Islamic Post-Traditionalism: Postcolonial and Postmodern Religious Discourse in Indonesia

Taking a critical view of the dominance of postcolonial studies by South Asian and Latin American scholars and intellectuals, this article presents a newly emerging discourse among young Indonesian Muslim intellectuals, known as ‘Islamic Post-Traditionalism’. The specific question addressed in the present investigation is to establish to what extent this strand of Muslim thought can be considered a contribution to the engagement with postcoloniality and an application of deconstructionist discourse critique developed by postmodern philosophers within the context of rethinking religion, and Islam in particular, in Indonesia. Identifying a vivid interest among Indonesian Muslim intellectuals in the work of pioneering and controversial contemporary Arab-Islamic thinkers such as Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, Muhammad Abid al-Jabiri, and Mohammed Arkoun, this article will interrogate the influences exercised by these Arabophone and Francophone Muslim intellectuals on the formation of Indonesia's Islamic Post-Traditionalism and how this is reflected in this discourse. An illustration will be provided by a précis of the writings of a key exponent of the Islamic Post-Traditionalist discourse and an examination of a number of other contributors.     

Muslim‐Christian polemics in Indonesian Islamic literature

As Indonesian Muslim depictions of Christianity have varied over time and according to the receptivity of particular regions, this study provides a brief survey of the Muslim attitudes towards Christianity from the seventeenth to the twentieth century in Indonesia. In this article, Nuruddin al‐Raniri and Hasbullah Bakry are taken as the prototype of Indonesian Muslims’ depictions of Christianity in the early and modem eras. In Bakry's works, as the main concern of this study, we find greater familiarity with the Bible which is quoted in an almost literal fashion. The biblical verses are quoted for the purpose of convincing a Muslim audience that Islam is the last religion and that Muhammad is the last messenger; they are used to defend Islam from the misrepresentations of Christians who had wielded the Bible as one of their chief weapons in the effort of Christianize Indonesia.     

Returning to the Religion of Abraham: Controversies over the Gafatar Movement in Contemporary Indonesia

This article explores the idea of ‘Milah Abraham’, a term used and advocated by Ahmad Mushaddeq and Mahful Muis, the founders of Gafatar (Gerakan Fajar Nusantara/Archipelagic Dawn Movement). Mahful Muis, a prominent companion of Mushaddeq, has written many works about the idea of the religion of Abraham. This article answers the questions of how the idea of Milah Abraham emerged, and what are the implications of its emergence in the context of plural Indonesian Islam. Based on interviews and the written works of both Gafatar leaders, this study explores the idea of the religion of Abraham and how it can go beyond Judaism, Christianity and Islam to a new spirituality that combines the three religious traditions. The idea of Milah Abraham not only offers a new syncretism in the context of plural Indonesian Islam, but also challenges the establishment of Islamic orthodoxy in the country. Since the 1970s, the idea of returning to the religion of Abraham has contributed to the discussion of pluralism among many Indonesian Muslim intellectuals.     

A study of ritual behaviour and its impact on the evolution of Kashmiri Muslim society

The Kashmir valley is a centre of a large variety of Sūfi traditions. While they represent the success of Islam in establishing itself, many of the ritual components can be traced to pre‐Islamic practices. These are often condemned by the more ‘puritanical’ exponents of contemporary Islam, but the scholar can through them identify elements of the process by which the local communities became Muslim. This article particularly considers the role played by the recitation of the Aurad‐i Fathiyya prayer, compiled in the fourteenth century CE by Mir Sayyid ‘Ali Hamadani. Sources indicate that he was particularly tolerant of non‐Muslims and did not engage in assertive proselytism when he visited Kashmir, much to the chagrin of more demanding scholars and spiritual leaders. The record of Sayyid ‘Ali's activities, which exists both in the form of historical records and in popular memory, shows the close relationship between Islam as theology and Islam as historical realization.     

Remembering Karbala in the diaspora: religious rituals among Iraqi Shii women in Ireland

Memory studies have gained much popularity in the humanities and social sciences since the 1980s. Particularly after the seminal work of Danièle Hervieu-Léger on ‘religion as a chain of memory’, discussions arose around how theories of memory can be applied in the Study of Religions. Few scholars, however, have discussed the intersection between religion, particularly Islam, and memory. In this article, the focus lies on Shii Muslim communities in Ireland, for whom remembering constitutes an important part of their identity and legitimises their particular sectarian existence within Islam in general. This article discusses Iraqi Shii women's engagement in ‘collective remembering’ (Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989; J.V. Wertsch, Voices of Collective Remembering, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) expressed through constantly performed religious rituals and practices.     

