Book Description

One day, the regent of a district in Central Java noticed that some of the religious schools in his area have become less tolerant of other more moderate Muslim populace, which are more common in Indonesia. Upon closer examination, the regent discovered that the Uztads (teachers) are Wahabis from Saudi Arabia who have somehow gained control of those schools. It seems that the ultraconservative Wahabis are planning to change the way the people practice their religion by force if necessary. The regent, together with Noto, who is the crown prince of the kingdom as well as the military commander of the region, decided to quietly act to rid these harmful foreign influences. To make sure that they have thoroughly dealt with the problem, the regent decided afterward to send one of his disciples to Saudi Arabia to rid those who sent the Uztads to Java. Reality and spiritual existence for some people in Java often coexist. As the future king of Mataram, it seems that Notos life and progress have been closely monitored by Nyai Roro Kidul (the goddess of the Southern Ocean). Interestingly, Notos attempt to have a son has attracted the karmas of five of his elder advisorsnone of them has a sonas well as the Nyai. When his son was born, a lightning bolt shattered the window of the hospital room. Miraculously, the five elder advisors happened to be there to protect the mother and the baby from harm. Noto felt certain that the Nyai had sensed the birth of his son and caused the lightning to strike as a warning. Again, when Noto was celebrating his troops victory during an annual war game, the Nyai unleashed a tsunami that flooded the area, thus killing several soldiers as well as countless numbers of large and smaller animals. Furious with what the Nyai had done, Noto decided to call her out and confront her. After a long conversation with the Nyai, Noto was able to convince the Nyai that she is not as almighty as she thinks. As an honest leader, Notos anticorruption stands created a crisis that threatens the stability of the government. With his brother, Dharmawan, and with the help of a computer hacker, they decided to manipulate evidences to convict those they believed are guilty. One of the corrupt members of the parliament who was eventually implicated turned out to have been influenced by a foreign power, a serious crime that made him a target of a military tribunal. The tribunal convicted him to death. However, when he tried to make a deal with the police by revealing who was responsible for the hotel bombing that killed many people several years earlier, he was killed in his jail cell. All his colleagues point the Muslim Fundamentalist group as being responsible for his killing because he was about to implicate them for the bombing. By then, the public has had enough of the antics of the Muslim Fundamentalist group and decided to barricade them inside their own headquarters and then set the place ablaze.