URL originale : https://books.openedition.org/irasec/10258
Chapter 5
Religious Revival or Intolerance? The Hold of Radicalism on Indonesian Society
p. 221-269
Texte intégral
1In the eyes of most observers, for the past ten years or so, Indonesian Islam has been torn between contradictory tendencies emanating from the opposition between moderate and radical Muslims. Leading historian Merle Ricklefs commented in 2001, “No one can say who will win the global struggle within Islam. But in Indonesia the creative thinkers of tolerant Islam have powerful positions and are determined to defeat extremist views.”1 The American anthropologist Robert Hefner believes in the civic-pluralist tradition of Indonesian Islam but cautions that “… at both the national and regional level, the civilian and military elite no longer enjoys the ideological cohesion it did at the height of the New Order”. He adds: “Unfortunately, rather than being good news for civil society, the result has been largely bad. It has allowed uncivil alliances of state actors and sectarian groupings to rule the day, draining great portions of the social capital for civility and tolerance for which Indonesia has long been justly renowned”.2 Finally, political scientist William Liddle wrote in 2002 that the probability of seeing an Islamic state emerge from Indonesia was largely over-estimated. This exaggeration was due, he felt, to the distorted perception that a great schism exists between Muslims and non-Muslims; in reality, a schism does exist but within the Muslim community itself—between the conservative modernist Muslims, on the one hand and, on the other hand, the liberal modernist Muslims who are allied with the syncretistic and traditionalist Muslims as well as with non-Muslims.3
2A global evaluation of the attitudes of the Muslim community of Indonesia should not, however, be reduced to the confrontation between well-defined currents. Certainly, there are unyielding personalities camped on both ends of the Muslim spectrum—the intransigence of some of the Congress of Mujahidin leaders clash against the forward-looking attitudes of the Liberal Islam Network (Jaringan Islam Liberal, JIL)—but, as diametrically opposed as they are, these organisations share the fact that they exist on the margins of a highly diverse community. Thus, to grasp the real weight of the temptation of radicalism in Indonesian Islam, one must plunge into the heart of the ambivalences that characterise the Indonesian umma, torn between antinomic identity demands and whipped by stormy debates that spare neither the major organisations nor the inner circles where Indonesian Islamic thinking is formulated.
I. Apparent Contradictions of the Indonesian Homo Islamicus
3The Muslim community of Indonesia seems to be tugged in opposite directions: what it clamours for in opinion polls, it rejects at the voting urn. It comes down harshly on radicals who have strayed into politics, yet is not indifferent to the themes they develop.
Political Failure of Rigorist Islam
4Elections organised since the return of democracy to Indonesia show a persistent rejection by a large majority of the electorate of parties calling for the establishment of an Islamic state and the imposition of the sharia.4 In 1999, ten Islam-based political parties made it to Parliament: PPP (United Development Party), PBB (Crescent and Star Party), PK (Justice Party) and seven small parties which obtained each less than 1 per cent of the votes. Together they garnered about 16 per cent of the votes (17 million votes). Five other parties, PKB (National Awakening Party, NU-linked), PAN (National Mandate Party, Muhammadiyah-linked), and three other parties with less than one per cent of the votes, which we can call “pluralist Islamic parties”5 as they endorsed a Muslim identity without making Islam the sole basis of their political action, gathered 22 per cent of the votes (23 million). Their programmes revealed a desire to maintain the status quo symbolised by Pancasila, that of an open and tolerant Islam where minorities are respected. Debates over the application of Islamic law during legislation confirmed the dissent between these two currents. Starting in 2000, PPP, PBB and PK proposed many times that the famous Jakarta Charter obliging Muslims to apply Islamic law, be inscribed in the preamble of the Constitution of 1945. The champions of a more open Islam, along with other political groupings, opposed these attempts.
5A very marked chasm thus appeared in the Muslim political scene, separating, in a way, an identity-based Islam from a project-based Islam. The former drew voters who supported parties such as PKB or PAN, which could be considered as Islamic on account of the large number of Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah cadres within their respective leadership, but whose programmes very much resembled that of the secular parties. On the other hand, project-based Islam, represented by PBB, PK and some elements of PPP, arose from more radical currents. It drew political inspiration from the Islamism of Mawdudi or of Sayyid Qutb and wished to install a ‘more Islamic’ Indonesian state in which the sharia would be applied, at least to Indonesian Muslims. In 1999, the former current was obviously dominant. Even if we were to overlook this rift, it can be observed that more than half of the voters of Muslim faith (50 out of 87 per cent) refused to vote for a party with any links—close or distant—to Islam, preferring to support organisations without an Islamic identity (PDI-P, Golkar). Thus a clear majority of Indonesian Muslims wished to keep religion separate from politics.
6The elections of April 2004 confirmed, mutadis mutandis, this overwhelming trend. The parties claiming to be representative of Islam in some way or other obtained almost 38 per cent of the votes. Amongst these, the moderate Islamic parties (PKB, PAN, PBR, PNUI) saw their support decline slightly (20 per cent of the votes compared with 22 per cent in 1999), while the more conservative ones (PPP, PKS, PBB) improved their standing in the same proportions (18 per cent of the votes versus 16 per cent in 1999).6 Amongst these, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS, ex-PK) made a remarkable breakthrough, improving its standing from 1.36 to 7.3 per cent. This irrefutable electoral success was undoubtedly the outcome of an efficient organisation, but can also be attributed to a very distinct moderation of its approach: unusually for a radical organisation, Hidayat Nur Wahid’s party abandoned its determined calls for the installation of Islamic law even before the start of campaigning, emphasising instead the richness and particularities of Indonesian Islam. Championing the anti-corruption cause—a very popular theme in the country—it considerably toned down calls for the implementation of Islamic law. Thus in 2002, it proposed that the Jakarta Charter be replaced by a new concept called the Medina Charter (Piagam Madinah), where each religion would receive equal treatment and would apply its own religious law (including the sharia for the Muslims). This semantic shift did not go down well with the other Islamist parties (PBB, PPP). Accused of betraying the sharia cause, PKS’ defence was that it was not at all renouncing the Islamic law but, “out of a concern for justice”, it was proposing that citizens be asked to obey the religious laws of their respective religions.7
7So in 2004, as in 1999, only a small minority of Indonesian voters supported coalitions promising a concrete Islamic project. On the contrary, more than 80 per cent of them unambiguously reaffirmed during this election their backing for the moderate secularism of Pancasila.
The 2009 Elections
8The legislative elections of June 2009 turned out to be a bitter disappointment for the organisations representing Islam. The nine parties in the running only gathered a modest 29 per cent of the votes, which amounted to a loss of almost one quarter of their support as compared to 2004. The ranking of the various groupings was also overturned. Although far from hitting its target of 20 per cent of the votes, PKS’s performance did improve slightly and it became the top Muslim party of Indonesia with 7.9 per cent of the votes. PAN declined very slightly (6.2 per cent) while both PPP (5.3 per cent) and PKB (4.9 per cent) literally crumbled.
9Many reasons can be advanced to explain this slide at the polls. The weakened ties between the major Muslim organisations and the parties claiming to represent them led to dissent and loss of credibility. These parties provided identity bearings for the disorientated sympathisers of NU and Muhammadiyah, recently re-engaged in politics thanks to Reformasi. The return to a stable democracy and, most of all, the implication of political leaders in activities incompatible with Islamic morale (internal rifts but also corruption scandals) eroded this support and loosened the link uniting sympathisers of the major organisations and those who voted for these representative parties. This was particularly true in the case of NU, whose internal split resulted in the formation of no less than three parties, each claiming political legitimacy for itself, and a drop of more than half of PKB’s share of voters, from 10.57 to 4.9 per cent. PAN’s minute loss (from 6.4 to 6.2 per cent) indicates a greater stability despite the disappointment of Muhammadiyah cadres after the eruption of a corruption scandal involving 38 PAN provincial members of Parliament in West Sumatra, and their relative slighting by PAN, eager to look for suitable candidates outside the ranks of Muhammadiyah.
10The second explanation is linked to the successful capturing by the secular parties of political Islam’s campaign themes. Given the undeniable Islamisation of Indonesian public life in the past few years, almost all the political parties in the country were obliged to make a sometimes big show of championing Islamic values. As we shall see, this resulted in a very obvious advancement of these themes in Indonesian law. Moreover, parties that had hitherto placed themselves squarely in the nationalist camp also started during the 2009 campaign to push to the fore their Muslim identity. On the contrary, with hindsight gained from past elections, some Islamist parties preferred to reassure potential voters. PKS thus pursued the policy of openness and moderation that could be said to have enabled its breakthrough in the 2004 elections. Its campaign slogan, “Clean, Responsible and Professional (Bersih, Peduli, Professional)” made no particular reference to Islam. The party started to present itself as religious as well as nationalist (agama dan nasionalis). During its congress—held symbolically on the Hindu territory of Bali—in February 2008, PKS even flirted with the possibility of transforming itself into a party open not only to non-Muslim voters but also to non-Muslim candidates, something hitherto carried out only in Christian areas without publicity.8 As proof of the new mentality of openness, many of the party leaders (Hidayat Nurwahid and Surachman Hidayat) even visited Hindu temples. PKS’s Islamic identity was finally (and not surprisingly) confirmed at the end of this congress, as was respect for the religious plurality of Indonesia and the opening up towards other communities. Given the wide media coverage of these debates, party members were justified in thinking that they had truly advanced in their desire to recruit beyond the narrow circle of militant Islamism.
11Nonetheless, the election results reveal that the ideological crisscrossing between nationalist secular parties and Islamic parties benefited mostly the former. With the blurring of the frontiers that had structured political life for decades, voters were free to vote for candidates who showed great respect for Islamic values while avoiding Islamic parties.
II. A ‘Sharia-isation’ of Mentalities?
12This evaluation of Muslim public opinion as revealed by the election results should nonetheless by revisited in the light of a series of polls conducted by the Centre of Research on Islam and Society (Pusat Penelitian Islam dan Masyarakat, PPIM) at the Islamic University of Jakarta. These polls of thousands of Indonesians carried out in 2001, 2002 and 2007, show a picture of the Muslim community that is very different from the political evolution just described but which may explain the apparent contradictions between a proclaimed attachment to Islamic values and the weak Muslim vote.9
13The majority (58 per cent) of those polled in 2001 and 2002 de-clared their support for an “Islamic government, based on the Qu’ran and the Sunna and led by religious experts”. Sixty-one per cent of this majo-rity proclaimed that they hoped the authorities would oblige Muslims to apply the sharia (tantamount thus to a return to the Jakarta Charter). A considerable minority declared themselves in favour of very strict punish-ment in accordance to Muslim law: 42 per cent favoured the whipping of persons found guilty of fornication, and 29 per cent favoured the amputation of the hands of thieves (only 50 per cent was not in favour). Similarly, propositions that constrained women were popular: 44 per cent of those polled felt that the wearing of the veil for women should be mandated by the law, and 41 per cent felt that women should not be allowed to socialise alone with men who are not members of their family (mahram).
14Logically then, Islamist organisations advocating such measures would thus enjoy much support: 46 per cent of those polled declared that efforts by movements such as the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), Darul Islam or Indonesian Council of Mujahidins (MMI) to apply the sharia should be encouraged.
15In spite of the massive support for democracy (only less than 3 per cent of those polled in 2002 disagreed that democracy was the best political system for Indonesia), Indonesian public opinion for the most part was still scarred by the intolerance resulting from the joint efforts of New Order propagandists and those of radical Islam. The greatest victims of this state of mind were the communists, held by all at arm’s length from the political scene: only 5 per cent of those polled accepted their participation in elections, 22 per cent accepted that they should be allowed to hold meetings, and 24 per cent accepted that a member of the communist party be allowed to teach in a public school. By contrast, the Christians seemed much better tolerated: only 3 per cent of those polled were opposed to Christians (compared to 67 per cent in the case of the communists). But flying in the face of the democratic values voted for in the polls, this leniency towards the Christians did not extend to the political domain. The Christian influence was perceived as a threat and measures that appeared to contain this influence were welcomed: only slightly fewer than one out of two persons polled (44 per cent) opposed the barring of Christians from teaching positions in secondary schools, 45 per cent opposed the conduct of Christian ceremonies (mass) close to their homes, and only 37 per cent objected to a law banning the construction of churches in their vicinity. Given the intent to build a multi-religious state in 1945 and the spirit of cooperation that united Christians and Muslims in the 1950s, these results demonstrate a veritable change.
16By 2007 public opinion seemed to have changed significantly on political issues: an overwhelming majority of those polled (85 per cent) affirmed their loyalty to a united republic of Indonesia founded on Pancasila and not Islam (NKRI berdasarkan Pancasila = bukan Negara Islam), and only 23 per cent were in favour of plans by organisations, such as DI/TII, MMI and others, to make Indonesia an Islamic state. On the other hand, there was a lingering intolerance towards religious minorities, particularly towards Christians: 62 per cent were against the idea of a non-Muslim head of state (permitted by the constitution), 33.5 per cent remained opposed to Christian teachers in public schools, and close to 52 per cent were still against the building of churches in their neighbourhood.
17As we have seen, this seeming inclination for Islamic law and the open display of a very real religious intolerance did not translate into the triumph on the political scene of parties whose programmes best corresponded to these aspirations. This apparent paradox, whose origins we shall analyse, did not, however, prevent an incorporation of principles stemming from Islamic law into Indonesian law, accelerating a process that had been in the works for several years now.
A Progressive Islamisation of Indonesian Law
18A quick analysis of the evolution of Indonesian law from 30 years ago would show how deceptive discourse aside, Islamic norms have gained ground in Indonesian law.