Ridwan’s conversion: kandoeri giving,moral personhood,and the re-imagining of communal difference in Indonesia

ABSTRACT

This article brings religious conversion and religious giving under one analytic lens in examining how ‘Ridwan’, a Chinese–Indonesian convert to Islam from the Indonesian province of Aceh, describes the process through which he became a Muslim. Ridwan frames his account of conversion in terms of religious giving, with special reference to Acehnese ritual feasts known as kandoeri. He draws attention to the way kandoeri giving constitutes a mode of relationality, in which careful attention to difference is the basis for reciprocity. His approach rests on what the anthropological theorist of The Gift, Marcel Mauss, identified as ‘moral persons’, a category that contrasts with liberal ideas of the self and identity. It reflects an awareness of the dual nature of exchange partners, who are always potentially both enemy and friend. This subtly challenges prevailing Indonesian understandings of intercommunal, especially interreligious, relations as well as common perceptions of Chinese–Indonesian religiosity and belonging.     

Political implications of the Islamic notion of ‘supersession’ as reflected in Islamic jurisprudence

The paper undertakes to investigate the ways in which the dominant Muslim community regulated legal‐ethical relations with its non‐Muslim minorities. The ideological underpinnings of the Islamic legal tradition in the area of jihad provided legitimacy for the Muslim political domination of the lands and peoples beyond the original boundaries of Islam. The central argument of the paper is that Muslim jurists were involved in the routinization of the qur'anic message about ‘Islam being the only true religion with God’ (Q. 3:19) in the context of the social and political position of the community. The interaction between the idea of Islam being the universal faith for all humankind and the existing predominance of Muslim political power created the specific legal language that provided the justification to extend the notion of jihad beyond its strictly defensive meaning in the Qur'an to its being an offensive instrument for Muslim creation of a dominant political order.     

How Islam Influences Women’s Paid Non-farm Employment: Evidence from 26 Indonesian and 37 Nigerian Provinces

Studies on women’s employment in Muslim countries often mention Islam, but its influence is undertheorized and tests simply compare ‘Muslim’ women and areas to ‘non-Muslim’ women and areas. Here, multilevel analyses of Indonesia and Nigeria show this focus is not tenable: non-farm employment of Muslim women is not consistently lower than that of non-Muslim women, nor is it lower in Muslim-dominated provinces than in other provinces. A new theoretical frame conceptualizes religion’s influence in terms message and messenger. It is shown how different manifestations of Islam influence women’s non-farm employment, inside and outside the home. Empirically, the ideological strand of Islam is more important than differences between Islam and Christianity. In addition, when a conservative Islam is codified through Shari’a-based law women’s employment outside the home seems to be lower, but the presence of Islamic political parties seems to foster women’s access to the labor market through their focus on support for the poor.     

American Muslims and Contemporary Hahahahalal Comedy

The opening years of the century saw in America the increasing visibility of observant Muslim stand-up comics who engaged with the various realities affecting their community. The material they have produced is not exclusively aimed at the larger American society: a considerable part of it is designed for ‘inner’ purposes. Acknowledging the versatility of the genre, this article focuses on insider–insider relations and offers a discourse analysis of six practicing American Muslim comedians' material in order to highlight their endeavor to edify the American Muslim community and elevate their coreligionists to a determined ideal of Islam. The artists under consideration are Azhar Usman, Preacher Moss, Mohammed Amer, Azeem Muhammad, Baba Ali, and Omar Regan. The selection of iterative subjects in the comedians' jokes puts forward some of the community's priorities and its current state of affairs.     

