The place of the santri

In a typical Islamic boarding school anywhere in the world, students follow a regimented programme from dawn to dusk with tough rules.

But in Indonesia, pesantren students often defy stereotypes.

In Indonesia,

• Veiled girls had welcomed a western VIP with a rendition of rock anthem "Stairway to Heaven"
  
• There is a Harley Davidson-riding, turban-clad but leather-jacketed cleric Abdullah Gymnastiar
  
• And there are religious schools with computers and basketball courts

But still for every ‘liberal’ religious schools in Indonesia, there are still many unregistered pesantrens that continue to spread their rigid interpretation of Islamic teachings.

Sadly the Indonesian government cannot touch these pesantrens for political reasons.

Read more about the Indonesian religious schools in this reuters report.

note:

The term pesantren derives from the root word santri or student - pe-santri-an or the place of the santri (source wikipedia)