From a netfriend:

Sunni Islam [as practised in Indonesia and being the dominant strand of Islam in most other places] is certainly not totalitarian, established, as it is, around the teaching at the local mosque. Shia Islam, as practised in Iran, certainly is. That’s not to say that all Irani Muslims who call themselves ‘Shia’ adhere to what the mullahs teach them, any more than all Catholics obey the Pope.

[And both Sunni and Shia break into further strands…]

What I have said in the past, that may have given the impression that I have a very simplistic view of Islam, is that Muslims – and I’ve been talking about Indonesian Muslims – are arrayed along a rather slippery continuum.

Why ‘slippery’?

It doesn’t take much to slide towards the extreme [fundamentalist] end of the continuum. eg [mentioned before]: one young female doctor in Java about a year ago said she’d had enormous sympathy for the WTC victims & families, but Bush’s use of the word ‘crusade’ had made her decide to ‘go on jihad’ to Afghanistan. [I trust it was her intention to go as a medico rather than a combatant.]

The call to jihad is the ‘sixth’ pillar of Islam, ie the duty to consider when profession of faith, daily prayers, fasting, almsgiving and the pigrimage to Mecca have been attended to. Even very moderate Muslims believe in jihad; they just interpret it in spiritual terms.

Judging by the polls in various Indonesian newspapers since 12/10, my guess would be that roughly half of Indonesian Muslims would have some desire to see an Islamic state. I think the other half would be strongly opposed, seeing it as a barrier to both development and national unity. My estimate is based on how Indonesians have been viewing police investigations into the bombings – whether they think the police have been doing a good job, or whether they think they’ve been pressured by the West [/ terrorism vs Judaeo-Christian conspiracy]. There has been a growing yet grudging acknowledgement, among the ‘Islamists’, that terrorism exists in Indonesia.

Of course, there are all sorts of permutations amongst Indonesian and other Muslims but I’ll leave it there.