Islam and Gender in the Thought of a Critical-Progressive Muslim Scholar-Activist: Ziba Mir-Hosseini

This article highlights the scholarly contribution of the Iranian-born Muslim scholar-activist Ziba Mir-Hosseini to the academic field of gender and Islam. In the first part, Mir-Hosseini's thought is positioned within the larger processes of the shifting loci of authority and normativity in contemporary Islamic discourses, particularly with reference to the emergence of what will here be termed critical-progressive Muslim scholar-activists. There follows a brief justification as to why a study of Mir-Hosseini's thought in relation to gender and Islam warrants examination. Mir-Hosseini's personal journey in the field of gender and Islam is then outlined and her major contributions to the field are noted. This is followed by a discussion of the support Mir-Hosseini finds for her ideas in the hermeneutical theories employed by reformist male Muslim scholars, and then an examination of her views on the relationship between Islamic feminism discourses and (neo-)traditional expressions of Islam. Mir-Hosseini's deconstruction of the assumptions governing classical Muslim family law and ethics that have been re-appropriated and legally enforced by some contemporary Muslim majority nation states is presented next, followed by a discussion of her proposals for the reform of Muslim family law and ethics. The final section discusses Mir Hosseini's activism with special reference to her involvement with Musawah, the global movement for equality in Muslim family law based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.     

Political Participation of Islamists in Syria: Examining the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood's Mid-century Democratic Experiment

Accompanying increased participation by Islamists in parliaments across the Middle East in the past two decades, there continues to be a debate as to the sincerity of their commitment to democratic values and systems. Scholars have traditionally pursued the issue through the inclusion/moderation model, or through concepts such as ‘post-Islamism’. The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, however, represents a rare case for the study of Islam and democracy because its democratic engagement preceded its later period of violent and ideological radicalism by decades. The group contested elections within the first two years of its formation, meaning that its positions on democracy were ‘moderated’ neither by pluralist political pressures nor by the failure of a previous non-democratic ideology. This article therefore examines the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood's performance in Syria's political processes between 1947 and 1963 as a case study of Islamism and democracy, evaluating substantive indicators of democratic engagement, such as electoral practices, pact formation, policy adaptation and approaches to executive government. Using recent interviews with Brotherhood members, memoirs, archival material and newspapers, the article argues that, during this time, while the Brotherhood was not the most effective political actor, it did demonstrate a reasonably diligent commitment to democracy.     

Islam,HIV/AIDS and activism: a critical analysis of some themes in Positive Muslims' ‘theology of compassion’

The present article is a critical analysis of the South African organization Positive Muslims' ‘theology of compassion’, put forward by its proponents as a Muslim religious initiative to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS and the stigmatization of those affected by the disease. The article addresses the hermeneutics applied and the results reached in relation to a wider contemporary Muslim religious discourse on HIV/AIDS. It also connects the ‘theology of compassion’ to a broader transnational movement of progressive Islam, of which the ‘theology of compassion’ is a practical, grass-roots application. The main analytical focus, however, is on the way in which certain features in this theology are shaped by basic assumptions on the part of its producers concerning the beliefs, emotions and background knowledge of its main stated consumers: believing Muslims.     

The Third Treatise of Shaykh Abū al-Faraj ʿAbd Allāh Ibn al-Ṭayyib on Unity and Trinity

The article consists of a critical Arabic edition and English translation of the Third Treatise of Shaykh Abū al-Faraj ?Abd Allāh Ibn al-?ayyib. The introduction provides a brief, general orientation to the treatise, discussing its relation to two other treatises by the same author and suggesting a chronology. The translation accompanies an article analysing the treatise titled: ‘Ibn al-?ayyib’'s Trinitarian Formulation in the Islamic Milieu’ (Kuhn, M. 2018. “Ibn al-?ayyib’s Trinitarian Formulation in the Islamic Milieu.” Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 29 (2): 123–143).     

The limits of religion: liberalism and anti-liberalism in the Islamic Republic of Iran

This essay investigates the ways that ‘religion,’ as a particular category of discourse, organised Muslim debates in the Islamic Republic of Iran during the 1990s and early 2000s. Recent work in the study of religion has highlighted not only liberalism’s privatised and largely protestant notion of religion, but also the ways that understanding of religion affects the representation of Islam in the West. Studies of Islam, continuing the critique of liberal assumptions regarding religion, often uphold a traditionalist understanding of Islam as an equally valuable way of being in the world. This article, in contrast, explores the ways that liberal religion figures in both liberal and anti-liberal Muslim debate. Specifically, it traces the ways that Muslim theology (kalām) draws upon and contests the rationality and secularity of the world and, in so doing, turns the gaze back to continuing discontents with liberalism in the West.     

