However, it still can't escape the distinction as "the most populous Islamic state" 'coz +80% of the 200 million population are Muslims. Now that's +160 million muslims versus the most populous Islamic country in the Mid-East which only has 60-70 million people.

But the difference is, the Islamic countries of the Mid-East are purely Islamic unlike Indonesia which has a variety of religions.

Still, Indonesia gets dubbed as "the most populous Islamic state" which unfortunately has some underlying negative tone in the West.

Also, Islam here is really lax [in general] unlike in the Mid-East or neighboring Malaysia yet But Malaysia doesn't end-up in the news 'coz it's thinly-populated.