islamist

In October 2002, Sadanand Dhume found himself in a place most foreigners were trying to flee—Bali. Powerful explosions the previous night had ripped through two tourist nightclubs, killing more than 200 people. That evening he visited all that remained of the Sari Club—piles of ash, twisted girders, blackened beer bottles, and the stench of charred wood and petrol. Amidst the desultory crackle of police walkie-talkies, he wondered about the future of a country long regarded as immune to such carnage.

My Friend the Fanatic is a portrait of Indonesia, a nation in the midst of a profound shift towards both Islamic orthodoxy and Islamist politics. This portrait is painted through the travels of a pair of unlikely protagonists. Dhume is a foreign correspondent, a Princeton-educated Indian atheist with a fondness for John Updike and an interest in economic development. His companion, Herry Nurdi, is a young Islamist who hero-worships Osama bin Laden.

As the most populous Islamic nation on the planet, Indonesia occupies remarkably little space on our bookshelves. My Friend the Fanatic fills this void. It is a work made timely by a deep hunger for knowledge about Muslim cultures. But it is equally the story of a sprawling land at the edge of the world captured at a defining moment.

How does a society go from broad inclusiveness to shrill intolerance in the space of a generation? Will Indonesia be radicalised alongside other parts of the Islamic world? Does Herry represent the future?