19Although debates on Islamic law were considered taboo during the first two decades of the New Order, the Muslim religious authorities knew how to make themselves heard, often with success, in all of the major debates that stirred Indonesian society.10 Thus in 1974, the law on marriage institutionalised polygamy with some limits and confirmed the validity of religious marriage.11 In 1989 the law on Islamic courts extended its jurisdiction to encompass inheritance and donations matters throughout the Archipelago, putting an end to protracted efforts by secular jurists to lay out a civil code for all the religious communities. Without much fanfare, the ‘religiously neutral’ Indonesia of Pancasila had come to include some elements of the sharia in its positive law. The presidential instruction on Kompilasi Hukum Islam and the ministerial decree on legal almsgiving (zakat) of 1991, the establishment of Bank Muamalat in 1992, and finally the abolishment of the national lottery (SDSB) constituted an undeniable progress in the implementation of Islamic law although it was never spelled out as such. Until the fall of Soeharto, these insertions of elements of Islamic law into Indonesian law that were the outcome of the state negotiating between nationalist and Islamist groups, had been limited by two principles: the private nature and optional aspect of these insertions.12 However, the political loosening up that occurred after the fall of the New Order encouraged the recognition of Muslim norms in Indonesian law. Several symbolic projects supported by the Islamist parties but also by some secular parties testified to this one-upmanship in the wave of Islamic piety that no one dared to openly counter.
20On the national level, many laws adopted in the past few years have been denounced by religious minorities as well as human rights activists for pandering to conservative Islam and its values. In 2003, a new law on education specified that religious education (already compulsory) in public and private schools had to be dispensed by teachers of the same faith as the students concerned. This law was greatly contested in Christian schools as it clearly sought to limit the religious influence that these schools had on their Muslim students. More recently, in October 2008, the parliament adopted a so-called anti-pornography law (RUU-AP). This law, which had been discussed in parliament for almost five years, provoked heated arguments between its proponents and opponents. The former argued that it was necessary to protect Indonesian society from moral corruption stemming from the West. The latter highlighted, rightly, that the extremely ambiguous definition of pornography (any representation or attitude likely to arouse desire) would affect artistic creation to a large extent, and would leave women at the mercy of all sorts of censorship. Indonesia already had an arsenal of laws to safeguard public morale, reminded the opponents, who were equally disturbed by calls for the public to intervene, which could provide radical organisations with a justification for their vigilantism.
21The law was finally adopted by a large majority since all parties, with the exception of PDI-P and the tiny dissenting Protestant party PDS, supported it. This new law, a potential threat to liberty, showed the Islamists-inspired moral panic that often gripped the secular parties. Yet, a year and a half after its adoption, the new law was never really applied: several governors of provinces with a non-Muslim majority (Bali and North Celebes in particular) made it known that they refused to implement this law in their region and, to our knowledge, by April 2010, that is, more than one year after its adoption, a performance by nude dancers in a bar in Bandung on the night of 31 December 2009 had been the only case prosecuted under the RUU-AP law.13
The Acehnese Exception
22In the hope of turning the population away from the separatists of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), successive Indonesian governments have since 1999 prepared a law authorising special statutes that are dispensed from Central State law and in which the sharia officially received greater room for implementation. Law Number 18 on the autonomy of Aceh (which mentions the right to legislate on the implementation of the sharia) was finally voted on during the presidency of Abdurrahman Wahid and ratified by his successor, Megawati, in August 2001.These autonomy laws hoped to break up the separatist movement by courting the ulama. The local authorities were effectively totally free to define the modalities of its application. The provincial rulings (qanun) voted by the provincial parliament were drawn up by a commission composed of parliamentarians who were experts in religion and not by the plenary session, which gave rise to a very rigorist conception in their implementation. Qanun No. 11 of 2002 was thus the first triumph for the conservative current: it laid out punishments as extreme as public whipping or six months’ imprisonment for anyone guilty of three consecutive absences from Friday prayers at the mosque.14
23The implementation of this new legislation was accompanied by the creation of a ‘sharia police’ (wilayatul hisbah, WH), tasked with its application. Since then patrols have been carried out throughout the province to root out what is considered as deviant behaviour: alcohol consumption, gambling, but also ‘illicit’ meetings between men and women (Qanun Khalwat, 15 July 2003). These patrols also pushed the women of Aceh to veil themselves, the men to go to the mosque for Friday prayers, and for fasting during Ramadan. Ill-educated and sometimes brutal, this squad quickly became unpopular amongst the population and its patrols were sometimes set upon by angry crowds.15 Its behaviour and efficacy were often questioned: it managed to make the life of women who did not wear the veil and that of young illegitimate couples very difficult indeed, yet failed to drive the men to the mosque on Fridays. In particular, the Qanun Khalwat forbidding proximity of unmarried men and women was wildly implemented by small groups in the population. As for corporal punishment, it was driven not so much by the wish to inflict physical suffering than by the desire to publicly humiliate and warn: no physical injury must arise from the cane lashings dispensed during grandiloquent ceremonies.16
24Nonetheless this penalisation of Islamic morale in Aceh underwent a significant turn in September 2009. A few days before separation, the regional assembly effectively adopted a Qanun Jinayah, paving the way for a series of very controversial new punishments in Indonesia. The new code introduced a hierarchy of highly questionable sanctions: 60 lashings for gambling, 100 for homosexuality as well as sexual relations outside of marriage, 400 for the rape of a child. Most of all, it laid the grounds for the whipping to death of anyone guilty of adultery. Adopted by a small majority, this new law was immediately condemned by Irwandi Yusuf, ex-leader of GAM who had become governor of the province, and who declared that he would not be applying it.17 The law is technically valid but the governor has severely reduced the budget of the sharia police (wilayatul hisbah, WH), which is now under police management (SatPol) and is no longer linked to the Sharia Office (Dinas Syariat Islam, DSI). The latter has also had its budget cut and is not headed by ideological Islamists. Thus the sharia police has been less active in the last two years, except in some local jurisdictions where authorities are more sympathetic to their agenda.18 This episode confirmed belatedly that the concession of Islamic law in Aceh stemmed above all else from a desire to weaken the separatist movement, which, more nationalist than Islamist, had not announced that it aimed to implement the sharia.19 This incident also demonstrated the unbridled Islamist one-upmanship often seen on the local level in the past years.
Islamisation and Decentralisation: The Phenomenon of Perda Sharia (Sharia By-Laws)
25As the first exception to the unitary law of Indonesia, the Aceh case had important repercussions on the national scale. Regional leaders clamoured for Aceh parliamentarians to “teach them their methods”.20 Taking advantage of decentralisation laws adopted as of 1999—which did not, however, grant them any jurisdiction in religious matters—several local collectives (provinces, departments or municipalities) issued by-laws that obliged those under their charge to obey Islamic law.21 The perda sharia (perda being the acronym of peraturan daerah, regional law) numbered 78 on the regency level (kabupaten) and in the big towns (kotamadya), but more than 1,000 if one includes the small towns and villages.22 Studies conducted on this phenomenon of perda sharia have shed light on many characteristics of the Islamisation of Indonesian law, and more generally, on certain aspects of the religious revival.
26The first characteristic is that this wave is mostly driven by a desire for the moralisation of society. Out of the 78 decrees (adopted by 52 local collectives) studied by Robin Bush, 45 per cent are based on the respect of public morale. These anti-vice laws (perda anti-maksiat) mainly target prostitution, gambling and the consumption of alcohol. They sometimes fall in line with certain prescriptions in Islam but do not always make a reference to religion. Only slightly more than half (55 per cent) of the new by-laws are concerned strictly with Islamisation. They seek to promote by force religious knowledge (for example, by controlling the religious education of students, local civil servants and couples-to-be), the wearing of ‘Muslim’ clothes (the veil for women, baju koko for men), and legal almsgiving (zakat).23
27The second characteristic of these sharia-inspired by-laws is that they blurred the lines between Muslim parties and secular ones. On the local level, the perda sharia were initiated more frequently by secular parties such as Golkar and the moderate Muslim parties like PAN than the Islamist parties (PKS, PBB, PPP) because the former were in charge of more localities. Thus PKS, which actually militated for the Islamisation of Indonesian law, could still declare recently that it had not brought about the adoption of any such law in the local collectives under its control.24 Hidayat Nur Wahid, one of its main leaders, also declared in August 2007 that “demands to implement sharia… should not refer to the implementation of Islamic law, but instead focus on moral enhancement.”25 Nonetheless, PKS often lent its support to the actions of other parties. For example, in the Pandeglang district of Banten, the Chief of Police, Dimyati Natakusumah, a PPP member, adopted several measures inspired by Islamic law: the wearing of the veil by female members of the administration and the separation of girls and boys in schools. He even ordered that all the buildings under his administration be repainted in the colour green (the colour of Islam). In protest, PDIP left the coalition that brought the Chief of Police to power. The latter was, however, supported by the local branch of PKS.26
28A study of the geographical distribution of perda sharia as well as the chronology of their adoption allows one to fashion an explanation for the involvement of secular parties such as Golkar. The majority of decrees were adopted in regions where the Darul Islam movement, which militated for an Islamic state, was very active in the 1950s.27 These regions (West Java, Aceh, South Sulawesi, South Kalimantan) were, of course, marked by a strong Muslim identity, but religion was not the only factor: apart from Java, Darul Islam had developed in regions where resentment at the confiscation of power by the central power was deeply ingrained.28 Yet, as noted Sindhunata, the beginnings of Reformasi was characterised by a process of ‘de-Javanising’ Indonesian politics. Insofar as “New Order politics was Javanese politics, closed and centralist (Politik Orde Baru adalah politik Jawa, yang tertutup dan sentralistik)”, post-Soeharto politics experienced an anti-Javanese backlash (gejala anti Jawa).29 In regions marked by strong anti-Javanese feelings, the declaration of a religious identity contradicting the status quo established on the national level thus constituted, for a large section of the political class, a way to signal to the voter loyalty to Islam, specificity and distance from the capital.
29Examining the chronology of the adoption of these perda sharia seems to confirm this analysis: the majority were adopted in the first years after decentralisation laws had been implemented.30 Once these had come into effect and the regions had benefited from a new redistribution of jurisdiction and resources, the urgency to manifest particularism through religious laws diminished. Moreover, in many cases, this policy of Islamic one-upmanship carried out by politicians who felt they lacked religious credentials (that is, politicians from secular parties) did not yield the intended results. As of 2005, the election of local executives (pilkada) by direct voting penalised this type of manoeuvres and removed its political necessity.31 With the exception of Aceh, almost no new law based on Islamic law was adopted after 2006. There has been a drop in perda sharia since, although it is hard to obtain an overall picture since there could be many such by-laws at the city or village level, and they could still crop up as electoral strategies in the future.32
30Finally, the phenomenon of perda sharia, limited in time and parameter, reflected on the local level what we have observed on the national level—that the Islamist one-upmanship had more to do with an affirmation of identity than with a real desire by the population to see the rigours of the sharia applied. Here, too, a great disparity appears between the affirmed adhesion to the values and norms of Islam, and the votes for candidates proposing their implementation. In other words, if Muslim Indonesians overwhelmingly favour propositions related to the implementation of Islamic law when polled, these propositions are not a priority when they make their choices as voters. There are two possible explanations for this paradox. First, the politicians who come up with perda sharia are not—far from it—always identified with the values they claim to promote.33 Second, these issues are very minor compared with the problems encountered on a daily basis that the population would rather have their representatives address. This is what Ahmad-Norma Permata emphasises, based on a series of surveys conducted by the International Foundation for Election System (IFES) between 2001 and 2005. Respondents were asked to reply to the question “What is the greatest problem your community faces?” on both the national and local level. In both cases, the answers were similar and remained largely unchanged during the period in question. In decreasing order of importance, they worried about: the increase in the cost of basic necessities, difficulty in finding jobs, cost of healthcare and education, lack of security and political instability. Nothing related to religion or morale was spontaneously cited by more than 1 per cent of the population.34
31The political leaders were just as hypocritical as the public in this affair: pushed by radical organisations and believing that it was what the people wanted, some of the local leaders adopted restrictive by-laws with a religious basis. Their lack of conviction, as well as fear that the silent majority might be unhappy, meant that they merely paid lip-service and these laws were but rarely implemented. While easy to apply in public administrations, it was almost impossible to do so in the streets.35 The relative loss of influence of the radicals and the ideological revival in favour of Pancasila also contributed to this evolution.
32Nonetheless, the anxieties expressed by feminist groups (often the foremost opponents of perda sharia)36 and human rights organisations have not ceased. Even though they are not always implemented, these religious by-laws are an undeniable testament to the curtailment of individual liberty and most of all, to the decline of the rule of law enshrined at the highest level. Although these by-laws obviously lay outside the jurisdiction of local collectives, the Supreme Court refused to rule on their legality. Such a decision encouraged the spread of the idea that religion-based by-laws stood outside of the classic hierarchy of law and thus could be imposed outside of all legal structures. More than the perda sharia, it is this ambivalence that undoubtedly contributed most to the prevalence of Islamic norms in Indonesia of late. For example, the veil has become compulsory in schools in many localities even though there is no by-law regulating the wearing of the veil. Its adoption as part of the school uniform often obliges students to put it on once they step into the school compound.
III. The End of the Big Organisations?
33Having long shaped Indonesian Islam, Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah are indisputably the main victims of the break-up of Muslim representation in Indonesia. Threatened since the end of the 1990s by the emergence of numerous lively radical organisations that contest their legitimacy to defend the interests of the Indonesian umat, these grand dames of Indonesian Islam are also weakened by internal conflicts opposing conservatives and reformists, as well as supporters and opponents of political engagement.
