Abstract
Because Indonesia's culture is strongly linked to the Islamic religion - Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population, today with about 200 million Muslims out of 230 million Indonesians, in other words 86% of Indonesians are Muslims– both the official definition of Indonesian national identity made by the state since the independence and the unofficial 'feeling' by the people and by intellectuals and religious of their own identity have been defined according to Islam – by including or excluding it.
Thus, we can wonder in which way Islam has influenced the emergence of the Indonesian national identity and how it has been considered in use by the Indonesian Republic of the 'national identity' concept?
Islam had an obvious place in the rising national feeling of the Indonesians, whereas the radical changes in the Indonesian cultural and religious life during the 19th century made Islam inapt to gather all the Indonesians (I). Thus, the first Indonesian Republic defined a national identity different from, and sometimes even against the Islamic identity, although progressively this religion got an ambiguous place in public policy and in official discourses (II).
