Indonesian Muslims' response towards Japanese Islamic propaganda and their further development

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The 1930s have long been considered to be relatively unimportant in the modern political history of Indonesia since the nationalist movement was forced into stagnancy through the oppressive actions of the Dutch colonial government from the mid-1920s. Furthermore, Muslim organizations were thought to have contributed little to the political development towards independence. However, when we look into the periodicals published by self-conscious Muslims in the 1930s, we obtain a quite different view. These periodicals not only provided religious knowledge and information on the activities of Muslim organizations, but also domestic and international news with photographs. Especially just before the Japanese occupation, there were a lot of articles and reports concerning the problem of establishing a parliament. From the contents, we can see that the emerging Muslim middle class was the primary audience of these periodicals as well as an indication of the burst of political and socialactivity appearing within the Muslim middle class community in Indonesia during this period.