Muhammadiyah: Between Rigour and Reformism
34While of a much more modest size than its traditionalist rival, Muhammadiyah (or Path of Muhammad) continues to exercise a great influence in Indonesia. Indeed, the profile of its members (more urban and better educated than that of NU) gives it easier access to influential posts and a bigger presence in debates on ideas.37 After the disappointment of Abdurrahman Wahid’s presidency and the momentary discouragement amongst the young generation of traditionalists, moderate Muslims looked to Muhammadiyah.
35That it should incarnate the hopes of these moderate Muslims may appear surprising at first sight: the reformist organisation was founded in 1912 with the aim of ‘purifying’ Islam of customs and religious practices considered as pre-Islamic and straying from the Middle Eastern model.38 Muhammadiyah wanted to recover a religious way of life that conformed to Islam at its origins and fought against deviant ritual practices and heretic tendencies. To this effect, it opposed, sometimes violently, the worship of saints, which was condemned as shirk (associationism), and relentlessly attacked popular Islam’s belief in spirits and in superstition. This desire for purification was the primary motivation behind its credo of tajdid (renewal), but this notion took on a wider interpretation in the reformism of theologian Muhammad Abduh (died 1908), which sought to apply Islamic teachings to modern times. This modernising objective led Muhammadiyah to open, right from the start, schools that emphasised non-religious learning.
36The organisation led by Ahmad Syafii Maarif up to July 2004, and thereafter by Din Syamsuddin, thus inherited a sometimes-contradictory line of thinking. Schematically, there seems to be two major currents of thought within the organisation. The first is of fundamentalist inspiration, emphasising a return to original Islam and Arabisation. The second is a more direct heir of the so-called ‘modernist’ tendency, close to Western rationalism. Over the past years, the doctrinal line of Muhammadiyah has largely derived from the evolution of the equilibrium between these two groups.
After 1965: Muhammadiyah Rocked by ‘Santrisation
37The period after the start of the New Order saw profound changes in the sociological composition of Muhammadiyah. When it came to power in 1965, General Soeharto’s regime set two goals for itself: to create a new political and economic order, and to rid Indonesian society of the influence of communist ideology. It thus adopted the strategy of implementing compulsory religious education, which (apart from in Bali) contributed to the progressive elimination of local religions in favour of the ‘religions of the Book’, that is, Christianity and Islam. Followers of mystic or animistic tradition, up till then nominally Muslim (abangan), were increasingly led by the government to ‘return to their original religion’, that is, to one of the five officially recognised religions: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism and Buddhism. Religious education from primary to university level was made compulsory. This policy caused the conversion of a few millions of Javanese to Christianity.39 It also gave rise to a process called ‘santrisation’—the adoption of stricter practices within the Muslim community.40
38The history of Muhammadiyah in the district of Wuluhan (the regency of Jember in East Java), as revealed by Abdul Munir Mulkhan’s study, illustrates perfectly the extent of the transformation undergone by the organisation during this period.41 As a result of the measures mentioned above, thousands of new recruits, mostly abangan peasants, swelled the ranks of Muhammadiyah. This success was all the more surprising given that the youth movement of the reformist organisation had in 1966 committed acts of vandalism in the region, destroying sacred tombs (kramat),42 symbols of the pre-Islamic legacy, and had participated in the massacre of villagers accused of being communists.43
39This flood of new members who were still very attached to pre-Islamic traditions and rituals forced the ‘purifying’ group of Muhammadiyah (al Ikhlas) to come to terms with tradition and the TBC (tahayul, bida, churafat: belief in spirits, innovations and superstitions) practices that they condemned. Subsequently it was also obliged to compromise on several occasions, moderating its teachings to accommodate students who had followed a general curriculum in parallel and toning down its political demands in order to approach Golkar, the party of the government.44
40These sociological and political changes arising from the beginning of the New Order were succeeded by an intellectual revival in the 1980s and 1990s whose effects are felt till today.
The 1990s: The Beginnings of a New Reform
41During the 1980s, the reformist organisation was severely criticised by the general press, which accused it of stagnating while Abdurrahman Wahid of Nahdlatul Ulama tried to revamp Indonesian traditionalist Islam.45 It was in the mid-1990s that appeared the first clear signs of internal reform within Muhammadiyah. During the congress at Banda Aceh in 1995, the organisation proclaimed the implementation of a ‘spiritualisation of the sharia’ (spiritualisasi shari’a) movement, expressing in a way a recognition of the mystical dimension of Islam and the rigidity of the sharia. The new Muslim intellectuals who initiated the movement declared that this was not a breakaway from the early spirit of the organisation but, on the contrary, a return to the intention of the founder, Ahmad Dahlan, as it proposed a mixture of “reason and pure heart”.46 According to the renowned intellectual Kuntowijoyo, it was necessary to unite “Sharia and Sufism”47 and to “embellish Islam” (menghias Islam) so that it does not become a “poor, dry, dreary, vulgar and unattractive” religion.48
42In 1995 too, Amin Abdullah, one of the leaders of this new current within Muhammadiyah49 who had become rector of the Islamic State University (Universitas Islam Negeri, UIN) of Yogyakarta, published a work that marked a new stage in the process of internal reform. Entitled “Theological Philosophy in the Era of Post-Modernism”,50 Amin Abdullah’s essay declared that post-modernism should be the vector of a relativism that will inevitably reinforce religious pluralism in Indonesia.51 He felt that classical Muslim theology (kalam) could not solve contemporary problems and called for the inclusion of “modern psychology, sociology, history of religions, contemporary Western philosophy”. Such an approach would resolve some of the current issues stemming from “democratisation, religious pluralism, human rights, ecology to the fight against poverty”.52 Already widely circulated in the institutes of superior Islamic studies (IAIN) in Java, Amin Abdullah’s ideas also started to influence their counterparts outside of Java, in regions that are much more conservative and less familiar with these sort of liberal ideas.53 Strengthened by these successive reforms, Muhammadiyah currently attempts to articulate a discourse to counter the rhetoric—often very adroit—of the radicals.
Debates after 2000
43In 2000, Amin Abdullah’s profile in the intellectual Muslim milieu was raised even further by his direction of a collective work entitled “The Thematic Interpretation of the Qur’an in Relation to Inter-religious Relations”,54 which advocated tolerance between religious communities and condemned all sectarianism. This work, published by the Council for the Development of Islamic Thought of Muhammadiyah (Majelis Tarjih),55 enjoyed a quasi-official status. Apprehensive of the violent reactions that such a liberal message might provoke, the authors took many precautions, warning that theirs was a “reflective essay” open to criticism and detailing their method and the sources used in the commentaries (tafsir) of the Qur’an.56 In spite of these precautions, Amin Abdullah’s worries were not unfounded and the work was torn apart—even within the reformist group. Leaders of the extremely rigorist Persatuan Islam (Persis) condemned the Marjelis Tarjih on 7 October 2001 for a tafsir they considered as too secular (sekuler).57 Many senior members of Muhammadiyah and more than 300 persons followed this tense debate led by the radicals, including Muhammad Thalib, a local Persis leader.
44This controversy marked an important point in the history of Muhammadiyah’s ideology. Clashes that had erupted over the Moluccas conflict—Ahmad Syafi i Maarif, president of Muhammadiyah, had condemned the Laskar Jihad militias’ attack against the Christians while the more conservative members reserved comment—became clearer than ever.
45The publication of this book under the direction of Amin Abdullah (who was close to Ahmad Syafii Maarif) gave Persis the opportunity to throw its weight behind the most conservative elements of Muhammadiyah and to reassert its long-held influence over the large modernist organisation. The moderates were attacked first of all for their “wrong interpretation” of the references used to justify religious tolerance. For instance, the book explained that the surat al Baqarah (2) 148, according to which “Each person possesses his kiblat (prayer direction) to which he turns”, implied that Islam recognised other religions. This was contested by Muhammad Thalib, for whom the rest of the tafsir by Ibn Abbas (w. 68/687): “… and the kiblat of Allah is that to which Muslims turn” ruled out such liberal tolerance for other religions. The debate then turned to the nature of Muhammadiyah’s heritage, with each camp invoking the thoughts of Muhammad Abduh in order to support its theory.58 Scientific rigour, another legacy of the pioneers of reformism, was also held up by the two sides: Thalib labelled Muhammadiyah’s work as a “scientific tragedy”, unworthy of an institution as honourable as the Majelis Tarjih, and declared that close to “100 pages” of the book (out of a total of 220 pages) were erroneous and disrespectful of the rules of tafsir (kaidah penafsiran). Others argued that it was a betrayal of the Qur’an and called for it to be banned.
46Confronted with the intransigent rigidity of the ultra-conservatives, the moderates, supported by a large section of the intellectual elite and the elders of Muhammadiyah, highlighted instead the historical context of the sacred texts. Amin Abdullah presented his own tafsir as a necessary updating (“If we, adults, do not want it, well then, the book shall be for our children.”). His supporters also underlined the necessity of returning to Muhammadiyah’s own tradition of intellectual production in the 1930s and condemned the conservatism of the radicals in the context of new political liberty.59 This debate illustrated yet another important change in Indonesian Islam: the increasingly frequent alliance between long-time rivals, Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, in defence of a moderate and tolerant Islam. As such, on the day of the meeting, to shore up the religious credentials of their interpretations, a young NU ulama, Chamim Ilyas, a former student of the famous pesantren of Tambakberas in Jombang, was presented to the audience as a participant of this controversial tafsir.60 Henceforth a section of Muhammadiyah has become closer to Nahdlatul Ulama while distancing itself from the more in-flexible Persis, its long-time associate within Masyumi. This is yet another momentous change.
47Without an undisputed arbitrator, the debate came to a standstill. The polemic re-erupted a year later in July 2002 when Amin Abdullah was once again censured, this time by a local branch of Muhammadiyah. His attackers charged that Abdullah was mistaken in proposing that the Qur’an recognised the possibility of salvation outside of Islam, because non-Muslims were “infidels, residents in hell, enemies of Allah, of his Prophet”.61 The protest ended with the accusation that the authors of this condemned tafsir bordered on apostasy. During this new altercation, Amin Abdullah received the backing of Syafi i Maarif, as well as H. Syamsul Anwar, director of Majelis Tarjih and the development of Islamic thought, but this did not stem the invective against him. Faced with the pressures exerted by the radical current, Majelis Tarjih seemed to have momentarily halted the printing of the moderate tafsir although it was still being photocopied.62
The Sharia Issue
48In the face of demands by radical Islam as of August 2000 at the First Congress of Mujahidin in Yogyakarta, the moderate leaders of Muhammadiyah articulated their opposition to the introduction of the sharia in the Indonesian Constitution. Their position was roundly attacked and Abu Bakar Ba’asyir urged Syafii Maarif to explain himself. A debate between the two men was organised in October 2001. Syafii Maarif recounted it for us:
It is certainly a good thing to apply the sharia, but not to introduce it in the Constitution… I asked Ba’asyir what he understood by the sharia. Ba’asyir replied: “Islamic law”. I retorted that his interpretation was wrong because sharia means religion (dîn), and to claim that the sharia designates Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) was an error. I advised them to do their homework because I know better than them. This is a subject that I had studied for many years for my PhD thesis. I also asked them how they envisaged applying the sharia. Through a revolution? By a vote in the Consultative Assembly? In the Assembly, there would be at most 8–10 per cent of votes in support of the idea. What would they look like then? Did they intend to fight to be the losers (rebut piala kekalahan)? They told me that in any case, they would fight for its application. Let them do it! For me, people will then say: this is truly the failure of political Islam.63
49The Muhammadiya leader feared that calls for the sharia would become a political instrument and that the only outcome of this would be the discrediting of Islam. As proof, he held up the inconsistent attitude of the Islamic party PPP, which had in 1999 rejected the election of a female to the presidency of the republic, only to accept shortly after the nomination of Hamzah Haz as Vice-President of Megawati, whom the same Assembly elected as president in the end. For him, the radicals’ view that the current crisis was caused by the absence of the sharia was untenable. Citing the negative example of Pakistan, Syafii Maarif expressed his concerns about the application of Islamic law in Aceh. For Muhammadiyah, he said, the idea of an Islamic state dates to only the twentieth century and is, in fact, “not mentioned within the organisation”. According to him, since its founding, Muhammadiyah had encouraged ijtihad (independent legal reasoning, see Glossary), which implies an adaptation to modernity rather than a strict application of the sharia in the context of an Islamic state.
Triumph of the Conservative Group?
50Confronting Syafii Maarif and the liberal Amin Abdullah was the more conservative branch of Muhammadiyah, led then by Din Syamsuddin whose influence had been reinforced by his accession to the post of secretary-general of the Council of Indonesian Ulama (Majelis Ulama Indonesia, MUI) and, after July 2005, to that of its vice-president. After narrowly missing the Muhammadiyah leadership in 2000 (he had obtained 1,048 votes versus 1,282 for Syafii Maarif), he was finally elected to the head of Muhammadiyah in July 2005.