Islam and politics in Indonesia: The political thought of Abdurrahman Wahid

Abdurrahman Wahid is one of the few prominent contemporary Islamic leaders in Indonesia who is often considered controversial. Some studies have been conducted of his idea of Islamic reform in general, and his political thought in particular, but they do not try to make a coherent link between Abdurrahman's Islamic theology and his political thought. In this article, I argue that Abdurrahman's concepts of ‘Islamic universalism’, ‘cosmopolitanism’ and ’pribumisasi’ are strongly attached to his political thought, i.e. his idea of Islam and state relationship, of Islam and Pancasila and of democracy. The arguments developed by Abdurrahman to support his ideas are not uncommon among other Islamic reformers, especially the idea of maslaha. However, his endeavor to put Islamic ideals in Indonesian context can be considered unique and innovative.     

Writing against...

The German ‘headscarf debate’ was sparked off by a dispute concerning a teacher who refused to remove her hijab at work. ‘Case Ludin’ brought the issue to national attention and eventually led to new legislation in half of Germany's 16 federated states. This article focuses on a critical analysis of a party-political debate around Case Ludin in the Baden-Württemberg parliament in 1998. The analysis shows that whilst party-politicians claimed to be concerned with issues of social justice as well as with the protection of constitutional rights and democratic values, the party-political arena of this debate has been preoccupied with the discursive construction of German national identity and its assumed incompatibility with Muslim identity. It comes to the conclusion that discourses used in this debate reproduce stereotypical images associating Islam with ‘gendered oppression’, political extremism and irreconcilable difference, and that these discourses continue to shape current debates in Germany and beyond.     

Intersectional cosmopolitanism: Muslim women’s engagement with polygamy on Malaysian and Indonesian screens

ABSTRACT

This article interrogates how the diverse realities of Muslim women fray the concept of ‘Muslim cosmopolitanism’ in Southeast Asia. By comparing how Malaysian Muslim women interpret polygamy in Malaysian and Indonesian screens, this article problematises the idea of a unified cosmopolitanism experienced by Muslims from the Malay world. Based on findings from interviews with 25 educated women, this article shows that media representations of polygamy and Muslim femininity can differ even between two Southeast Asian countries sharing common gendered and religious practices. It argues that the women’s understanding of polygamy is based on the intertwinement of their ethnic, gendered and classed subjectivities that are not necessarily informed by their religious beliefs per se but rather by the broader socio-political contexts in which they live. Through this embodiment of intersectional cosmopolitanism, they not only disrupt existing notions of ‘Muslim cosmopolitanism’ but highlight the heterogeneous experiences of Muslims within Southeast Asia.     

Missions without missionaries: the social dimension of church growth in Muslim Java,Indonesia

We live in a world where religion is not confined to the private sphere and where faith-based acts, from Qur'an burning to terrorist activities, affront not only believers but also non-believers. Indonesia, where moderate Islam has long enjoyed its compatibility with other religions, has recently emerged as a hot spot of Muslim–Christian violence. In order to examine the social face of faith in ‘unfavourable’ circumstances, this article analyses church growth in Muslim Java by addressing the sociological issues related to what makes a church strong. Through an empirical investigation into the Java Christian Church, the article demonstrates that a church manages to establish a firm foothold in a Muslim society by developing the porosity of the religious frontier at the organizational level.     

Challenges and developments: Christian‐Muslim relations in the Middle East

Abstract

After surveying the Christian period in the Middle East, this article outlines the coming of Islam and the process of conversion to Islam, before summarising the situation in Christian‐Muslim relations in 1800 and the new developments that unfolded in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The main body of the article surveys recent (that is, post‐1950) developments, focusing on challenges such as the impact on local Christian‐Muslim relations of the creation of the state of Israel and the ‘Islamic revival’, the problems of Christian emigration, conversion and inter‐community clashes, and more positive developments such as the concern for more accurate analysis and reporting of Christian‐Muslim issues, the growth of dialogue between the communities through meetings, publications and efforts to educate future generations, and the establishment of Christian churches in regions where they have not existed for many centuries, particularly in the Gulf.