Indonesian Muslim Diaspora in Contemporary South Korea: Living as Religious Minority Group in Non-Muslim Country

Abstract

The process of migration and cross-border mobility occurs for a number of reasons or backgrounds such as politics, economics, education, and so forth. It made a number of Muslims leave their homeland to another country. Due to this migration, a significant number of Muslims become a diasporic community in other countries and sometimes live as a religious minority group in a non-Muslim country. Currently, it is about one-third of Muslims in the world live as a minority in a number of countries both in the West and also in some Asian countries such as India, Japan, South Korea, etc. This article discusses the Indonesian Muslim minorities in South Korea on how they preserve their identity amidst the challenges they faced as diasporic and minority groups of people, and how the Islamic jurisprudence perspectives discuss and offer the problem solving through the discourse of fiqh of minority and fiqh of citizenship. Through the interviews and observations, the data show several problems they faced as a minority in non-Muslim land. As diasporic, at least two types of identities they preserve well, cultural/ethnic identity as well as for some of them is also religious ones. In most cases, the latter ones are most contested than the previous ones. On the other hand, in a bigger context as diaspora and minority, there have been several crucial issues related to the integration matters, citizenship, and such, which still lasts and needs to be addressed or solved fairly.