51The liberals in Muhammadiyah hoped that his election to the top of the reformist organisation would see him toning down his discourse, which had radicalised over the past years (an attempt, suggested his critics, to erase his past as a militant with Golkar, Soeharto’s party).64 Indeed this turned out to be the case—Din Syamsuddin did take the middle ground between conservatives and moderates on some crucial issues. For example, he has since his election consistently denounced radicalism in Indonesian Islam. In November 2008, he opposed those who wanted to give the Bali bombers the title of martyrs after their execution, reminding them instead of the ‘misuse’ of Islam. More recently, in March 2010, he called on Indonesian Muslims to welcome President Obama, arguing that the anti-American sentiments of the Bush era were no longer justified. On many occasions, he also spoke up against the very conservative stance of Majelis Ulama Indonesia (of which he was nonetheless the secretary-general for a long time) regarding yoga, Facebook and abstention during the 2009 elections. Despite his conservative past, Din Syamsuddin has remained close to the progressives in the organisation who have grouped within the Network of Young Intellectuals of Muhammadiyah (Jaringan Intelektual Muda Muhammadiyah, JIMM).65 However, he has also had to face the more conservative elements of Muhammadiyah, who are very well represented within Majelis Tabligh (Preaching Council). The presence within this council of personalities such as the writer and polemist, Adian Husaini, representative of a current extremely indulgent towards Muslim extremism, certainly helped legitimise the radical tendencies of a section of the Muhammadiyah grassroots.
52The unmistakable progression of a militant conservatism within Muhammadiyah also led to an increasing hold by PKS on the modernist organisation. Several militants are members of both organisations and many leaders of the Islamist party occupy positions within Muhammadiyah: Tifatul Sembiring and Zulkiflimansyah are Majelis Tabligh members. Over the past years, Muhammadiyah cadres have been concerned with the influence PKS exercises on the organisation’s structures. An increasing number of Muhammadiyah mosques and even schools—through the political participation of a majority of their teachers—have, in fact, become controlled by PKS. The latter is also very active through its charitable organisations (amal usaha), traditionally the domain of the reformist organisation.66 Fearful that it would lose control of its political engagement, the central direction of Muhammadiyah solemnly called upon its members in 2006 to “liberate itself” of PKS influence.67 Even though this concern has been somewhat mollified of late (PAN, the traditional party of Muhammadiyah has resisted very well during the 2009 elections), this remains a sensitive issue: Haidar Nasir, who represented the progressive group during the elections for the organisation’s presidency in July 2010, built his campaign on this theme.68
53More than ever, Muhammadiyah seems torn between its purifying identity, which places it at the forefront of the conservative revival, and its reformism, which puts it, alongside Nahdlatul Ulama, at the centre of national and international hopes for a renewal of moderate Islam. The congress for the hundredth anniversary of the organisation (according to the Muslim calendar), held in July 2010, did not bring about any decisive change in the equilibrium between the two groups. Dominated by the issue of political participation, in spite of an appeal by the female as well as younger members to open up the organisation, the congress concluded with the re-election of Din Syamsuddin as head of the organisation. The progressive wing continues to be represented within the new leadership through Haedar Nasir, but Yunahar Ilyas of the conservative current has also been re-elected.69
Nahdlatul Ulama: Paying the Price of Power
54Long personified by Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur), grandson of the founder of NU and heir of the traditionalist group, who valiantly opposed the Soeharto regime and became the disorganised president of a republic in crisis, Nahdlatul Ulama is a complex organisation that symbolised, especially during the 1980s and 1990s while under the charge of its charismatic leader, the resistance of Indonesian Islam to the temptations of radicalism. Composed of diverse groups—Javanese, non-Javanese, East Javanese, Central Javanese, apolitical men of religion and parliamentarians—and made up of activists of different stripes, members of Parliament, ministers, PKB militants but also those of PPP and Golkar, Nahdlatul Ulama was weakened by the impeachment of Abdurrahman Wahid in 2001. The marginalisation of this born leader, who had long exercised undivided authority over the movement, generated speculations about the future influence of the different groups within the traditionalist movement.
Gus Dur, or the Decline of an Iconoclastic Figure of Liberal Intellectualism
55Abdurrahman Wahid was the first Indonesian Muslim leader of a certain stature to warn his compatriots against the risks of radical Islamism in the Archipelago. At the start of the 1990s, he sent a letter to this effect to President Soeharto, cautioning him that his laxity vis-à-vis some of the groups would lead one day to a situation similar to Algeria’s.70 The NU leader also spoke up frequently against the possible introduction of the sharia in the Constitution, opining that religious obligations should remain in the private sphere. Wahid was then in the habit of saying that while he respected the sharia, it should not be imposed, mentioning, for example, that he did not drink alcohol even though it was permitted by Indonesian law. Feminists appreciated Wahid as he pushed them to fight for their rights and spoke up against polygamy. In the 1990s, he became the leading opponent of Soeharto but refused to join ICMI, creating instead the Forum Demokrasi, and later became the political ally of Megawati Soekarnoputri when her party was subject to intimidation and aggression by the regime.
56However, in October 1999, with the support of Islamic parties, Wahid defeated Megawati in the bid for presidency, thus breaking up the alliance that had so contributed to the weakening of the New Order. During his first months in power, many of the measures he proposed, such as the strengthening of economic ties with Israel and the suspension of the ban on communism, provoked violent protests from militant Islam. However, as of March 2000, some of his political decisions seemed to take into consideration the sway of radical Islam. Wahid met Eggy Sujana, an Islamist militant well known for his radicalism, and agreed to inaugurate in Medan a meeting of Muslim workers’ unions led by Sujana. In April, the president made a statement banning the departure of Laskar Jihad for the Moluccas but stopped short of sanctioning those within the state apparatus who allowed members of the militia to leave for Ambon, charged some democrats.71 Finally, in 2001, Wahid approved the application of the sharia in Aceh, a concession granted to win over the ulama and appease a very tense situation following his refusal to organise a referendum on self-determination.
57These decisions were driven above all by political motivations and did not signify the abandoning of liberal ideas by a president who was subjected to enormous pressure.72 So on 7 April 2000, he did not hesitate to harshly dismiss Ja’far Umar Thalib, the supreme commander of the Laskar Jihad who had come to the presidential palace to reproach him for “neglecting the suffering of Muslims, thousands of them victims, while the dead Christians only numbered five or more” and of “defending the Indonesian Communist Party by allowing it to build itself up again”.73 In the following months, between January and April 2000, Abdurrahman Wahid found himself once again at odds with the radicals while losing the support of Muslim parties (PBB and PAN, led by the MPR leader Amien Rais). Very soon after, the ‘central axis’ of Muslim parties, which had been formed to carry him to power, became the meeting point of those who condemned his disorganised politics and his sometimes audacious or inconsistent statements. His impeachment by the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) in July 2001 confirmed the premonition of the senior ulama of NU: less than two years ago, they had tried in vain to dissuade Abdurrahman Wahid from accepting the post of president for fear of the impact on the reputation of NU should he fail.74 PKB, which had been NU’s instrument of political influence, fell into disarray. Some of its leaders who had joined in the impeachment of Wahid were expelled and they organised a congress that initiated a scission. Riding on his popularity within traditionalist Islam, Gus Dur managed, nonetheless, to be appointed as a candidate for the 2004 presidential elections. But he failed to have his candidacy ratified by the electoral commission on account of his ill health and blindness. Hasyim Muzadi, his successor as leader of NU, presented himself as candidate and chose to ally himself with Megawati.75 Abdurrahman Wahid then pushed for the candidacy of his younger brother Solahuddin (who associated himself with General Wiranto on this occasion) only to declare ultimately that he would join the Golput (the white group or those who chose to abstain). This wrangling at the top of the hierarchy caused much bitterness within the traditionalist organisation and gave rise to a new expression by Hasyim’s supporters: their champion headed the “republican” group (NU-republik) as opposed to the “monarchic” group (kerajaan) under Abdurrahman Wahid.76
58Subsequently Gus Dur became one of President Yudhoyono’s critics even as his party, PKB, joined the presidential coalition. The political discredit suffered by Abdurrahman Wahid, criticised for the disastrous way his mandate ended as well as for his authoritarianism and dynastic tendencies, whetted the appetite of many who hoped to inherit NU’s political legitimacy. This fragmentation of the representation of traditionalist Islam was one of the causes of PKB’s political decline in 2009. Four parties claimed to represent this current in the last elections: PKB and PPP (each saw a major slide in their standing, obtaining only about 5 per cent of votes each) and two new parties in 2009, Partai Kebangkitan Nasional Ulama (1.5 per cent) and Partai Nahdlatul Ulama (0.14 per cent).
59Evidently his political defeat contributed much to the erosion of Gus Dur’s influence within his own organisation. While still venerated as a ‘saint’ (wali) in the Javanese countryside, as evidenced by the emotions on display during his funeral in January 2010, he was unable to recover his leading role in Nahdlatul Ulama. In November 2004, his candidate for the position of head of the executive, Masdar Ma´sudi,77 was rejected by the 31st Congress of Nahdlatul Ulama, which re-elected instead Hasyim Muzadi, who had held out against the president in 2001 and paved the way to the transition to Megawati. The regional delegates, NU cadres, were naturally better disposed towards Hasyim, a conservative favoured by the ordinary militant. As for the older generation of ulama, hitherto always supportive of their former master’s grandson, they did not mobilise themselves this time such that Gus Dur was obliged to grant amazing concessions so as to obtain the backing of the ultra-conservative, his enemies of old.78 In spite of this, he suffered a crushing defeat during the election for the rois aam (supreme chief), head of the Syuriah, the body in charge of the religious supervision of NU. He only managed 75 votes versus the 363 votes in favour of Kiai Sahal Mahfudh. For the past 25 years, the Syuriah of NU had been spared from internal conflicts but it now found itself at the heart of the organisation’s quarrels. In the tradition of NU—we should recall that the majority of the ulama are also linked by family ties since marriages within the organisation are very common—Gus Dur was nonetheless named Mustasyar, or Grand Counsellor, of the traditionalist organisation.
60The political disputes and electoral defeats that ensued were certainly one of the reasons for which a ‘return to pesantren’ (kembali ke pesantren) was often proclaimed by candidates for the leadership during the 32nd congress in March 2010. NU was also conscious of the moderating role it was expected to play in society: the slogan of Said Aqil Siraj, the elected NU executive who replaced Hasyim Muzadi, was ‘Dari Pesantren untuk Indonesia’ (From the Pesantren for Indonesia).79 NU, like Muhammadiyah, was indeed criticised for having over-invested in politics and neglected its basic missions while allowing intolerance to develop within even its own ranks.80
Post-Gus Dur: A Legacy of Tolerance?
61Until his death in December 2009, Gus Dur remained a respected figure despite his political defeat and continued to incarnate, in Indonesia and the world, an open and tolerant Islam. After his impeachment, Christians, always closer to Megawati, feared losing the protection of the big traditionalist organisation. While NU’s militia, Ansor, had often protected the churches in East Java after the riots in Situbondo in 1996. But before Wahid’s impeachment in May 2001, a nineteenth-century church in Pasuruan was torched during an anti-impeachment demonstration.81 Similarly, during a closed-door inter-religious meeting in Surabaya, Gus Dur surprised his Christian friends when he made some unusual remarks (which remain confidential), declaring the superiority of the Qu’ran over the Bible, equating the Old and New Testament to the Traditions (Hadith) of the Prophet Muhammad.
62The Christmas bombings of 2000 and the Bali bombings in October 2002 tightened the temporarily loosened ties between the Christians and NU: subsequently Ansor watched over churches under bomb threats during Christmas masses and Gus Dur recovered his traditional role as protector of religious minorities. On numerous occasions, sick and feeble as he was, the elderly Gus Dur did not hesitate to bring to public attention violations of religious liberty as well as of women’s rights. In a context where being ‘Islamically correct’ was the norm and audacity was rare, he was often the last resort of militants of human rights and of feminists. He made a welcome appearance at the hearing of Goenawan Mohammad, founder of the Tempo news magazine, who was on trial for defamation, a Tempo journalist having called the businessman Tommy Winata, a “preman” (thug) in an article published by Koran Tempo on 12 March 2003. In 2004, he came to the defence of a Catholic school blocked by radical Islamist groups in the Jakarta suburbs. He also joined the feminists and artistes in their combat against the anti-pornography law between 2006 and 2008, and in the last year of his life, against the anti-blasphemy law of 1965 that restricted religious liberty.
63Unanimously respected in the liberal milieux for these acts, Gus Dur also created two foundations, the Wahid Institute (headed by his daughter Yenni) and LibForAll, which militated against religious extremism.
64Abdurrahman Wahid’s inclination towards tolerance and greater openness clearly bore fruit within Nahdlatul Ulama. Even though he was of a more conservative background, Hasyim Muzadi, Wahid’s successor, managed to maintain the traditionalist organisation in its role as mediator between supporters and opponents of the West. A frequent guest in the United States, he often pleaded against the simplistic anti-Americanism prevalent amongst the leaders of Indonesian Islam. That did not prevent him, however, from vehemently denouncing American intervention in Iraq; he also shared with a number of his countrymen an irrational paranoia about the American Jewish lobby and Zionism in general.82
65Most of all, a whole new generation of militants has taken up the role of the liberal thorn-in-the-side long occupied by Gus Dur. Activists from organisations such as Syarikat (which investigates the exactions levelled against the communists by the Nahdlatul Ulama militias from 1965–1966) or LKiS (Lembaga Kajian Islam Social, Institute for the Study of Islam and Society) attempt to counter the propaganda of the radicals. In 2003, for example, LKiS launched the magazine Syir’ah (literally, ‘The Path’—understood as towards God—a term that has a certain consonance with sharia but with an altogether different meaning). Syir’ah was attacked by conservatives from all sides for its liberalism, which was imputed to its Western sponsors, and disappeared after a few years. The influence of these NGOs was, however, limited to the most progressive margins of the Indonesian Muslim community and, as acknowledged by these organisations themselves, they suffered from the fact that their funding came almost exclusively from Western foundations.
66In spite of the vitality and inventiveness of this progressive group, the conservatives seem to have made considerable advances within NU. This phenomenon, somewhat hidden by the highly publicised activism of Gus Dur, is more visible now. At the end of 2008, a study by a researcher at the Islamic University of Bandung revealed that, amongst the directors of Islamic boarding schools in West Java, adoption of a NU identity did not necessarily equate to an adhesion to values of tolerance and moderation advanced by leaders of the traditionalist organisation. Of those interviewed, 81 per cent claimed to be close to Nahdlatul Ulama, yet 86 per cent declared that Muslims should not accept the construction of churches in their region, 81 per cent felt that Muslims should not be allowed to wish Christians a merry Christmas, 77 per cent were against the election of a non-Muslim president, 55 per cent were in favour of amputating the hand of a thief, and 75 per cent of stoning as punishment for adultery.83
67During the 32nd congress in March 2010, the most conservative elements of the traditionalist organisation were also more outspoken and audacious in debates. Commissions set up to examine jurisprudence issues declared that female circumcision was recommended and that child marriages (kawin dini) of girls below 16 years of age were valid from a religious point of view. During these discussions, the liberals in the movement lost to the conservatives and were accused of having “sold out” to their (Western) sponsors.84 The intellectual elite of NU itself seemed somewhat taken aback by these public stances, attributing them to the fact that political issues had hogged the limelight for too long, to the detriment of religious debate.85
68Of late, however, this unbounded conservatism has been accompanied by a realisation of the dangers militant Islamist organisations pose to NU. During the 32nd congress, this theme was brought up by several delegates concerned with the infl uence of movements such as PKS, Hizbut Tahrir (HTI) or Jemaat Tabligh. The Yogyakarta representative thus warned of the risk NU ran in neglecting internal affairs, which led in his region to the “disappearance of dozens of mosques” into the hands of “transnational Islam with substantial financial resources”. In a rather surprising manner in an otherwise mostly consensual atmosphere, this delegate spoke calmly but plainly of the “religious colonisation (kolonisasi keagamaan) by the Wahhabis, the transnationals (HTI and Jemaah Tabligh), Jemaah Islamiyah and the Muslim Brotherhood”, but also of a “domestic colonisation (kolonisasi kebangsaan) by leaders concerned only with their political career and negligent of the misery of the people”.
69The leaders elected during the 32nd congress seem to indicate that the traditionalist organisation has become aware of the need to refocus on religious affairs and to reaffirm its support of religious tolerance. Although the most liberal wing of the organisation did not manage to get its leaders (Ulil Abshar-Abdalla and Masdar Mas’udi) elected to the top positions, a few progressive militants have penetrated the executive board. Hasyim’s successor as head of Nahdlatul Ulama, Said Aqil Siraj, is well known for his rather broad-minded and pluralist ideas—which won him the support of liberal candidates (Masdar Masudi, Ulil Abshar Abdalla) at the final ballot. In November 1999, while he was jostling with Hasyim Muzadi for Abdurrahman Wahid’s position as head of NU, Said Aqil Siraj was accused of being pro-Shite and pro-Christian. On the walls of the Islamic boarding school of Kediri, the venue of the congress, was scrawled: “Do not vote for a candidate who frequently enters churches”. Siraj was a student at the Ummul Quro University in Mecca but paradoxically became an admirer of Khomeini, whose portrait was on display in the living room of his residence, right next to that of Abdurrahman Wahid, with whom relations soured for a time. Holder of a doctorate from Saudi Arabia, Siraj was Wahid’s protégé during the 1990s. However, Siraj’s opinions are more nuanced than Wahid’s, making him more acceptable to conservatives, if only because of his impressive knowledge of the Hadith. Contrary to some Christians who see in Siraj a protector, Muslim feminists complain that his position on women is ambiguous. In 1997, he did plead for the access of women to the Republic’s presidency but requested in return that polygamy be maintained.86 Siraj has declared that unlike his predecessor, he will not be involved in politics. This new line seemed strengthened by the re-election of Kiai Sahal Mahfudh (72 years old) to the position of rois aam of the Syuriah Council (president of the honorific council) over Hasyim Muzadi.87 The choice of Mustopha Bisri (65 years old) as Syuriah’s deputy is also seen as a positive sign that the “the slide towards fundamentalist and anti-liberal religious views is unlikely to continue under the new board and it may even be reversed”.88 At least it could be stemmed because Gus Mus, as he is fondly called, a poet and a kiai, shares many of his old friend Wahid’s audacious liberal ideas as well as his concern about new Islamic radicalism. Before his death on 30 December and ahead of the upcoming congress, Gus Dur reportedly travelled to Central Java to ask Mustopha Bisri to lead NU’s supreme body, the Syuriah.89
70Held just a few months after the death of Abdurrahman Wahid, this congress undoubtedly turned a page in the history of the traditionalist organisation. Of a slightly liberated conservatism but cognisant of the dangers of extremism, NU has also freed itself somewhat from the dynastic legitimacy of its founders, as demonstrated by the defeat of Gus Dur’s younger brother, Solahuddin Wahid. Less detached from recent evolutions in Indonesian Islam, NU should now try and recover the original religious and social bases that were its strengths in the previous decades.
71After decades of rivalry, it is striking to witness how the same fate has befallen the two great organisations of mainstream moderate Islam. Discredited by over-involvement in politics, challenged by new movements, both are rocked by internal conflict between progressives and conservatives. The future of Indonesian Islam lies in part in the turn that will take this confrontation. Nonetheless, the relative loss of influence of these organisations necessitates an examination of other movements playing important roles in these debates.
IV. The New Battlegrounds of Confrontation
72Aside from these two pillars of Indonesian Islam—Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah—several other organisations are key in leading and representing the Muslims in the Archipelago. Amongst them two occupy a preponderant place in the debates discussed here. The first, the Council of Indonesian Ulama (MUI), symbolises the radical temptations of the most conservative elements of Indonesian Islam; the second, the Network of Liberal Islam (JIl), represents, on the contrary, the most developed expression of an old tradition: that of the milieux of liberal intellectual Muslims.
The Council of Indonesian Ulama, a Bastion of Conservatism
73The first ‘Local Council of Ulama’ was formed in the 1950s in West Java, but it was only in 1975 that the Council of Indonesian Ulama (MUI) first appeared on a national scale. For Soeharto’s New Order, it served as an influential representative within the Muslim community, providing enlightenment but also serving as an informal intermediary for the New Order’s religious policy and reconciling the sometimes-contradictory positions of the big organisations, especially on the issue of the start of the Ramadan. Funded by the state but independent of the Ministry of Religions, MUI found an important source of complementary funds as of the mid-1980s: the attribution of the halal label to producers.90 The most influential organ within MUI is the Fatwa Commission, which meets almost on a weekly basis. Currently branches of MUI exist in each subdistrict.
74Since its inception, MUI has always been rather conservative. With the ‘greening’ of the government body Golkar and the government at the end of the 1980s, limits on religious intolerance hitherto imposed by the Soeharto regime have gradually ceded, and the Council of Indonesian Ulama has led the way in this, condemning inter-religious marriages in 1980 and banning Muslims from wishing Christians a merry Christmas the following year. During this period, MUI also lent its invaluable support to the regime when it implemented important development reforms such as the policies on transmigration or family planning.
75One might be forgiven for thinking that MUI’s influence would have waned with Reformasi but nothing of the sort has happened. It continues to be the official embodiment of a conservative policy of Islamist one-upmanship that is often at odds with the values of the Indonesian state. In July 2005, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono opened the organisation’s Seventh Congress proclaiming that it was necessary to “place MUI in a central role in matters regarding the Islamic faith, so that it becomes clear what the difference is between areas that are the preserve of the state and areas where the government or state should heed the fatwa from the MUI and ulama.”91
76It was at this congress that MUI adopted two of its most controversial fatwas: the first pronounced the Ahmadiyah movement (see Glossary) heretical and its members apostates. The Council recommended that the government ban the movement’s teachings and force it into inactivity. This fatwa gave rise to a joint decree by the Ministry of Religions and the Ministry of the Interior, and provided radical organisations with a pretext for attacking Ahmadiyah mosques and members on a regular basis. The other fatwas condemned pluralism, secularism, shamanism and liberalism.
77Subsequently MUI has on many occasions fervently espoused the purifi cation of practices considered as un-Islamic, often following in the footsteps of Malaysia. For example, in 2009 it condemned yoga because of its Hindu origins.92 The radical movements that multiplied during the post-Soeharto period were quick to grasp the advantages of supporting MUI as it provided official channels denied them by voters. Shortly after the congress of 2005, they created the Forum Umat Islam (FUI) in order to exert some influence on MUI. Dominated by FPI, Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia, KISDI, Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia and DDII, this organisation also comprised some NU and Muhammadiyah elements.93 PKS also used MUI to circulate its messages. In 2009, worried that abstention might diminish its anticipated success at the polls, PKS president Tifatul Sembiring asked MUI to declare that the Golput (golongan putih, or ‘white group’, the abstainers) was haram, which MUI promptly did, to the indignation of a section of the political class.
78Very soon MUI’s ultra-conservative position earned it acerbic criticism from a number of Islamic figures who questioned its legitimacy.94 In the 1980s, wanting to take back from MUI an authority ‘usurped’ from the big organisations, Abdurrahman Wahid described it as an ‘NGO amongst others’. In the 1990s, he was joined in his sharp criticism and proposal of banning MUI by Said Aqil Siraj, his right-hand man at that time (and head of NU since March 2010). Yet, during his stint as president of the Republic, Gus Dur was unable to curtail the activities of MUI. His impotence vis-à-vis this institution was due, ironically, to the fact that it sheltered many ulama from Nahdlatul Ulama, including Kiai Sahal Mahfudh, who was then also the ‘supreme chief’ (rois aam) of NU.95 Yet Kiai Sahal Mahfudh was not reputed to be a conservative militant. He was a pioneer in the contextualisation of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and even backed some very liberal ulama;96 however, he was not very active in MUI and willingly left the day-to-day running of the organisation to his deputies, who were more rigorist and most of all, very critical of Wahid. Amongst these were conservative ulama such as Ma’aruf Amin in the fatwa commission and the secretary-general Ichwan Syam.
79With the passing years, more voices joined Gus Dur’s in the criticism of MUI for its conservatism. Syafi’i Anwar, director of the International Center for Islam and Pluralism (ICIP), wrote regularly in the press on this issue. He highlighted in particular that MUI played on the ambiguity of its status as a semi-governmental organisation to assume a religious authority it did not really possess. Reproaching MUI for making pronouncements on issues without any real consideration beforehand, he reminded Indonesian Muslims that a fatwa is simply a legal opinion emitted by one or many ulama, and may be accepted or rejected by each Muslim.97 More recently, criticism of another sort has emerged: MUI was accused of corruption in the attribution of the halal label for commercialised products in Indonesia. An investigation by Transparency International Indonesia brought to light the quasi-systematic bribery that goes on in order to obtain these coveted door-openers.98
80MUI’s role and exclusively religious approach to problems undoubtedly encouraged a certain rigorist one-upmanship amongst its members. By proceeding according to a reading of the world through the narrow prism of what is authorised (halal) and what is not (haram), the institution distanced the ulama from a pragmatic approach necessary under some circumstances. Din Syamsuddin is a very good example of this: champion of the conservative current in Muhammadiyah while he was secretary-general of MUI, he had to considerably moderate his discourse and even became a frequent critic of MUI after his election as head of the reformist organisation.
81Largely discredited in Indonesian public opinion, MUI has nonetheless preserved a non-negligible influence, particularly through its status as the official representative of religious leaders and through its links with the government. It is different from Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, which have a tradition of independence rooted in their long histories. As such, on many occasions, MUI has served as a guarantee for radical Islamist organisations in their perpetual quest for legitimacy.
A Militant Fringe: Reckless Attempts by Liberal Islam
82In March 2001, a group of young Muslim leaders, including some from the Islamic boarding schools of Nahdlatul Ulama, decided to create the Network of Liberal Islam (JIL or Islib). Faced with the multiplicity of interpretations of Islam and the confiscation of Muslim discourse/ representation by the radicals, Ulil Abshar-Abdalla, one of the chairmen of Lakpesdam, an NGO linked to NU, and his companions started a sort of pressure group to condemn literal approaches of the Qu’ran and Sunna, and proposed on the contrary “the opening of the doors of ijtihad 99in all its aspects”.100
83Since its foundation, the Network of Liberal Islam has put itself forth as the spokesman for liberal Muslim thinkers in Indonesia with the aim of helping them to popularise their ideas. To this end, they broadcast a weekly talk-show on Radio 68H, which has become the largest radio news agency in Indonesia,101 serving 700 stations in 9 countries throughout Southeast Asia.102 JIL’s programme, entitled “Religion and Tolerance”, is played by numerous private radio stations and subsequently printed in a few dailies belonging to the large press group Jawa Pos, which is present from Riau to Kalimantan. JIL also publishes books or translated works addressing religious pluralism, a website.103
84If we were to measure JIL’s reach through the strength of the resistance generated, then it seems to be a real success. Since its founding, JIL has incurred the wrath of numerous conservative and radical movements. In April 2002 was published a booklet entitled “The Danger of Liberal Islam” (Bahaya Islam Liberal ), which unhesitatingly bashed the ‘liberals’ whose names were listed at the back of the booklet. Peddled in public transport in 2002 and reprinted for the fourth time in 2004, it opened with a perturbing call to violence, a citation of the traditionist Bukhari:104
“At the end of time will appear a group of young men with evil morals. They will speak in the name of Allah although they have left Islam like the arrow gliding away from its bow. In reality, their faith does not extend beyond their throats. Whenever you encounter them, kill them. Because, in truth, those who kill them will be rewarded at the moment of the last judgement.”105
85In November 2002, the Forum of Ulama of the Muslim Community of Indonesia (Forum Ulama Umat Indonesia, FUUI) accused Ulil Abshar-Abdalla, the young liberal Muslim from Nahdlatul Ulama, of deliberately attacking the foundations of Islam, that is, God, the Prophet Muhammad, the ulama and the Muslim community, and proclaimed that he deserved to be sentenced to death.106 Confronted by this group of barely known ulama with little credibility, it was, paradoxically, from the president of Muhammadiyah, Syafii Maarif, that Ulil found the greatest source of support.
86The radicals used legal means to oppose JIL’s messages. In August 2002, the secretary of the Council of Indonesian Mujahidin (Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia, MMI), Fauzan Al-Anshari, sued two television stations for broadcasting an advertisement payed for by JIL. This adver-tisement promoted “a multi-coloured Islam” (“islam warna-warni”), an Islam rooted in local culture opposed to the Arabisation of the religion as espoused by the conservatives.107 As a result of these lawsuits by MMI, these advertisements were pulled out.108
87In the following years, the radicals continued to try and mobilise JIL detractors. Thus in 2003, as he was passing through Jakarta, the very controversial Tariq Ramadan109 called these liberal militants “Muslims without Islam”110 and in 2005, the fatwa issued by the Council of Indonesian Ulama (MUI) condemning liberalism was obviously directed against JIL.
88But the audacity of JIL and its recognition by the Western media also attracted criticism from beyond the radical Islamist milieux. A movement called Islam of the Left (Islam kiri), increasingly influential within the NU-linked association of students (Movement of Muslim Students of Indonesia, Pergerakan Mahasiswa Islam Indonesia, PMII) thus distanced itself from Ulil Abshar-Abdalla and company. While highlighting their own anti-sharia stance, this new group accused them of being an “agent” of “international capitalism, which is only interested in the accumulation of capital”. For them, JIL represented “the religion of Western liberalism” while the fundamentalists represent “the religion of the Middle East”.111 Similarly, Ulil’s candidacy for the presidency of NU in March 2010 met with violent opposition within the traditionalist organisation for various reasons. The progressive current itself accused him of splitting the forces of moderate Islam and of weakening the most plausible candidacy of the progressive Masdar Mas’udi, who was supported by Wahid in 2004.
89Other than these incidents of antagonism and the indisputable courage of its members, how large JIL’s audience was remains uncertain. Apart from a small urban intelligentsia capable of understanding its messages, as well as some radical Islamists bent on flaying them, the impact of JIL’s actions seems limited. Still, notwithstanding the fact that their arguments are not unanimously accepted, the growing renown of its leaders make JIL a sort of moral avant-garde of a much wider, solidly implanted group in Indonesian Islam.
‘Substantialist’ Islam: A Powerful Movement of Contextualisation
90Labelled as ‘neo-modernist’, ‘substantialist’ (subtantialis as opposed to normatif ), or as representatives of an ‘inclusive’ (inclusif ) or cultural (kultural ) Islam, a new generation of intellectuals initiated a profound renewal of Indonesian Muslim thinking at the beginning of the 1970s. Circulated by the State Institutes of Islamic Studies (IAIN), then via some Islamic boarding schools, their ideas were taken up at the start of the 1990s by a new generation of activists.
91Founded in Jakarta during the Japanese Occupation, then transferred to Yogyakarta during the Independence War, the Superior School of Islam (Sekolah Tinggi Islam, later PTAIN) gave rise to a network of State Institutes of Islamic Studies (IAIN), followed by State Islamic Universities (UIN). It was within these institutions that developed the first current favourable towards an interpretation of the founding texts of Islam within a contemporary Indonesian context. Several personalities participated in this endeavour. The first, Hasbi Ash-Shiddieqy, was an ulama hailing from an important Acehnese family reputed to be descendants of the first caliph, Abu Bakr al Siddiq. Dean of the Sharia Faculty of the Yogyakarta IAIN, this former Masyumi member translated the works of great Egyptian reformist thinkers such as Mahmut Syaltut and Muhammad Mustafa al-Maraghi (died 1904). Influenced by their ideas, he proposed a re-reading of Muslim tradition, differentiating between the Hadith that were legally binding and those that were not.112 This distinction was supposed to allow Indonesians to free themselves of a pointless imitation of what he saw as an essentially Arab way of life. He then published an introduction to the science of fiqh, using a historically contextualised approach receptive towards reinterpretations necessitated by contemporary conditions and the creation of a specifically Indonesian fiqh. His effort echoed that of Hazairin (1906–19750), a lecturer at Universitas Indonesia who was educated in customary law (adatrecht) during the Dutch era. Hoping to see a new generation of religious officials working in a specifically Indonesian framework, Hazairin campaigned for the creation of a national madzhab. The two men tried to create within IAIN an institution to oversee this project. It did not take flight but their ideas had a profound influence on Islamic law studies in Indonesia.113
92Two other personalities played a major role in the propagation of liberal ideas through the IAIN network and ought to be mentioned here. The first, Mukti Ali, was the rector of the Yogyakarta IAIN and then minister of religions (1973–1978). He reformed the curriculum of these institutions, encouraged pluralism and sent the best students to Western universities to pursue their studies, especially to McGill University in Montreal. One of these students, Harun Nasution (1919–1998), left his mark on the teaching of Islam in Indonesia. First as a teacher at the Jakarta IAIN upon his return to Indonesia in 1969, then as director of the PhD programme of the same institutions, he tried in his many works to rehabilitate Mutazilism (a rationalist Muslim current originating in the eighth century) in Indonesia, raising the hackles of thinkers close to DDII.114
93Aside from IAIN, the progressive liberal current of Indonesian Islam also developed around a group subsequently labelled neo-modernist, which we have evoked earlier.115 Its main personalities were from the ‘Limited Group’, formed at the end of the 1960s and revolving around Mukti Ali. Bringing together intellectuals such as Dawan Rahardjo, Djohan Effendy and Ahmad Wahib, its influence extended well beyond the narrow circle of the reformist intelligentsia. In 1981 Djohan Effendy and Ismed Natsir published a journal by Ahmad Wahid that became the symbol of the open-mindedness of this group for which no subject was taboo.116 Djohan Effendy himself had a brilliant career: civil servant in the Ministry of Religions where he was director of research, then minister and state secretary, Abdurrahman Wahid’s right-hand man during his presidency (2000–2001). He went on to start an influential think-tank, the International Conference on Religion and Peace (ICRP).117
94Espousing ideas similar to that of the ‘Limited Group’ was Nurcholish Madjid, the other pillar of this renewal of liberal Islamic thinking in the 1970s. A prolix author, he remained until his death in August 2005 as head of the powerful foundation Paramadina, which he created in 1986.118 Through seminars, conferences and publications, this institution spread a so-called ‘inclusive’ Muslim theology, as expounded in the book Fiqh Lintas Agama (Interfaith Islamic Jurisprudence), published in 2004.119 In 1998, the foundation created the Paramadina University, very popular amongst the youth of Jakarta. This establishment has campaigned courageously for a liberal practice of Islam, going so far as to organise inter-religious marriages (without demanding the conversion of one of the spouses), blatantly bypassing the Bureau of Religious Affairs (Kantor Urusan Agama, KUA). The pressure exerted by the ultra-conservatives triumphed over these reckless attempts in 2005, but Paramadina University remains one of the bastions of liberal thinking in Indonesia.
95Amongst the influential liberal Muslim intellectuals of the 1990s, one must mention Jalaluddin Rakhmat, the man who re-legitimised Indonesian Shiism. Born in 1949 and educated in a generalist university, then in the United States, Jalaluddin is a sort of free agent in contemporary Muslim thinking. Converted to Shiism, he frequently refers, nonetheless, to Sunni authors and remains close to reformists of Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama, the latter being more sympathetic towards Shiism. Initially very critical of neo-modernists such as Nurcholish Madjid, he ended up moving much closer to the Islamic Renewal (pembaharuan) they advocated. He also promoted a more open Sufism that is very fashionable amongst the new urban classes of Indonesia.120
96Confined for a long time to a narrow milieu, the liberal renewal of Indonesian Islam was spread throughout Indonesian society through two major channels besides IAIN: pesantren linked to NU and the numerous NGOs that had sprung up to fight for Reformasi.
97As we have seen, over the last decade Nahdlatul Ulama has also been affected by the progress of a religious conservatism that has spared almost none of the sectors of Indonesian Islam. This phenomenon overshadowed somewhat efforts made within the organisation to promote a progressive theology, which slowly trickled down to a large number of the pesantren affiliated with NU. As of the mid-1980s, many ulama of the traditionalist organisation, heeding the call of neo-modernists and under the considerable influence of their liberal guru/mentor Abdurrahman Wahid, sought to redefine the components of Aswaja (acronym for Ahl al-sunna wa’l-jama’a, the people of the tradition [of the Prophet] and of the community), the foundation of Sunni orthodoxy. In 1997, for example, Said Aqil Siraj (who was elected as president of the executive of NU in March 2010) highlighted in his book the essentially moderate nature of Aswaja, the product of a balance between normative texts and human reason, and denounced the “fanaticism of the madhhab” as a pitfall to be avoided.121 Similarly, Kiai Sahal Mahfudh, once very close to Abdurrahman Wahid but later heavily criticised by the liberals for his inaction as the head of MUI, had also campaigned for the Indonesian fiqh to be more open. He had proposed to review the study of the kitab kuning (the compilations of fiqh that serve as the basis for teaching in the pesantren) such that they would be taught in a less normative way than in the past. His speaking out in favour of a contextualised approach and his criticism of ulama who ignored the evolution of contemporary society undoubtedly made him very popular within the progressive milieux at the start of the 2000s.122
98Thanks to the large network of pesantren affiliated to Nahdlatul Ulama, these efforts to reinterpret texts gradually reached a greater audience. During the 1980s, the movement structured itself around several NGOs created for the purposes of research and publication, such as P3M, Lakpesdam and LKiS, within which Kiai Sahal Mahfudh, Masdar Mas’udi and, of course, Abdurrahman Wahid played important roles.
99With the Reformasi, this movement grew in an unprecedented way and several foundations, often transcending the traditionalist-modernist divide, now strive to promote a religious pluralism based on a new approach to Islamic sources. Other than JIL, and the aforementioned Wahid Institute, ICRP (International Conference on Religion and Peace) and Paramadina, noteworthy too are ICIP (International Center for Islam and Pluralism), JIMM (Network of Young Intellectuals of Muhammadiyah, led by Moeslim Abdurrahman who promotes a ‘transformative Islam’), and the Ma’arif Institute. Far from being limited to Jakarta, this phenomenon also spread to other regions of the Archipelago, with organisations such as Syarikat or Rifka Annisa in Yogyakarta, Fahima in Cirebon, LKAS in Surabaya, Resist in Malang, LAPPAR in Makassar and LK3 in Banjarmasin.
100Apart from the question of democracy or religious pluralism, women’s rights and the place of women in society has been one of the arenas in which the theological renewal has been especially fertile. This subject takes on in Indonesia a special significance because it symbolises the clash between two traditions—the more liberal tradition of the Archipelago versus that conveyed by Middle-Eastern Islam. Many personalities have engaged in the fi ght for the recognition of women’s rights by using arguments based on religion, notably the IAIN-educated feminists Lies Marcoes and Musdah Mulia, but also Kiai Husein Muhammad, who advocated an audacious “women’s fiqh” (fiqh perempuan).123 Several NGOs also work in this domain. The association Rahima, for instance, was founded in 2000 to pro-mote women’s rights and to refute the arguments of conservatives in this matter. Through its publications (in particular, the magazine Swara Rahima), but also through many appearances in Islamic boarding schools, Rahima strives to foster a new generation of Muslim leaders, capable of disseminating progressive message to every level of society. The organisation also endeavours to mobilise women against the perda sharia detrimental to their liberty by inviting them to denounce through forums and demonstrations the male chauvinism underlying these decrees.124
V. The End of a Cycle? Nationalism and Islamic Identity
101Subject to contradictory influences and propositions, the Indonesian Muslim community should not be considered as divided into two by a fault line separating the moderates from the radicals. The evolution between openness and intransigence takes place rather as a continuum, shifting continuously according to circumstances. Transformations in Indonesia in the past few years have led to a definite decline in the sway of radical Islamist elements, while the currents advocating the status quo of the Pancasila have experienced a revival. However, this is accompanied by an undeniable revival of religious conservatism and a more ostentatious and less tolerant practice of Islam.
102As we have seen, the radical temptations of Indonesian Islam stem from three phenomena: the repression of political Islam from the end of the 1950s, the instrumentalisation of the religious revival by the New Order and finally, and especially, the political, moral and security void caused by the quasi-disappearance of the state at the end of the Soeharto era and during the first years of the Reformasi. Throughout these different episodes, the religious revival experienced by Indonesia since the 1970s assumed the victim mode with a persecuted complex, one that justified the most extreme propositions. In a more appeased Indonesia where the Muslim religion has recovered its central position, it is harder to pull off this victim narrative. Religion (and in the top spot, Islam) is henceforth an essential element of national identity and has been integrated at all levels of the state. It is no longer credible to depict the Indonesian Muslim community as oppressed.125 Instead it is the religious minorities who encounter enormous difficulties in exercising their right to worship.126
103On the political front, Islam as a mobilising element has, to a large degree, been appropriated by nationalism, into which it has partially dissolved. As demonstrated by the latest elections, the nationalist revival that accompanied the return of stability in the country drew largely from the Islamic repertoire. But it did so by confining religion in a moral, conservative and rather quietist register, far from the radical questioning of the extremists. Historically, the nationalist current has in fact been very attached to the religious status quo adopted at the time of Independence, perceived as a founding element of the nation. It is for this reason that in the past few years, we have observed an obvious rapprochement between the advocates of an open and contextualised Islam as described above and the pro-Pancasila movement. Two examples are the National Alliance for the Freedom of Religion and Worship (Aliansi Kebangsaan untuk Kebebasan beragama dan Berkeyakinan), and the book Ilusi Negara Islam (The Islamic State Illusion), jointly published by two foundations representing moderate Islam (Maarif Institute and Wahid Institute) under one nationalist denomination, Gerakan Binnheka Tunggal Ika (Movement of Unity in Diversity).127 During 2010, the anti-terrorist fight was able to mobilise opinion in the name of a moderate Islam, but it also took on nationalist overtones during the hunt for Noordin M. Top, whose Malaysian nationality was highlighted. This new mood was concretised in July 2010 with the creation of a National Counter-Terrorism Agency, an upgrading of the Counter-Terrorism Coordinating Desk allowing for better coordination between the army, the police and other state agencies. This was a long-awaited measure.
104However, there remains a domain where the affirmation of a strong Islamic identity and its corollaries (Islamist one-upmanship, more ostentatious practice, proclamation of support for the sharia) maintains a leading identity role—culture, henceforth globalised. In effect, faced with globalisation, very largely perceived as the harbinger of Western hegemony, Islam proposes, for lack of an alternative, a mode of appropriation.128 The more Indonesian society westernises, the more it exteriorises its belonging to the umma in a movement that is not as contradictory as it may appear. In terms of mass consumption, but also in the cultural sector and the world of finance, the adoption of behaviour and procedures inspired by the West is often accompanied by an Islamisation of their expression.129 This phenomenon is not unique to Indonesia, but it has taken on in the Archipelago a remarkable dimension since hitherto piety was relatively not exteriorised.
105In all, the Muslim revival experienced by Indonesia for about three decades now—which could have led to the beginnings of a radical socio-political counter-project—seems to have settled into a more identity-based posture. In spite of an increased conservatism that is also present within the state apparatus, this evolution has allowed more diversity in modes of expression and has allowed the authorities to reaffirm the irrevocable character of Pancasila.
Notes de bas de page
1International Herald Tribune, 27 April 2002.
2Robert Hefner, “Globalization, Governance, and the Crisis of Indonesian Islam”, in Conference on Globalization, State Capacity and Muslim Self-Determination, proceedings of the conference, Center for Global, International, and Regional Studies, University of California-Santa Cruz, 7–8 March 2002, n.p., p. 25.
3William Liddle and Saiful Mujani, “The Islamic Challenge to Democratic Consoli-dation in Indonesia”, in The Challenge of Democracy in the Muslim World, proceedings of the conference, Jakarta, 2002, n.p. Liddle’s distinction between conservatives and liberals is partially valid, but it seems to limit the conservatives to the ranks of reformist Islam (Muhammadiyah, Persis, DDII, Al-Irsyad) when the conservative current also crosses over to the two big organisations of traditionalist Islam, Nahdlatul Ulama and—to a greater extent—Perti in Aceh and West Sumatra. In a more recent paper, “Indonesia: Islamism Contained?”, presented at a conference on “Democratization and Authoritarian Retrenchment in the Muslim World”, San Diego CA, September 2004, Liddle takes into account the emergence of PKS and writes that, given the trend toward santrinisasi, “a much larger percentage of Indonesian Muslims, much closer to the full 88%, may be open to an Islamist message in the future, particularly if packaged in the clean and caring PKS style.”
4The legislative elections of 1999 were the first free elections since 1955.
5To borrow Greg Fealy’s expression, “Islamic Politics: A Rising or Declining Force?”, in Damien Kingsbury and Arief Budiman (eds), Indonesia: The Uncertain Transition, Crawford House Publishing, Australia, 2001, pp. 119–136.
6For an analysis of the elections, see Lance Castles, Pemilu 2004 dalam Konteks komparatif & histories, Pustaka Pelajar, Yogyakarta, September 2004, V–97 pp.
7S. Yunanto et al., Gerakan Militan Islam Di Indonesia dan di Asia Tenggara, The Ridep Institute, Friederich-Ebert-Stiftung, Jakarta, (2nd edition December 2003), p. 76; Tate Qamaruddin, Beginilah Partai Keadilan Sejahtera Menegakkan Syari’at Islam, Klarifikasi Fitnah Piagam Jakarta, Pustaka Tarbiatuna, Jakarta, August 2003, p. 62. In addition, the leader of PKS, Hidayat Nur Wahid, was also fiercely criticised for his rejection of the Caliphate (“Catatan Terhadap Pernyataan Hidayat Nur Wahid”, by Amin RH, 5 January 2005, in http://www.hayatulislam.net).
8Ahmad-Norma Permata, “Prosperous Justice Party and the Decline of Political Islam in 2009 Elections in Indonesia”, in Rémy Madinier (ed.), Islam and the 2009 Indonesian elections, Political and cultural issues: The case of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), IRASEC, Bangkok, 2009. Interview with PKS Central Java cadre, Arif Awaluddin Sh, 5 December 2008.
9The PPIM polls were carried out according to international norms amongst 2,500 residents in 312 villages or districts throughout all the provinces of Indonesia.
10On these debates, see Andrée Feillard, Islam et Armée dans l’Indonésie contemporaine, les pionniers de la tradition, L’Harmattan and Association Archipel, Paris, 1995, pp. 143–156; NU vis-à-vis Negara: Pencarian Isi, Bentuk dan Makna, LKiS, Yogyakarta, Bekerjasama Dengan Asia Foundation, 1999, pp. 187–208.
11The 1974 marriage law gave religious courts the formal authority to deal with Muslim family issues and extended the jurisdiction of the religious courts over marriage and divorce. But religious courts were still required to submit their decisions to the civil courts for confirmation. See Nurlaelawati, Modernization, Tradition and Identity, The Kompilasi Hukum Islam and Legal Practice in the Indonesian Religious Courts, ICAS publication series, Amsterdam University Press, 2010, pp. 54–56.
12The optional aspect is curbed in litigation cases. Such as in matters of inheritance, in the event of a litigation between members of a family, the religious court favours Muslim law. The daughter will thus receive one share of the inheritance while the son receives two. Moreover, a Christian child in a Muslim family will not enjoy the same rights as his Muslim brothers or sisters, and is dependent on the goodwill of the latter. See also Arskal Salim and Azyumardi Azra (eds), “The State and Shari’a in the Perspective of Indonesian Legal Politics”, in Sharia and Politics in Modern Indonesia, ISEAS, Singapore, 2003, pp. 1–16.
13Jakarta Globe, 5 March 2010.
14A professor at the Islamic University of Aceh (IAIN) already noted then the irresolvable problems posed by this law “which we had not asked for”: he estimated that about half of the men in his area did not go to the mosque on Fridays. A top leader in the sharia office who had participated in the elaboration of the quanun declared that the local parliament had gone beyond the concept furnished by the governor’s office when it obliged parents to give their children a religious education (quanun 11, Chapter III, Article 4, Clause 2) (Interviews in Banda Aceh, 3 December 2002).
15In January 2010, three members of the patrol were accused of rape by a 20-year-old student who was caught in the company of her boyfriend. Over the following days, several patrols of the squad were attacked by the population. Kompas, 16 January 2010.
16Between 2005 and 2009, about a dozen people were publicly caned. Jakarta Globe, December 2009.
17Kompas, 9 October 2009.
18We thank Michael Feener, on a research visit in Aceh mid-2010, for these updates.
19And this is even though at the local level, some leaders made it known that independence could be accompanied by its implementation, ICG, Asia Report No. 117, July 2006, “Islamic Law and Criminal Justice in Aceh”.
20Interviews at the local parliament (DPRD) of Banda Aceh, December 2002.
21Not all laws were, however, linked to Islam. The Manokrawi department in Papua New Guinea, with its Christian majority, adopted a law to limit the building of mosques and the wearing of the Muslim veil. Robin Bush, “Regional Sharia Regulations in Indonesia: Anomaly or Symptom?”, in Greg Fealy and Sally White (eds), Expressing Islam: Religious Life and Politics in Indonesia, ISEAS, Singapore, 2008, pp. 174–191. Such cases were highly isolated but were of course pointed out by the press and Muslim organisations. See, for example, “Perda Kota Injil Bisa Picu Perpecahan Bangsa”, Republika Online, 5 April 2010.
22Conference by Maria Farida Indarti, judge for the Constitutional Court, Makhamah Konstitusi, EHESS, Paris, 25 May 2010.
23Robin Bush, 2008.
24In October 2009, however, Nur Mahmudi Ismail, PKS mayor of Depok, a Jakarta suburb, announced that he was going to ban all karaoke bars in his area because they were often hotbeds of prostitution. Jakarta Globe, 6 October 2009.
25“Sharia Should Stress Morals, Not Law: Hidayat”, Jakarta Post, Bandung, 30 August 2007, cited in Robin Bush, 2008.
26Jurnal Perempuan, 60, p. 127.
27Fifty of the seventy-eight decrees studied by Robin Bush had been adopted in the former bastions of the Islamist movement.
28Therein the link between Darul Islam and the PRRI rebellion in West Sumatra at the end of the 1950s. Cf. Chapter One. Perda sharia was also common in West Sumatra.
29Sindhunata, “ ‘De-Jawanisasi’ Politik Indonesia”, Kompas, 22 July 1999. Cited by François Raillon, “The Return of Pancasila: Secular vs. Islamic norms, another look at the struggle for state dominance in Indonesia”, in Michel Picard and Rémy Madinier, The Politics of Agama in Java and Bali, Syncretism, Orthodoxy and Religious Contention, Routledge, forthcoming.
30The number of perda sharia grew tremendously between 1999 and 2003 but have dropped drastically since then. Robin Bush, 2008.
31See the conclusion of a study by Wahid Institute, “Kalau Agama Ikut Pilkada”, Nawala, The Wahid Institute Bulletin, No. 3, Th I, August–November 2006, cited by Robin Bush, 2008.
32Interview with Maria Farida Indarti, judge at the Indonesian Constitutional Court, Paris, 25 May 2010.
33Robin Bush also reveals that some of these laws were put forward by politicians hoping to arm themselves against accusations of corruption levelled at them. Robin Bush, 2008.
34Ahmad-Norma Permata, “Perda Syariat Islam, Rekayasa Institusional dan Masa depan Demokrasi”, Ijtihad, Vol. 7, No. 1, June 2007.
35Interview with Guntur Romli, who was in charge of the special issue of Jurnal Perempuan on the perda sharia, Jakarta, 4 December 2008.
36See especially the special issue of Jurnal Perempuan, “Awas Perda Diskriminatif”, September 2008, Jakarta. Feminists were involved in this fight because these laws targeted women above all. Interview with Maria Farida Indarti, Paris, 25 May 2010.
37A national survey conducted by Lembaga Survey Indonesia in January 2009 showed that out of a total of 89 per cent of the Muslims asked (equivalent to the proportion of Muslims in Indonesia), 41 per cent identified with Nahdlatul Ulama but only 5 per cent with Muhammadiyah. The percentage identifying with another organisation was 3, while 50 per cent did not identify with any organisation. We can thus estimate the number of NU sympathisers to stand at more than 60 million versus only 8 million for Muhammadiyah. However, Muhammadiyah holds a certain authority and is very mediatised even if its members proper are not that numerous.
38According to his biography, the two thinkers who most influenced Ahmad Dahlan, founder of Muhammadiyah, were Muhammad Abduh and Ibn Taimiyya (see Yusron Asrofie, Kiai Ahmad Dahlan: Pemikiran dan Kepemimpinanya, Yogyakarta offset, 1983, XII–118 pp.)
39Supra Chapters One and Two.
40Pierre Labrousse and Farida Soemargono, “De l’Islam comme morale de développement: l’action des bureaux de propagation de la foi vue de Surabaya”, in Archipel, no. 30, Paris, 1985: 219–228; Robert Hefner, “Islamizing Java? Religion and Politics in Rural East-Java”, in The Journal of Asian Studies, 46, no. 3, August 1987: 533–554; Pranowo, “Islam and Party Politics in Rural Java”, in the conference “Asean Moslem Social Scientists” (Grand Hotel Lembang, West Java, 21–24 August 1991); Robert W. Hefner, “Where have all the abangan gone? Religionization and the decline of non-standard Islam in contemporary Indonesia”, in Michel Picard and Rémy Madinier, The Politics of Agama in Java and Bali, Syncretism, Orthodoxy and Religious Contention, Routledge, forthcoming.
41Abdul Munir Mulkhan, Islam Murni Dalam Masyarakat Petani, Yayasan Bentang Budaya, Yogyakarta, 2000, pp. 173, 409.
42Ibid., p. 175.
43Ibid., p. 164.
44NU was not able to gain as much ground amongst the Javanese peasants during the post-1965 political vacuum because of the extreme violence committed by its youth movement Ansor, notably in East Java. See Abdul Munir Mulkhan, 2000, p. 157.
45Two texts published on the Negara Islam in the journal Nuansa (of which a sole issue appeared in 1983) by the leaders of Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama illustrate this stagnation: while Abdurrahman Wahid was already developing a line of thought very much liberated from the classic confines of political Islam and which was extremely critical of the notion of an Islamic state (which he calls a Utopia that fails to take into account the evolution of the world), Ahmad Syafii Maarif was still very much marked by the Constitutional Assembly debates of the late 1950s and held a very pessimistic vision of the Indonesian secular tradition.
46Dengan akal dan hati suci (without prejudices).
47Abdul Munir Mulkhan, 2000, p. XIX.
48Ibid., p. XX.
49Amin Abdullah, born in 1953, is a former student of the pesantren at Gontor and of IAIN in Yogyakarta (1982), where he studied theology (ushuludin) and comparative religions. A scholarship enabled him study in Turkey with Fazlur Rahman and obtain a PhD in philosophy at the faculty of arts and sciences of Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara (1985–1990). Member of Majelis Tarjih in Muhammadiyah, he occupied a key position in the orientation of the organisation’s thinking.
50M. Amin Abdullah, Falsafah Kalam di Era Post-modernism, Pustaka Pelajar, Yogya-karta, 1995, XII–296 pp.
51Ibid., pp. 95–107.
52Ibid., p. 89.
53Hartono Ahmad Jaiz’s work, Ada Pemurtadan di Iain (Apostasy in the Islamic University), Pustaka Al-Kautsar, Jakarta, March 2005, 244 pp., is in itself a homage by the radicals to the success of the liberals in the state Islamic universities.
54Majelis Tarjih dan Pengemban Pemikiran Islam PP Muhammadiyah, Tafsir Tematik al-Quran tentang Hubungan Sosial Antarumat Beragama, Pustaka SM, Yogyakarta, 2000, XXIV–220 pp.
55Ibid.
56In addition, Amin Abdullah frequently referred to the Egyptian reformer Muhammad Abduh, precursor of the modernist movement.
57The meeting was held in the big hall at the Association of Hajis of Indonesia (Persaudaraan Haji Indonesia, PDHI), near to the public square of the Yogyakarta Palace.
58The radicals contested the moderates’ opinion that the founder of Muslim reformism had considered the Christians as “the people of the Book”. At the end of the meeting, Amin Abdullah spoke out with emotion: “If we do not take on this task of interpretation (ijtihad), whose heirs are we? Do we not claim to be heirs of Muhammad Abduh?” Personal notes of the authors at the meeting, 7 October 2000.
59Amin Abdullah thus declared: “Let’s not go backwards, to the Soeharto regime’s tradition of banning books it considered harmful.”
60Chamim Ilyas declared that Muslims are indeed “people of the Book, as are followers of Hinduism, Shintoism and Christianity”.
61Transcript of debates organised by the Forum of Muhammadiyah members for the Sharia on 14 July 2002 in Yogyakarta (Hasil transkripsi silaturahmi dan dialog terbatas Pimpinan Pusat Muhammadiyah, Majelis Tarjih dan pengembangan pemikiran Islam, Pimpinan pusat Muhammadiyah, Majelis Tarjih dan pengembangan pemikiran islam pimpinan wilayah Muhammadiyah DIY, Forum warga Muhammadiyah Peduli Syari’ah, Yogyakarta, 14 July 2002, p. 3).
62Interview with Amin Abdullah, who no longer sits in Marjelis Tarjih but who was in 2004 still one of the deputies of Muhammadiyah (Yogyakarta, 1 November 2004).
63Interview with Ahmad Syafii Maarif, Yogyakarta, 30 March 2002.
64According to the resolutions of the Forty-fourth Congress of Muhammadiyah, elections for members of the managing office resulted in 1,282 votes for Syafi Maarif, 940 for Amin Abdullah and 910 for Dawam Rahardjo—in other words, 3,132 for the three liberal candidates versus 8,920 votes for the first nine candidates (official document of PP Muhammadiyah, Yogyakarta, 8–11 July 2000). The resolutely moderate group represented about 35 per cent of local branches. In July 2005, Din was elected with 1,718 votes to the 13-member electoral college, while Amin with only 600 votes was no longer considered a possible candidate for the leadership.
65Interview with Andar Nubowo, JIMM member, Paris, 8 May 2010.
66This is particularly so for the Yogyakarta region. Interview with Andar Nubowo, JIMM member, Paris, 8 May 2010.
67Surat Keputusan Pimpinan Pusat Muhammadiyah No. 149/KEP/I.0/B/2006.
68Interview with Andar Nubowo, JIMM member, Paris, 8 May 2010.
69Partially educated in Saudi Arabia, this former student of the liberal Amin Abdullah is very close to PKS.
70Adam Schwarz, A Nation in Waiting: Indonesia’s Search for Stability, Allen and Unwin, St. Leonards, Australia, 1999 (1st edition: 1994), p. 192.
71Including the military commander in Surabaya. Interview with Munir of Kontras, the NGO for the defence of human rights, Paris, 6 February 2001.
72About 1,000 armed demonstrators came by lorry to Jakarta, broke into Parliament and threatened to “carry out jihad in Java and attack Christians” if they were not allowed to leave for the Moluccas. Ayip Syafruddin, President of Forum Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jamma’ah Forum (AFP, 12 April 2000). See Chapter Three.
73Interview with Ja’far Thalib, Yogyakarta, 7 November 2002.
74On the internal debate about Abdurrahman Wahid’s candidacy as president, see Andrée Feillard, “Indonesian Traditionalist Islam’s Troubled Experience with Democracy (1999–2001)”, in Archipel, no. 64, 2002: 117–144.
75His explanation, circulated on CDs, for choosing Megawati instead of Wiranto or Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, was his longstanding ties with the former. According to his inner circle, another (more logical) reason was that as vice-president to a female president, he could broker more power for NU than if he were to partner an army general. Interview with a NU militant close to Wiranto, 25 September 2004.
76Interview with a young NU militant close to Wiranto, Malang, 25 September 2004. The argument for egalitarianism was often spouted by Hasyim’s supporters during NU’s 31st congress.
77At the opening of the congress, the former Indonesian president and grandson of the founder of NU was seated at the back, without any honours, setting the tone for the tension between the two camps and the incidents that were to arise.
78During a meeting where he was surrounded by a dozen of these ulama, he tried to reassure them that he was “neither Mukti Ali nor Munawir Sjadzali”, renouncing two former Ministers of Religion and intellectual liberals to whom he was very close. One of the ulama supportive of Wahid even proposed an explicit rejection of the young liberal current (JIL).
79Notes of the authors at the 32nd NU congress, Makassar, March 2010.
80See, for example, the criticism of the dean of the faculty of political sciences at State Islamic University of Jakarta, Bachtiar Effendy. Kompas, 12 March 2010. On the 32nd NU congress, see Martin van Bruinessen, “New leadership, new policies?”, Inside Indonesia, no. 100, April–June 2010.
81http://www.mail-archive.com/eskolnet-l@linux.mitra.net.id/msg01484.html.
82He was not indifferent either to various Zionist conspiracy theories circulating in Indonesia. Speech to pilgrims leaving for the umroh, a small-scale pilgrimage to Mecca, Jakarta, September 2003.
83See the summary by the coordinator of this study financed by The Malindo Institute for Social Research and Islamic Development, Jakarta Post, 9 December 2008.
84This was the case in particular of Fatayat, a NU organisation of young women who sought to have female circumcision banned.
85Interviews with Kiai Husein Muhammad and Kiai Muchith Muzadi, Makassar, March 2010.
86At the NU Congress in Mataram, Lombok, 1997.
87However, some observers raised the point that Said Aqil Siraj, elected to the executive post of Hasyim, was responsible for the creation of PKB and the Muslim wing of PDI-P (Baitul Muslimin).
88Bruinessen, 2010.
89Interview with Abdurrahman’s wife, Shinta Nuriyah, Jakarta, 16 March 2010. In NU tradition, it would be considered indecent to compete against the incumbent rois aam, but the deputy position is deemed crucial given Sahal’s frail health. On this NU Congress, see also the report by Bruinessen, 2010.
90It almost lost this right in 2009 when a bill to create a body under the Ministry of Religions to oversee this certification was proposed but finally abandoned.
91ICG, “Indonesia: Implications of the Ahmadiyah Decree”, Asia Briefing, no. 78, 7 July 2008.
92This issue arose at the same time in Malaysia.
93ICG, “Indonesia: Implications of the Ahmadiyah Decree”, Asia Briefing, no. 78, 7 July 2008.
94Yet there were occasions when MUI adopted less retrograde positions in the post-Suharto period, such as in 2009 when it adopted a fatwa condemning under-aged marriages, thus aligning itself with Indonesian law instead of the sharia.
95MUI secretary-general Ichwan Syam said ironically: “Gus Dur had forgotten something. His master Kiai Sahal Mahfudh, the current rois aam of NU, was active in MUI for 25 years. So when Sahal said to stop uttering nonsense about MUI, people shut up.”
96On Kiai Sahal Mahfudh, see Feener, Muslim Legal Thought in Modern Indonesia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007, pp. 167–172.
97See, for example, his column regarding MUI’s condemnation of yoga in Jakarta Post, February 2009.
98Kompas, 21 February 2010.
99Independent legal reasoning (see Glossary).
100The group advocates a “rational approach to Islamic texts” in the theological domain (ilahiyyat) as well as with regards to ritual (ubudiyyat) and social relations (muamalat). Amongst the founders of the group were Luthfi Assyaukanie and Hamid Basyaib.
101Located in the Tempo complex, the major progressive weekly of Jakarta.
102See http://www.kbr68h.com.
103See http://www.islamlib.com.
104Bukhari (born 816 in Boukhara) is one of the most influential traditionists, that is, the compilers of the traditions (Hadith).
105Hartono Ahmad Jaiz, Bahaya Islam Liberal, Sekular dan Menyamakan Islam dengan Agama Lain, Pustak Al-Kautsar, Jakarta, 2002, p. 7.
106Suratno, “The Flowering of Islamic Thought: Discourse, Activist and Activism of Liberal-Progressive Islam in Contemporary Indonesia”, IRASEC discussion paper, IRASEC, Bangkok, forthcoming. See also http://www.detik.com, 12 December 2002.
107Ibid.
108After the Bali bombings, however, the government itself endorsed this position, with televised spots showing representatives of the five religions in Indonesia spouting the same message of tolerance. Avoided, however, was the question of tolerance between the various currents within Islam. For example, Islib tolerates Ahmadiyah but MMI does not.
109A Swiss citizen, Tariq Ramadan is the grandson of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. Close to the Union of Islamic Organisations in France, he has often been accused of doublespeak by his detractors.
110Sabili, no. 2, TH XI, 14 August 2003, p. 53. He added: “These are but Muslims who live with a pagan culture (jahil), we should be careful with such groups.”
111Umraddin Masdar, Agama Kolonial, Colonial Mindset dalam Pemikiran Islam Liberal, KLIK.R, Yogyakarta, 2003, p. 223.
112Feener, 2007, pp. 63 ff., and Euis Nurlaelawati, Modernization, Tradition and Identity, The Kompilasi Hukum Islam and Legal Practice in the Indonesian Religious Courts, ICAS publication series, Amsterdam University Press, 2010, pp. 76–78.
113Feener, 2007, p. 75.
114On Nasution, see Luthfi Assyaukanie, Islam and the Secular State in Indonesia, ISEAS, Singapore, 2009, pp. 143–144; Fauzan Saleh, Modern Trends in Islamic Theo-logical Discourses in 20th century Indonesia. A Critical Survey, Brill, Leiden, 2001, Chapter Four. On Mukti Ali, see Feener, 2007, pp. 132, 147.
115Cf. section “The Mutations of Modernism” in Chapter One. See, too, Luthfi Assyaukanie, 2009, pp. 140–151.
116Pergolakan Pemikiran Islam: Catatan Harian Ahmad Wahib, LP3ES, 1981.
117Suratno, forthcoming.
118On the history of Paramadina, see Andi Faisal Bakti, “Paramadina and Its Approach to Culture and Communication”, in Archipel, no. 68, 2004: 315–341.
119Mun’im A. Sirry (ed.), Fiqh Lintas Agama: Membangun Masyarakat Inklusif-Pluralis, Yayasan Wakaf Paramadina, Jakarta, 2004, 274 pp.
120Feener, 2007, pp. 128–129.
121Ibid., p. 156.
122On Kiai Sahal Mahfudh, see Feener, 2007, pp. 167–172. He had notably written the preface to a work by the liberal and gender-friendly KH Husein Muhammad, Fiqh Perempuan, Refl eksi Kiaia atas Wacana Agama dan Gener, LKiS, Rahima, The Ford Foundation, Yogyakarta, 2001.
123Feener, 2007, p. 188.
124Suratno, forthcoming. The association Fahmina also set up a crisis centre for women within the Pesantren Dar al-Tauhid Arjawinangun in Cirebon, West Java.
125Alongside the loss of credibility of this victim narrative is a decline in the opinion of the Islamist utopia, which presents the Muslim religion as a global panacea for all the problems Indonesia faces. Luthfi Assyaukanie, 2009, p. 223.
126The Setara Institute reports 185 cases of violation of freedom of worship in 2007, in 2008 and 200 in 2010. The prime target is the Ahmadiyah sect, while Christians mostly have difficulties in obtaining permits to build churches. The Jakarta Globe, 3 February 2010.
127Threats by the radicals have prevented Ilusi Negara Islam from finding a distributor but the authors have offered a free download of the work.
128As Azyumardi Azra accurately highlights, the influence of the phenomenon of globalisation is of course not new in the history of Indonesian Islam. See Chapter 13, “Globalization and Indonesian Muslim Movements”, in Indonesia, Islam and Democracy. Dynamics in a Global Context, The Asia Foundation, Solstice, ICIP, Jakarta, Singapore, 2006, pp. 180–197. Nonetheless, the extent of cultural challenges brought about by this globalisation exceeds what previous generations have experienced.
129On cultural issues, see, for example, Najib Kailani, “Muslimising Indonesian Youths: The Tarbiyah Moral and Cultural Movement in Contemporary Indonesia”, in Rémy Madinier (ed.), Islam and the 2009 Indonesian, Political and Cultural Issues, Occasional paper no. 12, IRASEC, 2009, pp. 71–93. For economic issues, see Fealy, 2001.
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